Windows 10 SCO Filepro issue

Wed Oct 31 17:12:44 PDT 2018

Good grief... after all this time, I finally look at the png screen
captures, and instantly what do I see? A variable that controls filepro's
behavior exactly as I said since the beginning. PFPT=on tell fp binaries to
try to use pathrough printing, by default, if possible. Both clients are
setting PFPT=on, both clients are setting TERM=scoansi.

For passthrough printing from filepro to work, several things must all be:
* The termcap entry that matches $TERM must include PN and PS caps which
work on that terminal. In filepro, the termcap entry is built up from two
files, /etc/termcap and $PFDATA/$PFDIR/fp/termcap (or could also be
specified entirely in an environment variable $TERMCAP which overrides the
termcap files)

* The terminal must actually recognize those escape codes from the PN and
PS termcap caps, and do something with the data collected in between the
printer-on and printer-off codes. IE, if the terminal software has a config
option for what to do with passthrough print data, you might have to
actively configure it to say what printer it should send the print data to,
else it might simply eat the data and do nothing with it.

* The destination that the terminal software sends the data to, must be
able to make sense of PCL5 data. There are a few different ways to arrange
this. Sometimes there is an option you can set in the printer driver
properties that says not to mess with the data, just forward it to the
printer raw. That would/should work as long as the printer itself actually
understands pcl5. Today, many don't. HP in particular confuses things even
more by having printer drivers that sometimes silently translate pcl5 from
an application into pcl6 for the printer, making you think the printer
supports pcl5 when it really doesn't. In the case of HP, try to look for
alternative versions of the printer driver, with PCL or PCL5 in the
driver's name. Remove the currently installed driver and install that
alternative, and that *might* make passthrough printing from filepro
through that terminal start working. Alternatively, if the "terminal
software" is AnzioWin, it has it's own built-in pcl interpreter, and should
always work with any printer that any other Windows app can print to, since
it interprets the pcl itself and renders it as graphics and hands the
bitmap data to windows's native gdi printing interface for windows to
print, without caring what kind of printer you have as long as you have a
working windows driver for it, the same as any other windows app does.

You could also try removing PFPT=on from the envirnment, which will cause H
hardcopy to go to whatever printer is set as default in pfconfig.

Also verify, HOW is TERM getting set to "scoansi"? (and how is PFPT getting
set to on?)
Is it being hard-coded in .profile or /etc/profile? Or is it coming from
the terminal emulator?
What I'm getting at is, are both terminal client apps really configured to
emulate sco-ansi?

-- 
bkw

On Sun, Oct 28, 2018 at 1:15 PM Rod Caddy via Filepro-list <
filepro-list at lists.celestial.com> wrote:

