Aprint bugs/ideas/features

[Jonathan Simpson]

Ok guys and gals.. is there anything fancy you'd like to see added to aprint? A new version is in the works and today I'm playing around with stuff that might make your lives easier, so let me know.

Here's what your gonna see, hopefully this week.
In the next couple days, a release of aprint will be available for general testing. It is entirely command line based and opens up a console window (the sort of console POS runs in) but the idea is, something very stable and reliable that can get out there quickly. This version supports user font selection and font size selection, so it should fix the "stupid aprint forgets to use courier" bug that occurs when windows thinks it should reset your printer back to whatever the default windows font is. This version forcibly checks the current font before each print job and resets it, so for your POS output it should ALWAYS go to what it should be

Shortly after, an updated version with a nice and friendly (perhaps POS styled) setup interface will be made available. Expect this sometime later this month. My priority is to get something out that will fix the bugs, THEN get the nice fancy interface to it out there.

Updates will be posted here. Let me know what you guys want your printers to do (sorry, I can't make them cook breakfast, consult your printer manufacturer for this feature.)

Jonathan Simpson

[Jonathan Simpson]

Update: ok, got a basic version up and running. This is 100% new code, none of the old aprint stuff is in there. The benefits of this are increased flexibility for me (as theres alot of things I can do now I couldn't then) and no DLL dependancy (it will "just work" without a DLL installed, on windows 95 and up).

I Need Beta Testers! PM me if your interested, and we'll get things rolling. I plan to work on it daily for the rest of the week and really, the only thing left is making the setup program look nicer and adding some advanced code for things like a tray icon. It's coming along...

Still need suggestions though, so lets hear em! This is the best time because well... easier to add stuff if I plan for it instead of hacking it in.

[peewee3ie]

Would it be posable to add the pole display to it and something that could tell you that the cash drawer is open

[Jonathan Simpson]

no idea at all how to sense the cash drawer... there usually is a signal for it but I dont think I can get it through the print driver interface... (Alan?)

As for the pole thing... well I was thinking the same thing. Once I get the main aprint stuff working nicely I may add the pole program into it.

[peewee3ie]

jonathan

i will work on the sense tht the cash drawer gives back to the computer through the printer

[Jonathan Simpson]

peewee, it's a bit more complicated than that. It might provide a piece of feedback via the lpt port, BUT unless the printer driver exposes this information, I can't read it without "breaking" the operational concept of aprint. I'll look at it, though.

[matt1990]

When will aprint be up for Download?

[Guest]

You have to pm him.

[peachey13]

would it be possible for it print a small black and white image up the top of the recipt.

-peachey

[Jonathan Simpson]

Ok, here we go.... I fixed the last major known bug in what I want to put up as beta this morning. I'll be uploading it later today and passing a link to a handful of people who have PMd me.

if none of their computers burst into flames, go nuclear, or cause a catostrophic, irreversible tear in the fabric of the universe, I'll post a general link. If option 2 or 3 happens, I will be sure to notify the newspaper. :p

Jonathan Simpson

[Jonathan Simpson]

peachey, the library I'm working with has some support for bitmaps, and I've added support for it myself, what I am unsure about is spacing? On a page, it's gonna be difficult to get things to line up right with a logo at the top.

On a continous roll, this is not such an issue. Issue number 2... how is POS gonna tell aprint to print a logo, and what logo will be used? Maybe if there was something "special" on the first line of the reciept header. For that to work, I'd have to add control codes to the aprint parser... not a simple thing but not terribly difficult either. The best way I can think of to make it always work, is for the user to set to continous and let aprint handle pages. I'll test this when I have access to a printer again.

Anybody got ideas on this?

[bdude]

one problem, when listing fonts on a windows printer it lists everything on the system which in mycase is >1000

[Jonathan Simpson]

bdude, it should only list "fixed width" fonts and skip the rest. On average, there are no more than 20 fixed width fonts.

I'm not sure exactly how I can handle huge numbers of fonts since it's not exactly a bug, but I planned on adding a scrollable menu to a later version.

[Andrew]

I planned on adding a scrollable menu to a later version.

You can scroll your command window in XP

[bdude]

no, it's listing all my postscript fonts