Extensions, Drivers, and the User Interface
QuickDraw GX sends printing messages when the user chooses commands that display such print dialog boxes as the Page Setup, Custom Page Setup, and Print dialog boxes. Your printing extension or printer driver can override the appropriate printing message to add one or more panels to one of these print dialog boxes. These panels become available to the user when the user clicks the More Choices button in the dialog box. When the user opens a panel that you added, your extension or driver can continue to receive and respond to messages as the user manipulates the panels, including messages that notify you if a user closes a panel or if a user confirms or cancels the print dialog box.Much of the information that a user specifies in a print dialog box is stored in one of the collections that QuickDraw GX provides: the job collection, the format collection, or the paper-type collection. These collections add to the printing information already available in the corresponding print objects: the job object, the format object, and the paper-type object. Collections also provide data extensibility for printing extensions and printer drivers. For example, you can use the Collection Manager to create your own collection items for storing data related to the options a user chooses in a panel that your extension or driver adds to a dialog box. An example of how an extension uses a collection is in the chapter "Printing Extensions" in this book.
Adding panels to a dialog box is described in Inside Macintosh: QuickDraw GX Printing, and the messages that QuickDraw GX sends when a print dialog box is displayed or
an event happens in a panel are in the section "Dialog Box Messages" beginning on page 4-81 in the chapter "Printing Messages." Information about manipulating the job, format, and paper-type collections is in Inside Macintosh: QuickDraw GX Printing. Information about using the Collection Manager is in Inside Macintosh: QuickDraw GX Environment and Utilities.
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