> On 10/26/2018 12:51 AM, Brian White via Filepro-list wrote:
> >> I'm not talking about windows print screen, I'm talking about Hardcopy
> >> in filePro.
> >>
> > I don't know why hardcopy would be any different than any other printing
> > from fp.
> >
> > You also said something about a unix spool not passthrough print. If the
> > default printer in pfconfig is a unix lp command, then I don't see how
> the
> > server knows or cares what os the desktop is running.
> >
> > I think the setup is not described in enough detail.
> >
> > Log in from one of the win7 machines where printing works, and from the
> > win10 machine where printing doesn't work.
> >
> > Run "set |sort |less" on each. (if you don't have less installed, then
> > capture and view any other way. pg, more, vi/view etc...)
> >
> > Anything different that could affect printing? There are env variables
> that
> > affect both the spooler and fp's notions of default printer destination,
> or
> > could inadvertantly affect printing in some indirect way like, totally
> > contrived example:
> >
> > The env is set up to do passthrough after all, PFPT=on (or true or
> > whatever), and your fp/termcap has a scoansi entry that includes PN & PS,
> > abd only the scoansi entry has it, and TERM or PFTERM is set to scoansi
> on
> > most desks, but it's set to something else like xterm on the new desk.
> >
> > It's not literally exactly that, because the break key would not be Del,
> > and you couldn't miss that. It's an example only.
> >
> > Are you logging in as the same user on both working and non-working
> desks?
> > There is a gotcha with sco osr5 printing where a newly added user might
> not
> > have permission to use the printing system at all until you manually add
> > them in scoadm (or figure out how the default got changed and change it
> > back, I forget the details myself)
> >
> > It could be anything, until you describe the setup more, to remove some
> of
> > the infinite possibilities.
> >
> > Follow the trail from fp yo the printer. What is fp going to try to do
> when
> > you say Y to hardcopy? You have to look at all fp env vars to determine
> > that. For instance, the PFCONFIG var, if it exists, says where to load
> the
> > fp config file from, which may override the file pointed to by fppath
> vars.
> > So, it's possible for two different desks to load two entirely different
> > config fles, which may contain 2 entirely different sets of pfprinter and
> > other variables.
> >
> > Now you hopefully know what fp should try to do, next depends on what
> that
> > was. Was pfprinter the same fp printer name like printer1 on both? Was
> the
> > definition of printer1 the same on both? was PFPT either on or off or
> > absent the same on both? Was the defintion of printer1 a normal valid lp
> > command line? Can you successfully use that same lp command, as that same
> > user, from a shell prompt, on both?
> >
> Since this issue makes no since, I thought I would add some more to it.
> After Brian's suggestions, I decided to go back and start from the
> beginning and redo all my tests and the additional things he suggested
> to make sure I was not losing my mind.  So here was my procedure and as
> a reminder what I am using:
>
> SCO 3.2.5.0.6 i386
> Filepro 4.05.08K7D4
> AlphaCom Terminal Emulation
> Windows 7 on all PCs except 1 which is Windows 10
> BTW, this is *not* a new user to the system.
>
> 1. Logged in as user on the W10 PC to the Unix system and into Filepro.
> Viewed a record in 3 or 4 different files and pressed H for hardcopy and
> nothing prints to the system printer. Pressed F to print a form,
> selected the form format that I wanted and it did not print to the
> system printer.  AlphaCom has a printer icon where you can print what is
> on the screen to any printer that is defined on the PC.  I printed to
> the system printer and to a local printer what was on the screen,
> essentially a hardcopy of the record on the screen.  That's all fine and
> good but still unable to print the form.
>
> 2. Logged in as the same user on a W7 PC to the Unix system and into
> Filepro.  Viewed a record in 3 or 4 different files and pressed H for
> hardcopy and it prints to the system printer as it should. Pressed F to
> print a form, selected the form format that I wanted and it printed to
> the system printer as it should.  Used the AlphaCom printer icon and
> printed to the system printer and to a local printer what was on the
> screen, essentially a hardcopy of the record on the screen.
>
> 3. Per Brian's suggestion, I logged in on the Windows 10 PC to the Unix
> system and did a set|sort> env.txt.  The list below is what I got back.
>
> Windows 10 Env User1
>
> 4. Per Brian's suggestion, I logged in on the Windows 7 PC to the Unix
> system, using the same user login, and did a set|sort> env.txt.  The
> list below is what I got back.
>
> Windows 7 Env User1
>
> In this case the only difference I see is COLUMNS=80 and LINES=25.  Bare
> in mind, that this is the same user on the system and depending on which
> system I log in from, W7 or W10, one prints one does not.  Because I am
> logging into the same user account, I am using the same menus, the same
> config files, the same printers.  Everything is exactly the same as far
> as Unix, filePro, and AlphaCom are concerned.
>
> What I have not done is use a different emulator on the W10 PC, simply
> ran out of time.  I will be going back to the client on Monday to try
> that.  If that does not work I am truly at a loss. I welcome any
> feedback that you may be able to offer.
>
> --
>
>
> Pro-Set Systems Logo <www.pro-set.com>  Rod Caddy
>    Pro-Set Systems
>    rcaddy at pro-set.com
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-- 
bkw
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