On Mon, 05 Dec 2005 21:00:58 -0800, Richard Gaskin
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[snip]
In OS X, Mac Classic, and Windows, it's common to define the
parameters
for the print job in the Print window, with some settings defined in
Page Setup. Rev gives you access to both:
answer printer -- brings up the OS standard Page Setup dialog,
which retains settings during the current session
open printing with dialog -- initiates a print job with the Print
Job dialog presented first. You can also print
without the Print Job dialog by ommitting "with
dialog".
If you filter the Transcript Dictionary with "print" you'll find a lot
of properties which govern printing. You can set these up without
ever
showing the Page Setup dialog, including margins, orientation, scale,
and more.
The one weakness Rev has is integrating its internal settings with the
OS print dialogs. It would be nice to be able to save and restore
Page
Setup info as we can with QuickTime transitions using "answer effect".
The difficulty is that while there's only one QuickTime API, the APIs
for printing vary broadly and deeply from OS to OS. This isn't to say
it wouldn't be worth pursuing (hence the Bugzilla request for it), but
at least it helps you understand why that's not in place just yet.
Once Classic support is dropped from the engine (no, I've heard of no
plans, just wishful thinking for the future), printing can be greatly
enhanced as OS X's printing architecture is more like the rest of the
world and Classic's is from outerspace.
Yes, more comprehensive interaction with printers is sorely missed
and would be great... what I find worst about the present situation
is that I can't tell the true page size available to the marking
engine of a given printer, i.e. the minimum margins/maximum printable
area: this means that I can't script the design of a printout to
exactly fill a page and I can't allow the user to set margins without
some danger that the printing will be cropped. Some perfectly
respectable Mac apps (GraphicConverter for example) seem to know
where to get this info from regardless of the printer driver being
used, and there are many examples on Windows too... anyway it's been
Bugzilla'd (5 May 2004, still UNCO, 57 votes at the last count) and
I'm still hoping for a result.
Graham
----------------------------------------
Graham Samuel / The Living Fossil Co. / UK and France
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