Almathera Ten Pack 3: CDPD 3/Almathera Ten on Ten - Disc 3: CDPD3.iso/scope/026-050/scopedisk28/danspool/readme

Text File | 1995-03-18 | 13KB | 311 lines

            DAN'S PRINT SPOOLER
            -------------------

The contents of this file and other files in this distribution are
Copyright (C) 1988 by Daniel L. Barrans, all rights reserved. This is a
shareware product. You may copy and distribute this product freely as long
as:

1) No more than a minimal fee is charged for copying and distribution,
2) This file remains intact and is distributed with the software, and
3) The software is distributed ONLY in its original, unmodified state.

If you like this product and use it, please send money ($25.00 or thereabouts)
to keep me from thinking that I wasted my time. You may not use this product
in a commercial environment or a government organization without paying a
license fee of $25.00.

NOTE: If you fail to pay me for the use of this product, I probably won't be
too likely to listen to your suggestions for this or future products.

This product was developed and tested using the AmigaDOS 1.3 omega 9
Workbench release, and the Manx Aztec C compiler release 3.6a, although it
should also work with Workbench release 1.2. This distribution consists of
release 1.4 of the print spooler and associated programs.

If you experience any problems while using this software, or if you have
suggestions for improvement, please let me know as soon as possible.
My BIX name is dbarrans, and my CIS user ID is 75036,2230. The preferred
method is thru BIX, because I am not on CIS that often.

                        Dan Barrans - 26 Sep 1988

Send your money to:

    Daniel L. Barrans
    P.O. Box 522
    Seabrook, MD 20706


WHAT IS THIS STUFF ANYWAY?

This distribution contains a DOS handler, a print program, and a control
program. The DOS handler sits and waits for stuff to be sent to it to be
printed, just like you would send stuff to PRT: to be printed. The difference
is that this handler makes a temporary copy of the stuff to be printed in a
file on disk somewhere (you decide where), prints the copy at its leisure,
then deletes the copy. The advantages to you are that you get your CLI
prompt back faster, you can continue to edit and/or delete the original
file without messing up what's being printed, and you don't need to worry
about the printer being busy when you want to start another print job. The
main disadvantage is that you need enough disk space available to hold the
temporary files until they are printed. This can theoretically be in any
filesystem in RAM, floppy, or hard disk.

The print program is just a simple formatted print program I wrote a couple
of years ago that I've adapted to use this handler. It can do line numbering
and page headers, and looks at the current preferences settings to determine
what it can fit on a page.

The control program lets you do stuff like listing the files waiting to be
printed, rearrange the order of printing, cancel print jobs, and suspend
and resume the operation of the printer.

The print and control programs need arp.library version 1.1 (or later) in
your Libs: directory, but the handler itself does not need the ARP library.


PRINT SPOOLER INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:

The distribution contains these files:

    spool-handler    This is the AmigaDOS handler for the print spooler.
            It should be copied to your L: directory.

    Mountlist    The contents of this file should be added to your
            Devs:Mountlist file.

    Print        This is an ARP command program that prints files
            to the spool handler. It should be copied to your
            C: directory (or somewhere in your search path), and
            it needs arp.library version 1.1 (or later) to run.

    PrintC        This is an ARP command program that allows you to
            control printing of spooled print jobs. It should
            be copied to your C: directory (or somewhere in your
            search path), and it needs arp.library version 1.1
            (or later) to run.

    RemPRT        This is a program to use for removing the standard
            PRT: handler so it can be replaced by the spool
            handler. This should be copied to your C: directory
            (or somewhere in your search path).

    Readme        This file. Put it where you can refer to it if you
            forget how to use the other files.


After the above files are copied to the appropriate places, you should edit
your S:Startup-Sequence file to include the following commands:

    Assign SPOOL: RAM:
    RemPRT
    Mount PRT:

The Assign command tells the spool handler where to put the temporary copies
of the files to be printed. You may change this assignment to another
directory if you wish. If you do not assign a spool directory, the spool
handler will function just like the standard AmigaDOS print handler, without
creating spool files.

The RemPRT command tells AmigaDOS to remove the standard PRT: handler
from the device list so the new handler can be added. This command may be
replaced with "Assign PRT: REMOVE" if you are using AmigaDOS 1.3.

The Mount command tells AmigaDOS to mount the spool handler as PRT: so it is
available for use. The Print and PrintC command programs automatically use
the PRT: handler, and other programs can use the new PRT: handler just like
they use the standard PRT: handler.


HOW THE PRINT SPOOLER WORKS:

The print spooler is an AmigaDOS handler that runs when a program opens PRT:.
When PRT: is opened, the handler creates a temporary disk file for the output
of the program that opened it, and writes the program's output to the disk
file instead of the printer. When the program closes PRT:, the handler then
starts another process to print the file. Any number of programs can open the
spool handler at the same time, and their output will be printed in the order
they finish writing to the handler. After all files are printed, the handler
releases all resources it has allocated, and the printer is available to any
other program that wants to use it.

The spool handler only tries to allocate the printer when it has a file
ready to print. If another program is using the printer at this time, the
spool handler will wait until the printer becomes available, then allocate
it and start printing. You can have as many programs as you want writing to
the spool handler at the same time, and they will be printed in sequence. The
handler is designed to keep track of all processes using it, independent of
each other, limited only by the amount of available system memory and the
amount of available disk space in the spool directory.

