Printing

Ok, I know this gets asked alot, but does anybody know how to print in rebol using the windows print dialog. I can't just hard code what port or printer to use because I am making an application for varying users. All help would be appreciated. Matt

Hi Matt, MM> Ok, I know this gets asked alot, but does anybody know how to print in rebol MM> using the windows print dialog. I can't just hard code what port or printer MM> to use because I am making an application for varying users. All help would MM> be appreciated. A lot of people use either Gabriele's PDFMaker or write HTML and let Acrobat or the browser deal with the details. If you want to call the print dialog to set the printer, that should be doable (with View/Pro or command for API access), but then you still have the issue of how to render the data. Do you know how you're going to do that? In any case, here's the function: PrintDlg: make routine! compose/deep/only [ ; pointer to structure with initialization data lppd [struct! (LPPRINTDLG-def)] ;LPPRINTDLG return: [integer!] ;BOOL ] comdlg32.dll "PrintDlg" and the main struct you'd need: PRINTDLG: make struct! PRINTDLG-def: compose/deep [ lStructSize [integer!] ; DWORD hwndOwner [integer!] ; HWND hDevMode [integer!] ; HANDLE (NULL or pointer to struct) hDevNames [integer!] ; HANDLE (NULL or pointer to struct) hDC [integer!] ; HDC Flags [integer!] ; DWORD nFromPage [short] ; WORD nToPage [short] ; WORD nMinPage [short] ; WORD nMaxPage [short] ; WORD nCopies [short] ; WORD hInstance [integer!] ; HINSTANCE lCustData [integer!] ; DWORD lpfnPrintHook [integer!] ; LPPRINTHOOKPROC (decl for NULL, not struct) lpfnSetupHook [integer!] ; LPSETUPHOOKPROC (decl for NULL, not struct) lpPrintTemplateName [string!] ; LPCTSTR lpSetupTemplateName [string!] ; LPCTSTR hPrintTemplate [integer!] ; HANDLE hSetupTemplate [integer!] ; HANDLE ] none I've used it from other languages, but not REBOL, so this is all untested stuff here. -- Gregg

Hi Gregg and Matt. If you are using /Pro or /Command, then you should be able to render the data using EMF diskbased files. Elan Gregg Irwin wrote:

Gregg Ok, this stuff is all kinda new to me, how exactly do I use what you gave me? There is not really any sophisticated data to render, just a couple of strings, so anyway to do it is fine. Let me know, Matt Hi Matt, MM> Ok, I know this gets asked alot, but does anybody know how to print in rebol MM> using the windows print dialog. I can't just hard code what port or printer MM> to use because I am making an application for varying users. All help would MM> be appreciated. A lot of people use either Gabriele's PDFMaker or write HTML and let Acrobat or the browser deal with the details. If you want to call the print dialog to set the printer, that should be doable (with View/Pro or command for API access), but then you still have the issue of how to render the data. Do you know how you're going to do that? In any case, here's the function: PrintDlg: make routine! compose/deep/only [ ; pointer to structure with initialization data lppd [struct! (LPPRINTDLG-def)] ;LPPRINTDLG return: [integer!] ;BOOL ] comdlg32.dll "PrintDlg" and the main struct you'd need: PRINTDLG: make struct! PRINTDLG-def: compose/deep [ lStructSize [integer!] ; DWORD hwndOwner [integer!] ; HWND hDevMode [integer!] ; HANDLE (NULL or pointer to struct) hDevNames [integer!] ; HANDLE (NULL or pointer to struct) hDC [integer!] ; HDC Flags [integer!] ; DWORD nFromPage [short] ; WORD nToPage [short] ; WORD nMinPage [short] ; WORD nMaxPage [short] ; WORD nCopies [short] ; WORD hInstance [integer!] ; HINSTANCE lCustData [integer!] ; DWORD lpfnPrintHook [integer!] ; LPPRINTHOOKPROC (decl for NULL, not struct) lpfnSetupHook [integer!] ; LPSETUPHOOKPROC (decl for NULL, not struct) lpPrintTemplateName [string!] ; LPCTSTR lpSetupTemplateName [string!] ; LPCTSTR hPrintTemplate [integer!] ; HANDLE hSetupTemplate [integer!] ; HANDLE ] none I've used it from other languages, but not REBOL, so this is all untested stuff here. -- Gregg _________________________________________________________________ Get 10MB of e-mail storage! Sign up for Hotmail Extra Storage.

