On 24 Nov 2004 at 13:57, Dave P wrote:
> I just want it to be clear that I did not draw up these specs.
Excellent! It will add to your sense of bitterness when we all blame you as the software spec is revealed to be fatally flawed ;)
So stop trying to deny it ;)
<grin> I'm so used to my software being fatally flawed, that the prosect of mere specs also being flawed doesn't daunt me....
Seriously, though, if you look at the history of this thing, it went something like this :
Somebody (Rich?) was complaining that people can't print any more, because
modern printers don't accept Ascii chars nor Epson printer codes.
I took this to means that you will want to print from Quill or Xchange.
Yes the majority of people do - also programs such as QD and even Text87.
OK, so I said - I've written this filter. It takes an ascii file, in which you have special flags (<b> </b> for bold on, off, sounds familiar, huh?)
which you feed to the filter and it produces a Proforma output which you can use on many modern printers (I know, I do). All you need is to print to a
file and start the filter, for which there is even a (nice?) GUI to help you.
I've even made an Xchange printer_dat file for this - on the reasoning that those who still run an old Quill probably haven't upgraded anything and would be unable even to run Proforma...
If asked, I could probably have amended the filter to use Epson codes for
underlining, bold on/off etc...
Then it appears that some programs (which ones????) can't even print to a
file, so the idea of a special device driver is floated. It isn't such a bad idea in itself, if it is kept simple (just provide a bogus device and send the data to a pipe) but now, instead, we find ourselves with some monster specs involong filter things and programs and devices etc....
Well, if a job's worth doing and all that....
As for programs which cannot print to a file - I am thinking of some of the older utilities which are compiled and cannot be altered. Even my own cash trader does not allow printing of reports to a file since it is intended to only produce hard copies. QL Integrated Accounts and a lot of the old Talent software do not allow any form of configuration of the output device either, so there must be quite a few programs which fall foul of this.
And the MOST IMPORTANT aspect of this seems to have been left on the wayside:
Proforma printer drivers!
After all, they will do all the real hard work.
Yes they will - still no-one has tested the Proforma output on a GDI printer so far as I know....
-- Rich Mellor RWAP Services 26 Oak Road, Shelfield, Walsall, West Midlands WS4 1RQ
http://www.rwapservices.co.uk/
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