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From: wiltse@sgi.com (Wiltse Carpenter)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Once again:  adding a PostScript printer to a PI
Summary: info on printer manager
Keywords: lpadmin, printer
Message-ID: <1990Dec11.173314.29029@odin.corp.sgi.com>
Date: 11 Dec 90 17:33:14 GMT
References: <1990Nov30.001442.24330@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <4080@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov>
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Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
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In article <4080@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> lrlait@cdc910b21.gsfc.nasa.gov (Leslie Robert Lait) writes:
>In article <1990Nov30.001442.24330@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> 
>shenkin@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Peter S. Shenkin) writes:
>
>>...  Furthermore, I can't
>>figure out where the hell the /usr/lib/vadmin/printers program, which is 
>>what I assume System Manager is running, is getting its list of printers.  
>
>We had the same sort of need on our PI.  The printer manager tool
>seems to get its list of printers by looking at all the printer scripts in 
>/usr/spool/lp/model.  Each script has NAME, DEVICE, and TYPE fields--
>some in comments, some not--and the printer tool apparently finds these
>fields and interprets them to categorize the scripts. 
>
This is basically correct.  The NAME, DEVICE, and OPTIONS fields are
parsed from the various scripts in /usr/spool/lp/model to form the menu
in the printer administration tool.  When a printer is installed, the
un-commented NAME field is filled in with the value of NAME from the menu.
Also, the OPTIONS field can be used to specify a list of keyword, value
substitutions to further customize the script.  Look at the file ``centface''
in /usr/spool/lp/model for an example.

All of the printer administration tools beyond the core System V spooling
system use a script called /usr/lib/lputil to do most of the actual work.
These tools include: the Printer Manager, mkcentpr, mknetpr, rmprinter, and
mkPS (part of the Laser Option package).  If you want to see exactly how
these work you can just look at them with an editor, they're just shell
scripts.

>I'm not sure, but I think that the /filetype stuff you mentioned may
>be referring to the creation of CONVERT rules for WorkSpace and
>perhaps even the creation of new printer icons.

Right.

>
>We learned this stuff just by fiddling around and by trial and error,
>but it works for us (under 3.2 and 3.3).
>

Sorry we haven't got all of this documented yet.

	-Wiltse Carpenter