SWIIPrintUseMon Version 1.3 - Shareware fee 1 Pound
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Greetings from Ringwood, Hampshire, England.
Background
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This utility silently monitors the number of pages
printed and warns you when your StyleWriter ink cartridge is close to running out, so that you can either refill or replace it.
This utility owes its original inspiration to Sven Jakubith’s StyleWriter II PageNum utility. SWIIPrintUseMon supplements rather than replaces that utility.
This programme is share-ware, and is subject to the usual terms and conditions. It can be freely distributed, as long as it is distributed with all its original documentation. The author does not bear any responsibility if anything goes wrong as a result of running this programme - what do you expect for next to nothing!!? However, I have tested it on as many different machines as I can lay my hands on, and the application has also been tested by a team of Beta-testers (thanks folks). It is an application that just runs once and quits, so it does not hog any memory and should not conflict with any other applications/extensions/control panels that may be running on your machine.
Shareware Fee
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I have discovered that even a small, simple utility like this requires a commitment of my spare time in order to support it. If you like this product, and decide to keep it, I therefore ask you to make a token commitment yourself in the form of a shareware fee. This is 1 Pound Sterling or, if you find it easier, the nearest equivalent in terms of your local currency, be it US Dollars, Canadian Dollars, French Francs, Yen, Dongs or whatever (no cheques please, otherwise I end up paying the Bank more than the value of the cheque). I don't expect to become rich with the income from this utility, but I should have an interesting collection of foreign currency to show off to my children. Please send the registration fee to :-
Mr. S.J. Smith,
9 Farm Close,
Ringwood,
Hampshire.
BH24 1RZ
United Kingdom
Please enclose information about yourself, especially your email
address, (if you have one), and the version number of SWIIPrintUseMon that you have. If you send me an email address, I will say 'Hi' in return and let you know of any updates to SWIIPrintUseMon.
My email address is :-
smiths@ferndown.ate.slb.com
Steve Smith
What's new in Version 1.3?
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Version 1.3 is functionally identical to 1.2, except that I have
added an icon and version resource. I'm no graphic designer, but
I hope you like the icon anyway.
For versions 1.2 and 1.3, it is now much easier for me to update
SWIIPrintUseMon to add support for different languages. Version 1.2 and 1.3 support the following languages :-
English
French
German
These versions will also (optionally) show you the number of pages printed and the average print time per page (see the next section if you are interested in this feature).
How it Works
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SWIIPrintUseMon examines a file called ‘StyleWriter II Log’ (Note: this file has different names on foreign language Systems; see the section on Installing it). This is a TeachText document that is created by the StyleWriter II installation disc, and updated by the StyleWriter II driver, whenever a document is printed. Each time you print something on the StyleWriter, the driver adds an entry containing the number of pages that were printed, the time, the application that printed them, and so on.
SWIIPrintUseMon processes this file, totals up all the pages printed and ends up with the grand total printed so far. If the total number of pages printed is greater than a pre-defined number (default 300), a warning message is displayed in a window. If the number of pages printed is less than this number then the Application exits with no message (and without creating a window).
Optionally, if you hold down the command key while SWIIPrintUseMon is running, it will display the number of pages printed so far, and the average print time per page. Be sure to hold the command key down all the time it is running and not just when you launch it.
Installation
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SWIIPrintUseMon has to be installed in the same location as the StyleWriter's Log file. The name of the log file and its location vary, depending on the language being used by the system. The variations that are catered for are listed here :-
ENGLISH:
The Log file is called "StyleWriter II Log" and can be found in "System Folder:Preferences:Printing Prefs".
FRENCH:
The Log file is called "Historique StyleWriter II" and can be found in "Dossier Systeme:Preferences:Prefs. d'impression".
GERMAN:
The Log file is called "StyleWriter II Protokoll" and can be found in "Systemordner:Preferences:Druckvoreinstellungen".
Copy SWIIPrintUseMon to this location. If you are running system 7, make an alias to SWIIPrintUseMon and move it to the ‘Startup Items’ folder. Thereafter, whenever you start your Mac, SWIIPrintUseMon will check and warn you if the number of pages printed exceeds the suggested maximum. Note that this is the only time it will be run in this situation.
