Printing now works!

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

After several days of effort, I got basic printing working in NeoJ.

You can try it out be doing a "cvs update -d" in the "neojava" directory, deleting the "build.neo_vcl_patch" file, execute "make", and run the installer that is built. Make sure that you use the "-d" option when you execute "cvs update" as there is a new "svtools" subdirectory in the "neojava" directory.

What is cool is that printing now uses native print dialogs and features such as landscape printing work. I was also able to suppress the OOo dialog that appears when you select the File -> Printer Setup menu item and I replaced it with the native Mac OS X page format dialog window.

I still need to implement some of the more advanced printing features, but at least the most common used printing features now work! Here's the list of items that I still need to implement:

- Multiple copies
- Collation
- Page ranges (all pages get printed no matter what you select in the
dialog windows)
- Suppression of the OOo printing options dialog when you select the
File -> Print menu item
- Scaling (everything prints at 100%)

Let me know if you find any problems with the new printing code.

Patrick

Max_Barel · Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 3:46 am Post subject:

I'm really impatient to get my satellite link up (i'm out of range for DSL), to be able to use CVS, and test printing.

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

The number of files that change is only 3:

libvcl641mxp.dylib
libsvt641mxp.dylib
classes/vcl.jar

They are about 2.5 MB in size when compressed. Is that too large to download?

Patrick

Guest · Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 7:55 am Post subject: CVS-Update doesn't work

Hi Patrick,

that doesn't work on my machine:

[SchlesisPowerbook:~/SW-Entwicklung/NeoJ/neojava] thomas% cvs update -d
...

cvs server: Updating etc/user/config/registry/template/org/openoffice/Office
cvs server: Updating forms
cvs update: in directory forms/util:
cvs update: cannot open CVS/Entries for reading: No such file or directory
cvs [update aborted]: cannot open CVS/Tag: No such file or directory

Thomas

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

Thomas,

It appears that the softlinks created by the build are confusing CVS. Try "rm -Rf" of the forms/util directory and rerunning "cvs update -d".

Patrick

Max_Barel · Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 8:28 am Post subject:

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

I have posted a *.tar.gz file at http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/downloads/temp/printtest1.tar.gz.

To unzip it in an existing NeoJ installation, do the following:

- "su" so that you are running as the root user (NeoJ is installed as the root
user so this step must be done for the next steps to work)
- "cd" to <NeoJ installation directory>/NeoOfficeJ.app
- Execute the following command to unzip the file:

OPENSTEP · Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 9:45 am Post subject:

Awesome work Patrick Smile

This is really cool news. I'll grab a copy of the source and start testing it out.

Extrapolating from our experience with the ghostscript printing in X11, we should try to test both as wide a variety of printers as we can (though I don't expect it to be as much of an issue with the Java printing, but you never know) and also test as wide a variety of page sizes, etc. as we can.

Awesome job!

ed

Max_Barel · Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 10:16 am Post subject:

schlesi · Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 10:36 am Post subject: CVS-update

Hi Patrick,

here's a second problem with the CVS:

cvs server: Updating vcl/source/app
cvs update: in directory vcl/source/gdi:
cvs update: cannot open CVS/Entries for reading: No such file or directory
cvs [update aborted]: cannot open CVS/Tag: No such file or directory

Thomas

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

This is the same type of problem as the forms/util problem. I "cvs added" a new file in vcl/source/gdi. However, the build created softlinks to the OOo files since that file did not exist in the NeoJ CVS tree when you last built NeoJ.

To correct this problem, just "rm -Rf" the vcl/source/gdi and rerun "cvs update -d". I don't think there are any other directories that will have this problem, but if there are, the same trick should work.

Patrick

schlesi · Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2003 11:03 am Post subject: CVS-update

Hi Patrick,

I've done the cvs -d now and built it, but printing doesn't work in the new built NeoOffice/J-Package. I've then downloaded the tar-file an printing works now in the NeoJ.app. Great!

Now, the "missing link" for a productive usage of NeoOffice/J is closed. May be you should announce it at versiontracker.com or freshmeat? Wink

Thomas

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

Hmmm. I wonder if one or more of the libraries or vcl.jar did not get copied into the installer. If any of the files in the *.tar.gz file don't get copied into the installer, printing won't work.

As for announcing printing, I am waiting until I get the page ranges and OOo dialog suppression done which should be very soon.

Patrick

OPENSTEP · Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2003 10:51 pm Post subject:

OPENSTEP · Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2003 11:25 pm Post subject:

Nevermind the previous post, I am garbage.

After investigating stack traces from OOo instead of simply viewing things that look promising in an editor, the acutal print dialog code is not far off of that status one:

svtools/source/dialogs/printdlg.cxx

I suspect "suppressing" the print dialog may be as simple as invoking the OK link handler if it's invoked in the dialog's Execute() method (printdlg.cxx:599) in lieu of allowing the dialog to enter its modal loop.

Will check tomorrow...I feel sleep coming on. Hopefully I won't dream of trying to hack around NSApplicationMain like last night...

ed