Joachim
OK, I see - however, surely that is where the new device driver could come in - it could take data sent to the PAR device (or whatever it is to be called), and through it into the pipe - if it presents a <START DATA> tag and <END DATA> tag, the Proforma Filter program which would be watching this pipe, would know when data started and ended....
Presumably, if a second program tried to print before the pipe was emptied by the Proforma Filter, the data would just be tagged on the end (or held in a queue) by the device driver.
I would actually assume that you need three components to get this to work.
1. A thing which allows you to create a new pipe and do some bookkeeping.
2. A device driver which when opened, uses the accounting thing to create a new pipe where all the data is sent to. When all data is sent (or possibly at the end of each page), the thing is informed that processing can start.
3. The program Wolfgang provided. This will then regularly check the accounting thing to know if something needs to be printed. If there is, then it goes ahead and prints stuff. If a new print job arrives for a printer which is already being printed on, the job is delayed (this would probably best be handled by the accounting thing too).
Kind regards, Joachim _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.quanta.org.uk/mailing.htm
