PrintWin by Shachar Shemesh. NOTE This document is laid out in the "Why, What and How" method. If you don't like it, tough. WHY (use it) Or as my dog used to say (when we didn't give him his dinner on time) "Orph"? It would appear that Commodore has given us for free a program that does almost the same thing. You know what? You're right. How stupid of me. Well, being as it is that I programed this program anyway, let's see if it's any good at all. WHAT (does it do) This program allows you to print to any preferences printer the active window at the stroke of a key. I originally developed this software for a physics authoring program, which produced graphs that had to be printed. I though it might be useful to others. HOW (to get it) This program is freeware. You can freely redistribute it so long as the following conditions are met: - It is distributed with all files. It must contain the following files: PrintWin PrintWin.info PrintWin.doc - this file PrintWin.doc.info ReleaseNotes - All files are unchanged. - It is not sold for profit. NOTE The doc was supposed to end here, but being as it is that I haven't said anything yet, I'll start over. WHY (not use GraphicDump) Are you kidding? Have you EVER used GraphicDump. Sure it's all right to use GraphicDump if you want to dump whole rasters, but what if you want to dump just the window you're working on, or if you don't like waiting 10 seconds before the printing starts, or .... or .... etc. WHAT (do I do to install) Installation is very easy. a) Make sure you are running KickStart 1.2 or later (easy), and Workbench 1.2 or later (1.3 recommended, 2.04 very recommended). b) Make sure you have printer.device and parallel.device or serial.device. c) Set the preferences printer to the right one. HOW (to use it) Well, that's not very difficult. All you have to do is type 'PrintWin' from your locale CLI (no, PrintWin is not localized yet). PrintWin will detach itself from the invoking CLI automatically, and the CLI can freely be closed. There is no need for either Run or RunBack. Alternatively, double click on it's icon. Either way PrintWin will open a small window and will do nothing else at this stage. When the time has come and you want to print the active window, press the left shift and the F1 key. Depending on whether this is your first printing, the disk may read a little, and the printing will start. The gadget in the PrintWin window will turn from ghosted to active. Pressing this gadget will abort the printing. You can also use the PrintWin window to quit PrintWin (now why would you want to do that?). This option is also available from a pull down menu. Quitting PrintWin aborts any printing in progress (any printing started by PrintWin, of course). Under 2.04 and later kickstarts, the window will also have a zoom gadget. Pressing it will minimize PrintWin's window. Pressing it again (you guessed it) will bring PrintWin back to it's normal size. Whenever PrintWin tries unsuccessfully to print, the screen will beep to indicate there was a problem in the printing. This will happen even if the cause for the failure was PrintWin itself (i.e. - the printing was aborted by user). BUGS *BUGS*, in *MY* program? All bugs described here are the result of the way the system behaves. There are no known bugs in version 1.0 of PrintWin. - If printing is aborted, some printers will stay in a strange state in which the printer is waiting for more data. In such case it is best to reset the printer. The most global way I know of resetting a printer is by turning it off and on again. Your printer might have a more specific way of doing this, which will usually be more friendly to the hardware (for example - HP LaserJet's reset button). - Any changes made to the window while it is being printed will affect the part of the window that had not yet been sent to the printer at the time of the change. It is therefor advised not to work with the program untill the printing is done. - Some windows, when printed while part of them is obscured, will not print the obscured sight. This has got to do with the window refresh modes, and cannot be avoided by PrintWin. Mail Commodore angry letters, as they can easily fix this and it is their responsibility. FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS Generally, I believe that a programer must be convinced he is putting out a perfect product, however even I cannot oversee some needed features to this program, though when I'll have time to put them in is a very good question. If you think these functions are important let me know (see the end of this file for how to contact me). - Allow the user to change various preferences settings from within the program. Oh, didn't notice you were here. Let me introduce you. Manual reader, this is the user.$ User, this is the manual reader. Perhaps you've met (Just an interlude). - Make the PrintWin window hidden most of the time, and only let it pop up when printing is started (a very tricky option as it might be hiding the active window as soon as it is opened, and because of the bug in the system mentioned above cause for the printing to look not as good as might be). - Configurable hot key. It really is not very nice that the hot key is fixed to a given key. - Implement as a commodity (under 2.04, of course). Well, just a note - the original hot-key was lshift prtsc (the numeric pad asterix), but I came to demonstrate the program to someone, he was using an A600. I found myself at a computer with no ability to use the hot-key. Just comes to show you you can't think of everything in advance. HOW TO REACH ME For all of you with internet access - I can be reached at the following address shacha1@ccsg.tau.ac.il Note however that addresses on our system are very mobile, so you had better look for anyone on that machine with real life name "Shachar Shemesh". If possible I'll try to have the address sun@ccsg.tau.ac.il, but it is not up to me. My real address (and that is not going to change in the near future) is Shachar Shemesh 17th Herzel st. Ra'anana Israel Also I am known on IRC as TheSun. One final note: I am very much interested to hear from anyone that uses this program. Even if you just got it and put it in your startup-sequence and never touched it since. Something of the following spirit: WARNING: the following letter is totally imaginary. I did not get such a letter. It is only being brought here for the sake of the example. Any resemblance between this letter to any other letter, dead or alive, is only coincidental. From: noone@nowhere.anyplace.here To: shacha1@ccsg.tau.ac.il Subject: PrintWin Date: 29 Feb 91 I've just downloaded PrintWin from an FTP site, and it is looking quite nice. I do wish you'd implement those things you said you might, especially the option which writes any program I want without me doing any work. -- "Everybody is me" noone@nowhere.anyplace.here Of course, I can tell noone that this option is for registered users only, but that is really only an example letter. Please e-mail me if you have any comment at all about this program. For example - I thought noone used the last program I released to the public, until I got mail about it 1 year after release, so do leave comments.