at15+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew Lewis Tepper) (06/21/89)
I'm considering writing a printer driver for the Macintosh that will appear
in the Chooser menu, and will display each page onscreen rather than send
it to an actual printer. I have been unable to locate any information on
the subject of printer drivers. Does anyone out there have specifics?
I'm planning to work in LSC.
Thanks in advance,
Andy Tepper
at15@andrew.cmu.edujohn@trigraph.uucp (John Chew) (06/22/89)
In article <kYbmHhy00WB2IUnVEU@andrew.cmu.edu> Andy Tepper <at15@andrew.cmu.edu> writes: >I'm considering writing a printer driver for the Macintosh that will appear >in the Chooser menu, and will display each page onscreen rather than send >it to an actual printer. I have been unable to locate any information on >the subject of printer drivers. Does anyone out there have specifics? >I'm planning to work in LSC. Are you aware that there already is a good shareware device that does this? Preview (the latest copy I have is v1.4) by Randy Ubillos of COMPUTER:applications, Inc. (1986 documentation gives an address of 12813 Lindley Dr. Raleigh NC 27614) displays a reduced view of each printed page and lets you zoom in on specific areas by clicking with a magnifying glass. If you're still interested in writing the driver out of sheer masochism, there's an excellent article by Joel West in the June 1989 issue of MacTutor dealing with all the horrible things that poorly written applications can do to printer drivers, which is worth reading just for its entertainment value. John -- john j. chew, iii phone: +1 416 425 3818 AppleLink: CDA0329 trigraph, inc., toronto, canada {uunet!utai!utcsri,utgpu,utzoo}!trigraph!john dept. of math., u. of toronto poslfit@{utorgpu.bitnet,gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca}
kent@lloyd.camex.uucp (Kent Borg) (06/23/89)
In article <kYbmHhy00WB2IUnVEU@andrew.cmu.edu> at15+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew Lewis Tepper) writes: >I'm considering writing a printer driver for the Macintosh that will appear >in the Chooser menu, and will display each page onscreen rather than send >it to an actual printer. I have been unable to locate any information on >the subject of printer drivers. Does anyone out there have specifics? Don't do it. It will break under 7.0. The question is then how to to do it under 7.0. First, it will be technically much easier then. Second, it might be bureaucratically (never could spell that word) more difficult. Apple will be licensing the "Tackle Box" needed to do it, but it looks like they will only be targeting it for commercial developers, and so might put a terrible price on it. (I know they do want, as part of the deal, one of your first born. That is, they want a copy of the output device you are driving.) Kent Borg kent@lloyd.uucp or ...!husc6!lloyd!kent
tonyg@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (Tony Gedge) (02/22/90)
Does anyone out there know where I might find some more information about writing a Printer Driver for the Mac? I've read the stuff about it in Inside Mac and after looking at the HP DeskJet Printer Driver code I can understand most of what is required, but I still don't know how the communication between the Printing Manager and the PDEF resources is handled nor how exactly to tie the PDEF resources to the global settings and to the low level driver itself. The DeskJet Driver is not too badly commented, but the use of that special header on the PDEF resources really threw mw a bit. Thanx in advance. Please e-mail responses to the address below. Tony Gedge. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Computer Science Department, | tonyg@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au | | University of Queensland, Australia.| "CC stands for Cryptic Crossword" | -------------------------------------------------------------------------
thomas@duteca (Thomas Okken) (12/29/90)
I want to write a couple of Macintosh printer drivers. I need a good preview driver, which "Preview 2.5" isn't; a DeskJet driver that supports PrGeneral; and a good Daisy wheel driver. I have IM I-V, but all I can find there is how an application can print; the driver's side of the story is not mentioned at all. I heard some rumours recently that Apple was about to release the definitive guide to writing printer drivers, but I have not seen this yet. For the time being, I have nothing at all. *Any* source of printer driver writing wisdom is welcome. Please e-mail responses; if anything useful shows up, I'll pass it on to this newsgroup. [There must be a need for this kind of information, how else to explain the near-total lack of decent non-Apple printer drivers?] Thomas (thomas@duteca.et.tudelft.nl)