Displaying Status Information and the Printing Alert Boxes(IM:XP)

Inside Macintosh: QuickDraw GX Printing Extensions and Drivers /: Chapter 5 - Printing Functions for Message Overrides / Using the Printing Functions

Displaying Status Information and the Printing Alert Boxes
QuickDraw GX defines two types of user feedback that you can provide from your printing extension or printer driver: status information and printing alert boxes. You display status information in a user's desktop printer window when the information does not require any user response. You display printing alert boxes when you need the user to respond prior to continuing the printing process.
You use the GXReportStatus function to display status information to the user in the desktop printer window. You use the GXAlertTheUser function to display printing alert boxes to the user. Both of these functions are described in the section "Displaying Status Information and the Printing Alert Boxes" beginning on page 3-41 in the chapter "Printer Drivers."
QuickDraw GX also provides the printing alert ('plrt') resource for defining printing alert boxes. The use of printing alert boxes is also described in the section "Displaying Status Information and the Printing Alert Boxes" beginning on page 3-41 in the chapter "Printer Drivers." You use the GXGetPrintingAlert function to display a printing alert box.
You can use the GXPrintingAlert function to create a printing alert box when you have not defined a resource for this purpose. This function takes as parameters all of the values that you would specify in a printing alert resource, draws the printing alert box, and displays it with any informative text you supply. You get the same results as you would by calling the GXGetPrintingAlert function with the ID of a printing alert that you defined in a resource.