System 6 users should install the app in the same folder as directed above, then make SWIIPrintUseMon the startup application using ‘Set Startup...’ from the ‘Special’ menu.
In addition, you can just run SWIIPrintUseMon whenever you want by double clicking it.
Note that SWIIPrintUseMon does nothing (that is it just quits without creating a window) if the number of pages printed so far is below the maximum. It is designed to only create a window if the pages printed exceeds the maximum. In order to ensure that the installation on your machine is successful, I have included some instructions on how to test it, see the section on 'Testing the utility' later in this file. It should be stressed that SWIIPrintUseMon does not change the ‘StyleWriter II Log’ file, but only reads it.
Customising the utility
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I have set the default maximum expected cartridge life to 300. If you want to change it to something else, then you can do this by adding the following line to your Log file...
ENGLISH:
*** Maximum Ink Cartridge Life:xxx
FRENCH:
*** Durée de vie maximum de la cartouche:xxx
GERMAN:
*** maximale Tintenpatronen-Lebensdauer:xxx
...where xxx is your new maximum. Make sure that you get the syntax exactly as printed here, or copy and paste the example from this file.
When you replace or refill your ink cartridge, be sure to initialise the Log file, by removing the contents using the TeachText editor or any other text editor.
Of course, if your ‘StyleWriter II Log’ file was not initialised when you last changed your cartridge, you will have to ‘cook the books’ a bit. One way is to have a guess at how many pages you have printed so far, and then add a line to the ‘StyleWriter II Log’ file...
ENGLISH:
Number of pages printed: nnn
FRENCH:
Nombre de pages imprimées: nnn
GERMAN:
Gedruckte Seiten: nnn
...where nnn is your ‘fiddle factor’. Again, make sure that you get the syntax exactly right, including the 2 leading spaces.
Testing the utility
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SWIIPrintUseMon only creates a window if it needs to tell you something. This means that there is little or no indication that
it is working. In order to give some confidence that the utility
has been installed correctly, add the following line to your ‘StyleWriter II Log’ file (refer to the previous section for other languages) ...
Number of pages printed: 400
Now run the SWIIPrintUseMon application. If it is working correctly you should get a message similar to the one shown
below :-
**********************************
* *
* WARNING: It is time to Refill *
* or Renew your StyleWriter ink *
* cartridge! *
* *
**********************************
400 pages printed out of an expected
life of 300 pages.
If you have installed SWIIPrintUseMon as a startup application restart your Mac now to test that this aspect also works. When
you have finished testing, put your ‘StyleWriter II Log’ file back
to how it was. (Note: the number of pages printed will vary, but will be at least 400).
If you are using a supported language, then all the messages you see will be in that language. For example, on a French system, you will see the following:-
******************************************
ATTENTION : Remplir ou remplacer
la cartouche d'encre de votre
StyleWriter !
477 pages ont été imprimées - la durée
de vie estimée est de 401 pages.
******************************************
Restrictions
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This facility only works on English, French and German systems at the moment. I can add support for other languages, when requested to do so, although I do need to have samples of the foreign ‘StyleWriter II Log’ file in order to do this. If this applies to you then please email me for help.
This facility relies on the 'Keep log file' feature of the SWII driver. Therefore, it does not work with the SWI driver, although it is possible to install the SWII driver software when you have the SWI printer, if you can get hold of it. If you do this, be sure to apply 'StyleWriter I+ hack' (available on the net) to your SWII driver.
Troubleshooting
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You may find that you do not have the log file, or that your log file is not being updated. This may be caused by the 'Keep log file' option not being selected in the SWII driver. Go to the chooser, select the SWII icon and have a look at the setup options.
If you don't even have the ‘Printing Prefs’ folder inside the ‘Preferences’ folder inside the ‘System Folder’, then this may be because you have not installed the SWII driver properly. These folders should be created by the SWII install discs. You should be able to create them by hand though, but make sure that you get the folder names exactly right!
Known Problems
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I have noticed that the Apple StyleWriter driver does not always record the correct number of pages printed. This seems to happen whenever you print multiple copies of a document. The work-round is to edit the log file after this has happened and put the correct numbers in by hand.
If the log files gets above a certain size, you can no longer edit it using TeachText. However, it is just a text file so you can use any editor on it.
Acknowledgments
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I would like to thank the following people for their help in the development of this Utility :-
