Chapter 1 - Introduction to Printing Extensions and Drivers
This chapter introduces the basic features of printing extensions and printer drivers
and provides you with an overview of how printing works with QuickDraw GX. This chapter describes the printing process from the perspective of a printing-extension or printer-driver developer. To understand how printing works from the perspective of an application developer, you need to read Inside Macintosh: QuickDraw GX Printing.Before reading this chapter, you should be familiar with the QuickDraw GX environment and QuickDraw GX objects. These features are described in Inside Macintosh: QuickDraw GX Environment and Utilities and Inside Macintosh: QuickDraw GX Objects.
This chapter begins with an overview of QuickDraw GX printing extensions and printer drivers. Next, this chapter describes how QuickDraw GX
- uses a message-passing architecture to accomplish printing
- supports three print imaging systems
- performs printing in several phases
- allows you to add panels to print dialog boxes
- uses collections for data storage and access
- provides messages that you can override to create drivers and extensions
- allows you to use resources to define a large portion of the functionality of extensions and drivers
- Note
- This chapter and book use the term printer driver to refer to the driver of any printing device, such as a printer, plotter, or imagesetter.
Chapter Contents
- About QuickDraw GX Printing Extensions and Printer Drivers
- QuickDraw GX Printing and Messages
- Print Imaging Systems
- Printing Phases
- Extensions, Drivers, and the User Interface
- Using Printing Extensions and Printer Drivers Together
- Using Resources to Create Printing Extensions and Printer Drivers
- Overriding Printing Messages
- Defining Components of the User Interface
- Planning How to Write a Printing Extension or Printer Driver
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