Millennium printing (was RE: Receipt Printers)

[Bob Rasmussen <ras@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I'll see if I can provide you the big picture here. But first, let me
state a personal belief drawn from years of experience: NEVER use an A/B
switch for printers. They are relics of a day long gone, and have no
purpose. There are better ways to solve the problem. Switches often don't
work, and in some cases can cause damage. Put them in a dusty closet
somewhere. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

1) An administrator can control the printing options for a particular
login. These include (among other things):

   a) What printers are available for use by that login.

   b) How to handle the four "classes" of printing (I don't know if III
uses a different term for this). The four classes are Standard, Receipt,
Label, and Form. Each of these has these available options:

      i. "Select local printer on startup".

      ii. "Enable direct text printing".

   In addition, if direct printing is selected for any class, you will
have access to two more items:

      iii. "Printer for direct text printing is attached to serial port".
If this is checked, direct text printing goes to COM1. If not, it goes to
LPT1.

      iv. "Printer for direct text printing is only 40 columns wide".

2. This means that printing FROM THE CLIENT can happen two ways:

   a) Direct text, to either COM1 or LPT1. In this mode the client writes
directly to the port. There does not need to be a printer driver in use
for that port; in fact, if there is it may interfere with the process.

      i. Don Zhou reports being able to redirect THIS KIND of output to
USB-connected printer by using a NET USE command.

   b) Java printing (if "direct text" is off). In this mode, the Jave
client will write to the Windows default printer, and will try to
construct a complete page. I don't know if this can be made to work for
receipts.

3. It is also possible to print FROM THE SERVER, in these ways:

   a) To a "network" printer; that is, a printer with a network interface
and a static IP address. This printing uses the JetDirect protocol.

   b) To a "Workstation JetDirect" printer. This also uses the JetDirect
protocol, but it sends the data to the IP address of the Millennium
client; that is, back to your workstation. You then must have our Print
Wizard (freestanding) product running there. Print Wizard receives the
print job, and handles it as it has been instructed.

4. In either case described in 3) above, the server is sending data to a
particular IP address and a PORT, as configured in the printer definition.
The port defaults to 9100, a convention established long ago by JetDirect.
However, it is possible to use a different port, as long as that is
coordinated on both ends. This can be used as follows:

   a) If a network printer has an EXTERNAL JetDirect (or similar)
interface, that device may have more than one printer jack. You may, for
instance, be able to plug in four printers to one JD device. If that is
true, each of those jacks will have a different socket number, such as
9100, 9101, 9102, and 9103.

   b) If you are using Workstation JetDirect (WJD) and Print Wizard (PW),
you can define multiple WJD printers, each using a different port. You
would then run multiple instances of PW on your PC, each configured to
listen on a different port, and each using other parameters to tell it
what printer to go to, etc.

5. When the USERs are logged in, running various Millennium programs, they
are given the choice of selecting what printer they want to use for
various tasks, aligned with the CLASSES as described above. So in Circ,
for instance, they should be able to choose a RECEIPT printer and a
STANDARD printer. Receipts should be directed to the receipt printer, and
reports should be directed to the standard printer.

6. So in summary, if properly configured, a user has options for printing
4 classes of printouts. Each class can go to:

   a) A local COM or LPT port (or USB), using "direct text".

   b) The Windows default printer, using Java.

   c) A networked system printer.

   d) A WJD printer, to Print Wizard on their PC.

7. Now if you're with me so far, I have one more variation to present:
Print Wizard can pretend to be a networked system printer. This allows you
to run certain print jobs, such as POs, that Millennium allows to be
printed only on system printers. It also lets you share the added value of
Print Wizard to a degree, so that, e.g., 4 catalogers can use one Print
Wizard setup to print their full-sheet labels properly. It works like
this:

   a) You must have a PC with a static IP address.

   b) You run Print Wizard on that PC, in "listen mode".

   c) You configure Millennium as though there is a networked system
printer at that IP address. Now whenever anybody prints to that
Millennium-defined printer, Millennium will send it to Print Wizard, which
can manipulate it as directed.

8. Whenever Print Wizard is in the pipeline, it can do a number of things
to the print job, such as auto-fitting, printing CJK, formatting
full-sheet labels, and more. See our web site for more info.

As always, I hope this is helpful.

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

personal e-mail: ras@xxxxxxxxxx
 company e-mail: rsi@xxxxxxxxxx
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