Hi Elan, E> If you are using /Pro or /Command, then you should be able to render the E> data using EMF diskbased files. How do you create the EMFs though? I haven't dealt with metafile format in many years. I seem to recall that EMF's big benefit was the ability to embed raster elements. Not sure though. -- Gregg

Hi Matt, MM> Ok, this stuff is all kinda new to me, how exactly do I use what you gave MM> me? There is not really any sophisticated data to render, just a couple of MM> strings, so anyway to do it is fine. Let me know, Ah, sorry, I forgot you're kind of new to REBOL. You would need View/Pro or Command to call DLL functions in any case, then the declarations I posted could be used, but still may not solve your problem. The issue is that if you want Windows to handle things, you may have to do more work. There are lots of ways to do it though. If you use something like the ShellExecute API (again requiring View/Pro) you can write the data out to a file and let the app registered to that type print it. You can also write the data out to an LPT port, but that may not work too well. Others may know more than I do about that approach. Writing HTML and letting the browser print it may be a good bet in your case. Going to more complex APIs for rendering to DCs is going to be painful. I've used Gabriele's PDFMaker to write files and the print them automatically. Kind of a pain IIRC, because of some issues with Acrobat itself. Hey, RT! What about a /PRINT refinement on BROWSE to do that kind of thing silently? -- Gregg

Hi Gregg. Typically something like this: in the WndProc procedure LRESULT WndProc( ....) { static HENHMETAFILE hemf; HDC hdc, hdcemf; PAINTSTRUCT ps; RECT rect; switch(iMsg) case WM_CREATE : hdcEMF = CreateEnhMetaFile(NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL); .. ... ... hemf = CloseEnhMetaFile(hdcEMF); return 0; case WM_PAINT: hdc = BeginPaint(hwnd, &ps); GetClientRect(hwnd, &rect); ... PlayEnhMetaFile(hdc, hemf, &rect); EndPaitn(hwnd, &ps); return 0; See: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/gdi/metafile_81yd.asp and http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/gdi/metafile_0whf.asp Hope this helps. Elan Gregg Irwin wrote:

OK, Gregg, I found some stuff online that kindof says the same thing you said the first time about using the external libraries. I'm not really woried about the rendering right now, I just want to get the set-up right. By combining you and their code I get: rebol[] print-lib: make library! %/c/windows/system32/comdlg32.dll PRINTDLG: make struct! PRINTDLG-def: compose/deep [ lStructSize [integer!] ; DWORD hwndOwner [integer!] ; HWND hDevMode [integer!] ; HANDLE (NULL or pointer to struct) hDevNames [integer!] ; HANDLE (NULL or pointer to struct) hDC [integer!] ; HDC Flags [integer!] ; DWORD nFromPage [short] ; WORD nToPage [short] ; WORD nMinPage [short] ; WORD nMaxPage [short] ; WORD nCopies [short] ; WORD hInstance [integer!] ; HINSTANCE lCustData [integer!] ; DWORD lpfnPrintHook [integer!] ; LPPRINTHOOKPROC (decl for NULL, not struct) lpfnSetupHook [integer!] ; LPSETUPHOOKPROC (decl for NULL, not struct) lpPrintTemplateName [string!] ; LPCTSTR lpSetupTemplateName [string!] ; LPCTSTR hPrintTemplate [integer!] ; HANDLE hSetupTemplate [integer!] ; HANDLE ] none PrintDlg: make routine! compose/deep/only [ ; pointer to structure with initialization data lppd: [struct! (LPPRINTDLG-def)] ;LPPRINTDLG return: [integer!] ;BOOL ] print-lib "PrintDlg" upon running that code , not that i expect it to do much by itself. I get the following error. ** Script Error: LPPRINTDLG-def has no value ** Near: LPPRINTDLG-def If i tweak it a little bit, I can get that error to go away, but then it says it can't open PrintDlg Any Ideas? _________________________________________________________________ Fast, faster, fastest: Upgrade to Cable or DSL today!

here's that error code ** Access Error: Cannot open PrintDlg ** Near: PrintDlg: make routine! compose/deep/only [ lppd: [struct! (LPPRINTDLG-def)] return: [integer!] ] _________________________________________________________________ Get a FREE computer virus scan online from McAfee.

Hi Elan, E> hdcEMF = CreateEnhMetaFile(NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL); Right, but then all you have is a DC, so you still have to use other APIs (e.g. DrawTextEx) to render data into that DC, and if you're dealing with text then you're probably going to need to select font objects in and out of it, etc., right? Also, I'm not sure for EMF DCs if using NULL for the reference DC will affect them. Not a problem for rendering to the screen of course. If it does, then you might have to use CreateDC, which leads to DEVCAPS stuff, and so on. Just trying to look at what all would be involved. As soon as you get into GDI stuff you end up going down a lot of little side-paths in my experience. Lots of potential for resource leaks too. -- Gregg

Hi Matt, MM> upon running that code , not that i expect it to do much by itself. I get MM> the following error. MM> ** Script Error: LPPRINTDLG-def has no value MM> ** Near: LPPRINTDLG-def MM> If i tweak it a little bit, I can get that error to go away, but then it MM> says it can't open PrintDlg Yeah, the LP needs to be removed to match the struct decl I posted, sorry. I'll try to find time to take a look at it. The first thing to try is changing: print-lib "PrintDlg" to print-lib "PrintDlgA" It does have string elements, so there's undoubtedly an ANSI version. -- Gregg