taylor@swbatl.sbc.com (George Taylor - Southwestern Bell - Dallas, Tx.) (08/22/90)
If anyone would have any experience on the printer utility DJ
Helper would they please leave me EMail. I have had my DeskJet for
several months and just heard about this utility. I am interested
in purchasing but would like some feedback on just how useful it
is. If there is sufficient interest or response I'll post the
replies. Thanks.
George Taylor
--
George Taylor - SWBT - Regional Marketing
208 S. Akard, Room 0551, Dallas, Texas 75202
UUCP: { pyramid, uunet, bellcore }...!swbatl!taylor
PHON: 214-464-5319 FAX: 214-464-5576taylor@swbatl.sbc.com (George Taylor - Southwestern Bell - Dallas, Tx.) (10/05/90)
Rob LaPasha and I have gotten numerous requests for information about
DJHelper after we posted requests for information. I finally found a
review in my local user group newsletter!! So, with the author's
permission, I am posting his software review of DJHelper. For thos with
DeskJets enjoy and those who don't care can hit N.
George Taylor
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DJHelper
Getting Your DeskJet To Do What You Want
Amiga Software Review by Bill Raecke
Metroplex Commodore Computer Club
Why DJHelper?
First a brief explanation of why those of us with Hewlett Packard
DeskJet printers are looking for new tools. The DeskJet is a wonderful
machine. It has the capability to add different fonts which you may
purchase in cartridge form and plug in to the DeskJet. If you purchase
a RAM expansion cartridge you may download fonts to the DeskJet and use
those. Unfortunately, Preferences does not allow any way to access
those capabilities directly from the Amiga. If you are using a font
cartridge you may select the desired font from the DeskJet's panel, but
when the printer.device is loaded and activated from disk, the first
thing that happens is that the printer is reset. If you are working
with downloaded fonts, there is no direct support provided either for
the download activity or for selection of the desired font.
Frustration.
On the other side of the coin, the DeskJet has one problem. When
printing graphics, the pictures turn out very dark and muddy. The
reason for this is that, although the DeskJet is able to address 300 dpi
(dots per inch) in graphics mode, when the ink hits the paper the dots
spread slightly so that they run together a little. The result is that
for all practical purposes the darkest gray shades are black and the
entire picture is darker than it should be. This can be corrected, of
course, by taking a picture into a paint program or an image processing
program such as the Art Department and adjusting the color map to
lighten it for printing. This is the method I use when preparing
something for printing in the newsletter and it is quite effective and
very quick once you've done it a few times. Still, it leaves me with
the feeling that for some purposes there should be a simpler way.
What You Get
So what is DJHelper? It is a new product produced by Creative Focus to
allow you to overcome all the problems I just mentioned -- and more. It
really consists of a couple of parts. First you get a new print driver
called DJH_Driver. Second you get the program DJHelper itself.
DJHelper can be thought of as a second Preferences program. (It is
really more than that but just think of it like that for now.) When you
access a print function the printer.device is activated, the DJH_Driver
is called, and the Preference settings are checked. Then the DJHelper
settings are checked to make final adjustments before sending the output
to the printer. It is this tie-in to normal print functions that makes
the program as powerful and easy to use as it is.
When you buy DJHelper, the first thing you get to do is exercise your
DeskJet a little. There is no printed manual. Instead there is a file
on the disk that is designed to be sent directly to the PAR: device.
The manual is forty-six pages long. This is not a major problem unless
you happen to run out of ink while the print is in process. There is no
easy way to start in the middle of the file since many of the control
codes to initialize the printer are at the beginning. I mention it
because it happened to me.
The DJHelper program consists of four major sections. When you start
the program it comes up on the PAGE screen. Across the top of the
screen are four buttons -- one for each major function of the program:
PAGE, FONT, GRFX, and XMIT. By clicking on the desired button it
appears depressed and you are taken to the appropriate screen. Those
same four buttons appear in each of DJHelper's four screens. Also
constant on each screen are the SAVE, USE, and EXIT buttons. They
correspond to the Preferences buttons which can SAVE the settings as a
default for future printer actions or simply USE them for the current
session.
The PAGE screen corresponds roughly to the text printer setting screen
of Preferences. It should also be noted that all the settings on this
screen supersede those made in Preferences. The reason for this is that
DJHelper allows you much more control than Preferences can over such
things as page length because it was designed specifically for use with
the DeskJet. There are a lot more things you can now control. For
example, Preferences allows you to specify LENGTH. With DJHelper you
may specify TOP MARGIN, TEXT LENGTH, and PAGE LENGTH for much better
control of your output. The DeskJet also has a special TEXT SCALE
function. It is necessary because the DeskJet is incapable of printing
within 1/2 inch of the edges of the paper. That means that it cannot
print the normal 66 lines on a standard page -- unless, of course, you
turn on TEXT SCALE. This scrunches everything down just enough so that
66 lines will print in the accessible areas of the page. DJHelper
allows you to turn this feature on or off at will. LINE WRAP can be
turned on or off. PERF SKIP and AUTO FF (Form Feed) and be turned on or
off. ORIENTATION can be set to either Portrait or Landscape. (The
DeskJet Plus has built in landscape fonts which can now be accessed
directly.) The DIRECTION of print can be set to either Left, Right, or
Both. (Left or Right settings are slower but more accurate, as with
most other printers.)