You can determine where the handler creates its temporary spool files by
changing the assignment for the SPOOL: directory. This can be changed at any
time, but the handler only looks at it when it first starts a new batch of
print jobs. To change the spool directory, just wait until there are no jobs
waiting to print, and reassign the SPOOL: directory.

NOTE: The spool handler acquires a lock on the directory currently assigned
to SPOOL:. If this directory is on a volume that is not currently mounted,
you will get a requester asking you to mount the volume when you try to open
the spool handler.


COMMAND DESCRIPTIONS


NAME
    Print - Print files

SYNOPSIS
    Print FILES NONUM/S NOHDR/S NOFORM/S VERBOSE/S

DESCRIPTION
    Print formats and copies the contents of the file or files
    of its FILES argument to the AmigaDOS PRT: handler.

    You may specify any number of filenames (including wildcarded
    filenames) for the FILES argument, which will cause all the named
    files to be printed on the printer, after first being copied to
    the print spooler's spool directory. As soon as this command is
    finished, you are free to do anything you want with the original
    files, because the spooler is printing from a temporary copy of
    each file, not the original.

    The Print command examines the current Preferences settings for
    the printer to determine how many lines to print between page
    breaks. It prints a page header at the top of each page, containing
    the file name, last modification date, and page number, and prints
    each line of the file prefixed with a line number.

    This program will work with either the standard AmigaDOS print
    handler, or with the spool handler. If you have an especially large
    file to print that will not fit into the spool directory, remove the
    spool directory assignment using "assign spool:" and then wait for
    the spooler to finish printing any spooled files. Then you can use
    Print to print your large file without spooling it.

    The behavior of Print may be modified by using the following
    switches:

    NONUM -    this switch will cause Print to not print line numbers at
        the beginning of each line of text.

    NOHDR -    this switch will cause Print to not print page headers at
        the top of each page of output.

    NOFORM - this switch will cause Print to not do a page eject between
        pages, but to print continuously over the page breaks.

    VERBOSE - this switch will cause Print to display the name of each
        file as it is being sent to the spool handler.

EXAMPLES
    Print filename NONUM ; The file will be printed without line numbers.
    Print *.c NOHDR         ; The files will be printed without headers.



NAME
    PrintC - Print spooler control

SYNOPSIS
    PrintC OPTION JOBS

DESCRIPTION
    PrintC allows the user to control various aspects of print spooler
    operation. If the spooler is not installed, or if no spool directory
    is assigned, then PrintC will display an error message.

    The desired behaviour of PrintC may be specified by using one of the
    following OPTIONs. Each option may be abbreviated by using the first
    letter of the option, instead of the entire option name.

    QUERY -    query the spool handler to find out about the print jobs
        queued in the print queue. This option may not be followed
        by job numbers. This will display information about queued
        print jobs, like this:

         job    status    filesize    jobname
           1    active        4285    debug.c
           2    queued        7732    misc.c
           3    queued        7349    (no name)
           4    queued       23763    spool-handler.c
           5    queued        5871    printc.c

        The job number identifies the print job to PrintC when
        using other options.

        The status shows the current state of the print job. The
        possible status strings are:

            active - this job is currently printing.
            queued - this job is waiting to print.
            open   - this job is currently being spooled.
            cancel - this job has been cancelled.

        The filesize shows the size in bytes of the spooled file.

        The jobname identifies the spooled file. If you send output
        to the spool handler as PRT:filename, then filename will show
        up as the jobname. Otherwise, the jobname will be "(no name)".
        There is one output filename that has a special meaning to the
        spool handler. If you use the name "PRT:raw", then the
        spooled output will be sent directly to the printer without
        being translated by the printer device.

        If the print spooler is suspended, the above status display
        will be preceded by "printing is suspended".

    CANCEL - cancel the specified print jobs. If a job is active, the
        print will be aborted, and the next queued job will start
        printing. If a job is queued, it will simply be removed from
        the print queue.

    NEXT -    move the specified print jobs to next in line to be printed.
        If a job is already printing, it cannot be moved around in
        the print queue.

    LAST -    move the specified print jobs to last in line to be printed.
        If a job is already printing, it cannot be moved around in
        the print queue.

    SUSPEND - suspend printing all queued print jobs. The current job
        and all queued jobs will be suspended. The printer device
        will not be made available to any other program which uses
        it directly (such as the standard PRT: handler) until
        printing is resumed and completed, or all print jobs are
        cancelled.

        NOTE: Some printers have an internal buffer which may take
        some time to empty before printing actually stops.

    RESUME - resume printing all queued print jobs. If there are queued
        print jobs, they will resume printing. Otherwise, nothing
        visible will happen.

EXAMPLES
    PrintC QUERY        ; Show the queued print jobs.
    PrintC CANCEL 1 3 4 5    ; Cancel print jobs 1, 3, 4, and 5.
    PrintC NEXT 4 6        ; Move print jobs 4 and 6 to next in line.
    PrintC LAST 2        ; Move print job 2 to last in line.



NAME
    RemPRT - Remove the PRT: handler

SYNOPSIS
    RemPRT

DESCRIPTION
    RemPRT removes the PRT: handler from the AmigaDOS device list. This
    should be run from your Startup-Sequence file, or before PRT: is
    used. If the PRT: handler code has already been loaded, this command
    will not remove the handler, but will display an error message.

EXAMPLES
    RemPRT            ; remove the PRT: handler.
    Mount PRT:        ; mount the new handler.