TRE: Printer destination - rant

[rkreiss at verizon.net]

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Rasmussen <ras at anzio.com>
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 12:49 AM
To: rkreiss <rkreiss at verizon.net>
Cc: Filepro List <filepro-list at celestial.com>
Subject: Re: Printer destination - rant

On Thu, 28 May 2009, rkreiss wrote:

> Windows filePro
> 
> filePro will accept win:lpt1 as a valid destination.

I believe it will (also / more likely) accept "win:HP Laserjet 5". 
Correct?

> 
> Then why will it not accept IP_192.168.nn.nn(port designation), a network
> printer destination, as a valid destination?

Would that be with the JetDirect protocol, or the LPD protocol?

> It would seem to me that being able to specify a specific IP address would
> make life much simpler the using a printers name.  This is especially true
> in the Windows environment where each computer needs to have the same
> printer name unless they are are local printer connected to lpt1.  this is
> getting rarer and rarer as parallel ports are being replaced by USB or
> network printers.  Even the most modestly priced printer are network
> enabled; either wired or wireless.

Even when programming in Windows and for Windows, there is not a 
legitimate way to access a printer by its port. One reason: a USB port is 
a very different thing from a parallel port, and both are different from a 
pseudo port used with Adobe Distiller, for instance.

Finally, some printers can not accept a stream of characters (bytes).

The standard in Windows is to address a printer by its installed name. 
Even inside Print Wizard I must do this. Now if I want to bypass the 
Windows printer driver, such as to send PCL codes directly to a 
PCL-compatible printer, I can do that, with calls OpenPrinter, 
WritePrinter, and ClosePrinter. These, I suspect, are what the filePro 
runtime uses.

If I wanted to address the printers at the protocol level, I could write 
socket level code to initiate a connection to IP a.b.c.d, port 9100 for 
instance, but then the burden is on me to understand and process this 
protocol. So far I haven't seen a need to do this, even with the zillions 
of permutations of printing requirements I've been hit with.

So this brings me back to the question: what CAN'T you do that you need to 
do?

Regards,
....Bob Rasmussen,   President,   Rasmussen Software, Inc.

personal e-mail: ras at anzio.com
 company e-mail: rsi at anzio.com
          voice: (US) 503-624-0360 (9:00-6:00 Pacific Time)
            fax: (US) 503-624-0760
            web: http://www.anzio.com
 street address: Rasmussen Software, Inc.
                 10240 SW Nimbus, Suite L9
                 Portland, OR  97223  USA
What I was looking for was a standard way for filePro to access network printers without having to have each windows machine using the same name.

Too bad UNC won't work.

Richard
>From my phone