Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!yale!cmcl2!brl-adm!umd5!uvaarpa!mcnc!decvax!dartvax!eleazar!earleh
From: earleh@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU (Earle R. Horton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Usenet answers (PrGeneral & ID 02s)
Message-ID: <8410@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 13 Mar 88 04:55:03 GMT
References: <44630@sun.uucp> <5720@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Lines: 71
Summary: Another opinion, or "MY driver prints with HyperCard."

In article <5720@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>, woody@tybalt.caltech.edu 
	(William Edward Woody) writes:
> In article <44630@sun.uucp> PUGH@NMFECC.ARPA writes:
> >These fellows ask about Hypercard and non-Apple printer drivers:
> >	tgl@ZOG.CS.CMU.EDU and
> >	woody@tybalt.caltech.edu (William Edward Woody)
> >
...
> go belly up.  It's the fact that PrDrvrVers() (IM II-163) is returning
> 0 for every third party driver I've seen, including mine, until Now!
...
> For Third Party Printer Driver developers:  How to set the PrDrvrVers() val:
> When your driver gets the Open call, somewhere during your driver open
> routine, get your DCtlEntry, and place the version (at least 25 to fool,
> er, ah, indicate to Hypercard to use your driver) into the low byte
> of the dCtlQHdr.qFlags field.
> 
> The version number for the printer driver is placed in the low order
> byte of the DCtlEntry.dCtlQHdr.qFlags field.  It says so right here,
> buried in the middle of the first paragraph under the subject "The Driver
> I/O Queue" in the Device Manager documentation. [IM II-191].  Obscure,
> no?

     I have never done as William suggests, but my printer driver
(Daisy) prints fine with HyperCard, although I did notice that the
program does not use my Job Dialog.  (I suppose I should feel grateful
that it condescends to use my Style Dialog.)  My practice has been to
set the "iPrVersion" field of the Print Record as returned by my
PrintDefault() routine equal to the constant "iPrRelease", which is
currently 3.  I ** do not ** recommend using a value of 25 or even 4,
since this could present problems for users when "iPrRelease" changes,
reflecting possible changes in the printer code which your driver does
not now implement.  This value should also be present in the default
'PREC' in the printer resource file.

     The fact that William got his driver to work with HyperCard by
setting his "DCtlEntry.dCtlQHdr.qFlags", while Daisy works with
HyperCard by setting the "iPrVersion" field of the Print Record,
indicates that perhaps HyperCard looks first in the default Print
Record, then calls PrDrvrVers() to make sure.  It shouldn't be necessary
to have the driver open() routine set the flags word for the version,
since I would think setting the flags word in the copy of the driver in
the resource file should be sufficient, also.  (Disclaimer:  Apple
doesn't appear to set the low-order byte of the driver flags in the
printer resource file, so maybe this wouldn't work.)

     There is one other detail which I am aware of, which may cause
PrGlue() to handle my driver differently, although I don't see how.  My
printer resource file is of type 'PRER', while many third-party printer
resource files are of type 'PRES' (same as ImageWriter.)

     While we are on the subject of printer drivers, how can I vent my
anger against application developers who bypass my Job and Style
dialogs?  Apple has provided a mechanism whereby the print dialog code
gets the top half of the screen, and applications get the bottom half
for extending the dialogs (see Technical Note #95).  If this is not
enough, Technical Note #95 recommends having a separate application
Job/Style dialog "in addition to the existing Printing Manager dialogs."
Apple went to a lot of trouble to make the user interface to printing as
generic as possible, and I went to a lot of trouble to follow their
guidelines in my printer driver.  Now, some clown comes along who thinks
he can do it better, and the user never gets to see my carefully
designed Job/Style dialog.  It just burns me up!

> Disclamer:  I haven't the foggiest idea what I'm talking about...
	
	Nor do I.
-- 
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*Earle R. Horton, H.B. 8000, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755   *
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