I have just been handed a request for a Palm OS app that will probably
be a prototype for future applications on the platform for the City. As
with
all apps developed for the Palm OS, it will need to be hardware-independant.
The issue is that at a certain point in the app, the user will need to
print
either a notice of items that need to be corrected by the client or a
certificate,
depending on whether the inspection is passed or not. The notice will need
to be on "normal" letter-size paper (not thermal paper, which is
sensitive to/
reacts to temperature).
I have seen only a few "sdk"s in my web searching:
1. Symbol has printing built into its sdk, but that would tie us into one
hardware platform. Also, according to the documentation, it only
supports
two printers, both (I think) impact printers which would not fare
too well
in a truck.
2. There is a product (Palm Print/SCS Print Server) that does have more
hardware compatibility, both on the handheld side and the printer side.
However, it seems as if either the individual users have to have a
registered
copy of one or the other product or there has to be a copy of the SCS
Print Server registered for a particular application (for a larger
fee). This
also seems to be an unacceptable situation, especially if a user
has to use
two printing apps on the Palm.
3. There are a couple of other stand-alone apps that allow for printing
from
the standard Palm apps along with providing an interface to other
apps. They
seem to have the same limitations as #2 above.
So, that leaves me stumped. Is anyone aware of any
libraries/interfaces/sdks
that will allow me to add printing to this and future apps without
limiting choice
of hardware or the per application/user licensing restrictions? One-time
fee (site
licence), depending on useability, is fine.
--
Steve Jerrett
Systems Analyst
City of Columbia, MO
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