[comp.protocols.appletalk] Hacking Chooser limits

zook@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov (Craig A. Zook x4206) (03/29/91)

We have just gone from 14 to 19 printers in our appletalk zone.  We noticed
that chooser will only display 14 printers at a time.  We have 5 zone numbers
all with the same zone name, which worked just great until we added the last
5 printers.  For various reasons we do not want to split up into more zone
names.

It looks like what chooser is doing is it displays the first 14 names it
gets and then each time a zone sends an update (once every 10 seconds)
the printers from that zone are added to the bottom of the list and
other
printer are removed to make the total 14.  I have not been able to
determine
how it decides which printers to remove.

Does anybody know how to "hack" the chooser so it can hold more that
14 names at a time?

We also have a copy of "The Namer" (a printer naming program) that can
only display 16 printers at a time.  A "hack" for this would also be
nice.

We are running version 6.0.5 of the system.  And version 2.0 of "The
Namer". 
--
Craig Zook   -   zook@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov
Systems Engineeering and Administration
McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Corp. - Engineering Services Division
(713) 283-4206

tom@wcc.oz.au (Tom Evans) (04/03/91)

In article <1991Mar28.190651@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov>, zook@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov (Craig A. Zook  x4206) writes:
> We have just gone from 14 to 19 printers in our appletalk zone.  We noticed
> that chooser will only display 14 printers at a time.  

I seem to remember that it is a CHARACTER limit, as the Chooser only
allocates a limited number of bytes (256 or 512 or something) for all
the responses.

Thus if you are able to shorten your printer names you might be able
to fit them all in. Start on the longer ones first.

========================
Tom Evans  tom@wcc.oz.au ** ADD ".au" MANUALLY (don't trust "reply") **
Webster Computer Corp P/L, 1270 Ferntree Gully Rd Scoresby, Melbourne 3179
Victoria, Australia 61-3-764-1100  FAX ...764-1179  A.C.N. 004 818 455

lemke@radius.com (Steve Lemke) (04/10/91)

In article <1991Mar28.190651@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov>, zook@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov (Craig A. Zook  x4206) writes:
> We have just gone from 14 to 19 printers in our appletalk zone.  We noticed
> that chooser will only display 14 printers at a time.  

19 printers in the same zone?  Isn't this a sign that it's time to make a new
zone??  Your network traffic going to all of those printers must be incredible!
I would think that the easiest way to deal with this would be to break that
zone up into (at LEAST) two separate zones...

--Steve

-- 
----- Steve Lemke, KC6QDT - Software Engineering, Radius Inc., San Jose -----
----- Reply to: lemke@radius.com -- U.C. Santa Barbara ECE Class of '89 -----
----- "I'm not a UNIX wizard, but I play the Postmaster at radius.com." -----

hayes@Apple.COM (Jim Hayes) (04/10/91)

lemke@radius.com (Steve Lemke) writes in article <1429@radius.com>:
>
>19 printers in the same zone?  Isn't this a sign that it's time to make a new
>zone??  Your network traffic going to all of those printers must be incredible!
>I would think that the easiest way to deal with this would be to break that
>zone up into (at LEAST) two separate zones...

Not necessarily.  You can split things into multiple networks with the
same zone name and avoid the traffic bottlenecks.  It really depends on
your topology.  But that's neither here nor there...

The Chooser has been changed extensively for System 7 and now
dynamically allocates space for names (as well as sorting them.)  This
is a win for zones with many printers and AppleShare servers.


-- 
Jim Hayes, Network Manager (I manage the hardware, not the network group)
Engineering Network Services, Apple Computer Inc.

Inet: hayes@apple.com		 UUCP: {amdcad|decwrl|ames}!apple!hayes