SBPro4 & Printer Drivers
9 messages in this thread
Pat,
When I talked with Mike the other day, he had mentioned something about
Oxxi possibly providing a more expansive set of "printer drivers" than what
came with SBPro4. I, for example have a Citizen Tribute 124 which emulates
either a Toshiba P351C or Diablo 630. My clients have printers which
emulate everything from HP Laserjets to Epson FX. I would have thought that
using "PREFS" would have helped me to avoid coding for specific types of
printers. I have tried to code a ".ini" file for my printer with no
success. When I set the driver to "PREFS" the printer ignores any commands
I send it and prints mostly garbage…
I'd be appreciative of any assistance.
Thanks, Jim
Yes, Jim, this is another of our projects here. There is a flaw in the way
Superbase handles the Prefs printers, as well as its own printer drivers,
which is high on the list of priority fixes for the new version. Watch the
Oxxi/Precision library for printer drivers, too — asd soon as we get an HP
DeskJet, for example, that printer driver will be created and uploaded
here.
Regards, Whap!penned…
Pat @Oxxi (310) 427-1227
I'm looking forward to the new drivers… I just bought a DeskJet 500C. It
sure would be nice to be able to use it with Superbase.
Jim
Pat,
May I suggest _strongly_ that the FIRST printer to get to work right is
the 'preferences' printer. Afterall, that's what we have preferences for.
While talking with Mike @ Oxxi, he told me the reason for the current
printer handling in SBPro4. It's to keep it the "same" as the Windows
version. MS-DOS systems as you are no doubt aware are forced to have a set
of printer drivers for each application the user wants to run. The same
philosophy seems to be applied in the Amiga version of SBPRO. I, though,
believe there are enough in the way of differences between the versions for
the two disparate platforms to warrant one more… this being supporting
printers in the "standard" way on the Amiga.
The problem with using "prefs" as the default printer as I have experienced
it is that when you send an escape sequence like <ESC>2w to set the print
pitch to elite only the <ESC> and 2 make it to the printer as part of the
command, the "w" is sent as printable data. This type of procedure works
fine in a text file sent to the printer with TYPE or COPY, etc.
Jim
Jim,
sounds like a 'buglette' in SBPro4, since we know that the printer
driver correctly handles that. Hmmmm, maybe not…the CORRECT sequence for
'elite on' is "<ESC>[2w". Are you forgetting the "["??
Yeah, my fingers got lost on that one… it is <ESC>[2w… Sorry 'bout
that…
Vic, that job belongs to the programmers. Fixing a printer .ini file to
pass the right codes to the printer is within my range of expertise (since
it's just an ASCii file).
Obviously, the goal is to get BOTH working correctly…
Regards, Whap!penned…
Pat @Oxxi (310) 427-1227
I'd be very interested in a printer driver for my DeskJet 500C too.
Greg :^)
– via Whap!