cookc@computing-maths.cardiff.ac.uk (Chris Cook) (06/05/91)
I've been trying to work out a way that you can print directly from Elm to
a printer attached to a PC. Several Vt100 emulators allow you to print
direct to an attached printer by sending the sequences <ESC>[5i <ESC>[4i before
and after the desired section of text. The printer in question is a Postscript
printer so we would have to pass it through a filter on the way. All this is
done by the local command
pspr -v filename
I've tried inserting this into the options page
PRINT = pspr -v %s
but the best I get is the message is sent to the default print queue. Is there
something in Elm that says if the print option is invalid, send it to some sort
of default? Is there any way this could be overcome - has anybody done this?
It would be a very handy feature as it would allow the printing of messages at
the push of a button, right to your desk. Especially good if your a director
and am printing messages of a sensitive or confidential nature.
Many thanks,
Chris Cook - Postmaster
CookC@cardiff.ac.uk
"It was only when Lister noticed that the ashtray was nibbling at his elbow
that he realised he hadn't landed in paradise..." Red Dwarf III - The Sixth
Universedwolfe@oakhill.sps.mot.com (Dave Wolfe) (06/06/91)
In <1991Jun5.141703.522@cm.cf.ac.uk> cookc@computing-maths.cardiff.ac.uk (Chris Cook) writes: >I've been trying to work out a way that you can print directly from Elm to >a printer attached to a PC. Several Vt100 emulators allow you to print >direct to an attached printer by sending the sequences <ESC>[5i <ESC>[4i before >and after the desired section of text. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it sounds to me like the system running elm doesn't even know that the printer in question exists. When you print a file through the vt100 emulator w/ the escape sequences, do you just use the regular print spooler or do you have to copy the file to /dev/tty? >The printer in question is a Postscript >printer so we would have to pass it through a filter on the way. All this is >done by the local command > pspr -v filename >I've tried inserting this into the options page >PRINT = pspr -v %s >but the best I get is the message is sent to the default print queue. Sounds to me like pspr is sending its output to the print spooler and, in the absence of a specific option or environment variable, that goes in the default print queue. RTFM for pspr (if such exists) to see how to direct the output to a specific printer. If the system doesn't know about the printer connected to the PC, then you're probably going to have to direct pspr's output to a file and blow that file down the line to the PC w/ the escape sequences. A shell script should work nicely; then just set elm's print command to envoke that script. Heaven help you if something else outputs to the PC between the escape sequences, 'cuz that's going to get printed too and it probably won't be valid postscript. -- Dave Wolfe (dwolfe@oakhill.sps.mot.com) | Motorola Incorporated "[RISC is] like obscenity, | MMTG (formerly MPG) we all know what RISC is when we see it, | Austin, Texas 78735-8598 but no one can define it." Chris Torek | m/d OE112 (512)891-3246
les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (06/06/91)
In article <1991Jun5.141703.522@cm.cf.ac.uk> cookc@computing-maths.cardiff.ac.uk (Chris Cook) writes: >I've been trying to work out a way that you can print directly from Elm to >a printer attached to a PC. Several Vt100 emulators allow you to print >direct to an attached printer by sending the sequences <ESC>[5i <ESC>[4i before >and after the desired section of text. The printer in question is a Postscript >printer so we would have to pass it through a filter on the way. All this is >done by the local command > pspr -v filename >I've tried inserting this into the options page >PRINT = pspr -v %s >but the best I get is the message is sent to the default print queue. Is there >something in Elm that says if the print option is invalid, send it to some sort >of default? If the pspr program can take standard input, try using "|pspr -v" instead of "p" to print. I've never understood why print isn't just a special case of piping or why elm doesn't just send out the data directly instead of making readmsg parse the headers all over again each time you print. If pspr insists on having a filename, you can make a little shell script to capture stdin to a file before executing it. Les Mikesell les@chinet.chi.il.us
grahamt@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Graham S Thomas) (06/06/91)
From article <1991Jun5.174013.16184@oakhill.sps.mot.com>, by dwolfe@oakhill.sps.mot.com (Dave Wolfe): > In <1991Jun5.141703.522@cm.cf.ac.uk> cookc@computing-maths.cardiff.ac.uk (Chris Cook) writes: > >>I've been trying to work out a way that you can print directly from Elm to >>a printer attached to a PC. Several Vt100 emulators allow you to print >>direct to an attached printer by sending the sequences <ESC>[5i <ESC>[4i before >>and after the desired section of text. > >>The printer in question is a Postscript >>printer so we would have to pass it through a filter on the way. All this is >>done by the local command >> pspr -v filename >>I've tried inserting this into the options page >>PRINT = pspr -v %s >>but the best I get is the message is sent to the default print queue. We have a program called micropr on our Unix machine, which sends a file to a printer attached to a PC being used as a terminal. Like you, we found that the 'print' variable in elmrc doesn't let us use this. However, we also found an easy solution. Make sure the message you want to print is highlighted, then issue the pipe command '|'. Elm will ask you which program you want to pipe the message through. We just type in 'micropr', and it works. Something analogous ought to work for your pspr program. Best of luck, Graham this for the 50% rule. -- Graham Thomas, SPRU, Mantell Building, U of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9RF, UK Email: grahamt@syma.sussex.ac.uk Phone: +44 273 678165 Fax: .. 685865
malc@equinox.unr.edu (Malcolm Carlock) (06/12/91)
In article <1991Jun5.141703.522@cm.cf.ac.uk> cookc@computing-maths.cardiff.ac.uk (Chris Cook) writes: > >I've been trying to work out a way that you can print directly from Elm to >a printer attached to a PC. We have a utility here called PL which should do what you want, and in fact its main use here is probably printing ELM messages to PC printers. PL reads from one or more files or from the standard input, and prints directly to the terminal's printer port, if the terminal has such a capability according to the Unix system's termcap or terminfo database. Since PL uses termcap/terminfo, it can be used with any terminal that supports such operations, including PC terminal emulators (such as Kermit's VT102 and Procomm's VT100) that support the appropriate ANSI control sequences. PL comes with a set of terminfo/ termcap entries to support several terminals, including VT102, Heath-19, Qume QVT102, Freedom 100, Wyse 50, and several Televideos (hint: the TVI's all use the same sequence...) PL is invoked using 'p' in elm, and appears in the option file as follows: print = pl -q %s 1>&2 The -q option turns off chatty "printing to your terminal's printer" messages. The intent here is to not mess up the ELM screen. ELM seems to intercept stdout from print programs, so the 1>&2 is there to redirect stdout to stderr and get the data to the terminal no matter what. PL is ftp-able from unr.edu (134.197.1.2), in pub/pl. If you can't get to unr.edu using ftp, let me know and I'll mail you the shar file. Hope this helps. -- Malcolm L. Carlock Internet: malc@unr.edu UUCP: unr!malc BITNET: malc@equinox