SWIIPrintUseMon Version 2.3 - Shareware fee 1UK£/2US$
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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 Printer ink cartridge is close to running out, so that you can either refill or replace it.
This file gives special instructions for installation of PrintUseMonitor on foreign Mac's, but you should also refer to the main README file for other information - it is not all duplicated here.
This version supports the following languages :-
English, French, German, Italian, Swedish, Dutch
How it Works
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PrintUseMonitor examines a log file of printer usage. This log file is created and modified by the printer driver. It has various different names on foreign language Systems, and the contents are also in the native language. As PrintUseMonitor parses this file I have to encode the various search strings for each language. PrintUseMonitor also displays its warning messages in the same language as the Log file, so if you have a French Log file, for example, then you should get your warning messages in French.
Printers supported
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Version 2.3 only supports the StyleWriter II printer in all supported languages. The English version also supports the Color SW 2400, ColorStyleWriter Pro printer, and the LaserWriter 300 printer. I expect to add foreign language support for these printers as soon as I can get hold of examples of the various Log files.
Installation
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PrintUseMonitor has to be installed in the same location as the Printer'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 :-
Copy PrintUseMonitor to this location. If you are running system 7, make an alias of PrintUseMonitor and move it to the ‘Startup Items’ folder. Thereafter, whenever you start your Mac, PrintUseMonitor will run 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.
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 Print Cartridge Life:xxx
FRENCH:
*** Durée de vie maximum de la cartouche:xxx
GERMAN:
*** maximale Tintenpatronen-Lebensdauer:xxx
ITALIAN:
*** Durata massima della cartuccia:xxx
SWEDISH:
*** Bläckpatronens maximala livslängd: xxx
DUTCH:
*** Maximum levensduur van de patroon: 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
ITALIAN:
Numero di pagine stampate: nnn
SWEDISH:
Antal utskrivna sidor: nnn
DUTCH:
Aantal afgedrukte pagina's: nnn
...where nnn is your ‘fiddle factor’. Again, make sure that you get the syntax exactly right, including the leading spaces.
Support for new languages
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If you would like me to add a new language to PrintUseMonitor then please send me the following information:-
1) An example of the foreign log file. I need this so that I can determine the strings that I need to search for.
2) The name of the log file and its location within the system folder, including the name of the system folder and the names of the folders in between. This is for my installation instructions.
3) A translation of all the messages PrintUseMonitor displays. These include :-
a) The warning message, (note that I have kept this generic - it does not mention 'Ink' cartridge, because it is also applicable to the LaserWriter 300 Toner cartridge):
**********************************
* *
* WARNING: It is time to Refill *
* or Renew your Printer *
* cartridge! *
* *
**********************************
400 pages printed out of an expected
life of 300 pages.
b) The Total page count message
Total pages printed = nnn
c) The Maximum string
*** Maximum Print Cartridge Life:310
d) The Average pages printed message
Average number of pages printed per minute = nnn
e) I would also like to know the format of the date in your language, (the format as it appears in the log file), with a translation of the months (or abbreviations of the months if this is how they appear in the log file).
This is for a future enhancement that I am planning which requires me to read the date that documents are printed from the log file.
Send all this information to me, by email if possible. If you don't have access to email then send a floppy disk containing the example log file and a Text file with the translations to the address given in the main README file. I will return this disk to you with the modified PrintUseMonitor application for you to try.