The FONT screen allows selection of the desired font. The built in font
on the DeskJet is Courier. Everyone has it. With this font you may
control the PITCH (number of characters per inch) and Point (height in
72nds of an inch). Of course you must work within the constraints of
the font you are using. You may also tell DJHelper about any font
cartridges you have installed by simply clicking on INSTALL, clicking on
the TYPEFACE button and scanning though the list of available cartridges
until you see yours. Then simply click on the name of the cartridge,
click on TYPEFACE and click on INSTALL once more and you are set. Click
on SAVE and DJHelper will remember it the next time. And then all you
will need to do to use that font is to select it from the TYPEFACE
section. The FONT screen also provides a way to download fonts to the
DeskJet. Enter the name of the device and drawer containing the font,
click on the file name of the font to be downloaded and then click on
the DOWNLOAD button. The font will be sent to the DeskJet along with
all the appropriate commands to set it up, and at the same time it is
added to the TYPEFACE selection box. The other major function that the
FONT screen provides is the conversion of LaserJet fonts to DeskJet
fonts. Enter a drawer and file name to convert, enter a drawer and
filename for the converted font, and click on the CONVERT button. It
doesn't get too much easier.
The GRFX screen is where control is provided over graphic dumps. The
functions provided on this screen work with those in Preferences rather
than superseding them as was the case on the PAGE screen. The major
function of the GRFX screen is to control the darkness or lightness of
the printed image. Each of the sixteen possible gray tones is
individually adjustable. And there are buttons for a LINEAR map (same
as the standard DeskJet driver provided by Commodore), a TEMPER map
(recommended settings), an INVERT map (a negative image), and a USER'S
map which can be set and stored with the other program defaults. This
is not the only function provided however. You may also indicate
whether to use compressed graphic information (greatly speeds printing)
and you may accurately locate an image anywhere on the page in terms of
Dots (300 per inch), Decipoints (720 per inch), or Row and Column
position.
The XMIT screen is very technical in nature and will probably seldom be
used by most people. First, it allows binary editing of files. In
other words you can manipulate a print file before sending it to the
printer -- perhaps to add some necessary printer setup commands.
Second, you can write your own printer driver so that certain codes will
result in certain different codes being sent to the printer. The uses
for this are, at best, obscure.
What You Don't Get
As you can see, DJHelper is an extremely powerful program. It allows
access to functions that simply have not been available before through
the standard Preferences settings. It is not without its flaws, however
-- and now it is time to explore them.
The PAGE screen allows you to set up the text page just the way you want
it. Nothing is left out. Or is there? If you think of the program as
you do Preferences everything is fine. You make changes to your
settings, save them as defaults, and from then on everything works as
expected. The problem is, a program this powerful is inviting you to
change settings on the fly and use whatever settings are appropriate for
the particular file you are currently working with. That being the
case, why didn't Creative Focus provide a simple file requester and a
means to send that file to the printer. Making the changes in DJHelper
and then switching over to the CLI to type the command "Copy filename to
PRT:" is clumsy and unnecessary. A few lines of code would have made it
a lot easier to live with. Or at least provide an ARexx port so the
feature could be provided by the user of the product.
The FONT screen has its share of problems as well. The file requester
used to select fonts to be downloaded or converted is extremely
primitive. There is no way to bring up a list of available devices from
which to make a selection -- the device name must be typed in. To
select a file, you must first click in a box to put the file name in --
an unnecessary and annoying step. This is not the way Amiga programs
are normally written. As for the font conversion process, I gave it a
try with about 8 different public domain fonts that I downloaded from
one of the major networks. They were all proportional fonts but all of
the converted fonts were incorrectly spaced when printed which rendered
them ugly and unusable. In all fairness I must say that I have not seen
any of these printed on a LaserJet so I cannot say for sure that the
problem was in the conversion process -- they may have been ugly to
start with.
That brings us to the GRFX screen. I have no complaint with what it
does -- just an observation. I have found it much more effective to
adjust the color palette with an image processing program (The Art
Department) than to allow corrections to be done with DJHelper. It
helps me to be able to see the image and the effects my changes are
making before I commit to print. This may be just personal preference
and certainly is not a complaint.
The Verdict
You decide. If you have a DeskJet, DeskJet Plus, or the new DeskJet 500
and have found yourself frustrated by some of the things you cannot do,
by all means buy this product. I find myself more frustrated by the
things DJHelper cannot do rather than what it does. The omission of a
file print capability is a major annoyance. The inclusion of that
capability OR and ARexx port so I could solve the problem myself would
make the program a lot better. Alternately, and probably even better,
would be a way to control DJHelper without using the Intuition interface
at all. In other words I would like to be able to call DJHelper with a
set of parameters and have it change the settings on the fly without
having to look at it. In this way I could make it part of my own print
utility.
As I said, you decide. It is a terrific product. My complaints are
mostly personal preferences and may even be fixed in future releases.
Maybe I need to send a copy of this review to Creative Focus.?
--
George Taylor - SWBT - Regional Marketing
208 S. Akard, Room 0551, Dallas, Texas 75202
UUCP: { pyramid, uunet, bellcore }...!swbatl!taylor
PHON: 214-464-5319 FAX: 214-464-5576