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Inside Macintosh: QuickDraw GX Printing Extensions and Drivers /
Chapter 1 - Introduction to Printing Extensions and Drivers / Using Resources to Create Printing Extensions and Printer Drivers


Defining Components of the User Interface

You need to manage some user interface features in most printing extensions and all printer drivers. You can define most of these features in resources; however, there are some tasks that you need to implement in code.

When creating a printing extension, you need to define icons for your printing extension, you might need to manage the display of status information or printing alert boxes, and you might need to add panels to one or more of the print dialog boxes.

When creating a printer driver, you need to define icons for your printer driver, you must provide a Chooser interface, and you must manage the reporting of status and alert conditions to the user while printing is in progress. You display status information to which the user need not respond, and you display printing alert boxes to the user when a condition arises that requires a response, such as a paper jam. All of these tasks are described in the chapter "Printer Drivers" in this book.

In addition, you may want to add a panel to a print dialog box to provide options and controls to the user. Most printer drivers add panels to allow the user to specify options such as quality control or paper-type assignments. You can read about adding panels in your extensions and drivers in the chapters "Printing Extensions" and "Printer Drivers" in this book. You can also read about adding panels in Inside Macintosh: QuickDraw GX Printing.


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© Apple Computer, Inc.
7 JUL 1996




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