gore@eecs.nwu.edu (Jacob Gore) (02/23/89)
celvin%ee.surrey.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk (Chris Elvin): > I have recently installed pc-nfs on a bunch of pc clones and was wondering > if anybody has had experience of printing files remotely other than via > the "net print" command. I'm looking at printing from within GEM or > MS-WINDOWS (and other applcations) and so far, all my output has > disappeared down a black-hole. You can use the "printer hot key" feature, which is supposed to start the printing when you hit the "hot key" (normally ALT-p). But there's a catch: it sometimes takes some... persuasion. Here's what is supposed to happen. When you "print" from whatever application, you'll see the cursor flash in the upper right corner of the screen (that's the PC-NFS network activity indicator). This is because "printing" just concatenates the output to a file that pcnfsd on your server has already opened for that purpose. After the flickering stops, you can either "print" more stuff, or tell pcnfsd that it's OK to hand the spooled stuff off to lpr. You hit ALT-p and the network activity indicator starts flashing again... sometimes. And other times it doesn't. I can only guess what is causing the delay. Exiting the application always causes the printing, but that's a pain. Sometimes you have can do some operations in your applications that somehow make the printing happen. For example, in WordPerfect 5.0, one trick is to just enter the "print" menu, then into "select printer" menu -- ta ta! network activity... PC-KLUGE at work :-) Anyway, once you got the blinking flashing cursor, pcnfsd on the server tacks a ".spl" to the name of the spool file, opens a new spool file for future printing, and sends the .spl file to 'lpr -r' (or something to that effect). Jacob Gore Gore@EECS.NWU.Edu Northwestern Univ., EECS Dept. {oddjob,gargoyle,att}!nucsrl!gore
kuusama@uunet.uu.net (Juha Kuusama) (03/02/89)
by celvin%ee.surrey.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk (Chris Elvin): > I have recently installed pc-nfs on a bunch of pc clones and was wondering > if anybody has had experience of printing files remotely other than via > the "net print" command. I'm looking at printing from within GEM or > MS-WINDOWS (and other applcations) and so far, all my output has > disappeared down a black-hole. I am not very familiar with pc-nfs, but > appear to be following the instructions. Any help is much appreciated. My company has same problems; a site nearby has same problems. We (our company, the nearby site, local university (whose machine I'm using just now) and Finnish SUN representative) have spend a fair amount of time trying to find a solution. No way. I announced my PC users that the network we bought (SUN + PC-NFS) doesn't work as advertised! No printouts from DOS applications. Instead the must send the output into a file, then NET PRINT it. Most of the time they get their output, put sometimes the printout vanishes still. Altough all the major applications we use can send their output into a file, I'm still extremely unhappy. I hope, that a new release of PC-NFS willl get me what I bought (and trusted some of my career!). Juha Kuusama, kuusama@korppi.tut.fi