topic-8295

Posts: 233

Joined: Sat Dec 30, 2006 06:10 AM

Print Setup
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 03:33 AM

My users find it strange that they have to select a Printer when all they want to do is Preview first (That is complicated by the fact that the Select Printer Dialog box actually says "Print")

I have to make the user "Select a Printer" before the preview, because in the preview screen there is no option to "Select a Printer"

Is there a way around this? i.e. Show the previewed Output and then let the user select a printer, change properties etc. and then print.

Many thanks

Ollie.

Using:

xHarbour Compiler build 1.2.1 (SimpLex) (Rev. 6406)

Borland C++ 5.5.1

FWH 9.04 (2009 Apr)

Antonio Linares

Posts: 44162

Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 05:47 PM

Print Setup
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 06:23 AM

Ollie,

If you do:

Code: Select all Collapse

PRINT oPrn PREVIEW
   PAGE
      oPrn:Say( 2, 2, "Hello" )
   ENDPAGE
ENDPRINT

then the preview will be shown and no request to select a printer will be done, as FWH will use the default selected printer

regards, saludos

Antonio Linares
www.fivetechsoft.com

Rick Lipkin

Posts: 2706

Joined: Fri Oct 07, 2005 01:50 PM

Print Setup
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 01:25 PM

Antonio

I think what Ollie is asking is that the only time we get a chance to get the printers is before the preview is run ..

It would be nice ( if possible ) that there could be a getprinters dialog in rpreview and another icon added to the preview tool bar to chose the printer after the output has gone to preview.

Thanks
Rick Lipkin
SC Dept of Health, USA

Guest

Posts: 0

Joined: unknown

Print Setup
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 02:04 PM

I think it could be difficult because the metrics for the preview are taken from the current default printer driver.

To choose the printer AFTER the preview is shown, you need an "independent" device, which is difficult to implement since you need basic metrics for the printing calculations

The easy way would be to REBUILD the report once showed in the preview, I mean, you add the printer choose dialog from the preview, and then you will build the report again WITHOUT previewing and send it right to the printer

James Bott

Posts: 4840

Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2005 04:52 PM

Print Setup
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 03:14 PM

Rene is right, the preview is a preview of what the report will look like on a specific print device, and then when you wish to print to a different device, you need to rebuild the report. If you change the print device after the preview, this may have the undesirable side effect of the actual printed report not being exactly the same as the preview. The user will, of course, blame the program.

A better option is to provide the standard File-Printer Setup on the menu and also display the current printer name on the message bar. It can also be displayed on the print button tooltip. This way the user can easily see what the application's currently selected printer is. They will learn to select a printer before generating a preview.

I don't recommend asking the user to select a printer before each report. This is tedious for the user. The program should make some basic assumptions based on probability. What is the probability that the user doesn't want to use the current printer? Better yet, what is the probabilty that the user doesn't want to use the printer that they just used last time? An even smarter program would keep track of which printers each user uses for each report, then assume they want to use the same one next time. A really smart program would keep track of which printer was used the last ten times. If the user printed to printer A nine times then to printer B on the tenth time, which printer is the user most likely to use on the 11th time?

Probability is not the same as possibility. Just because a user MIGHT want to do something doesn't mean that it is likely. When the user prints to the same printer 9 out of 10 times, asking the user which printer they want every time they print is not a good interface design. Maybe you could ask them the first 5 or 10 times, then after that always make an assumption based on probability and not ask anymore.

Less is more. No matter how great you think your interface is, less of it would be better.

James

FWH 18.05/xHarbour 1.2.3/BCC7/Windows 10

rspilon

Posts: 8

Joined: Sat Apr 28, 2007 05:58 AM

Correction
Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 04:25 PM

The very nature of enhanced metafiles allows device independence on playback due to the correct information being recorded in metafiles via device abstraction.

The only limitation is the destination device on playback - ie - resolution et al.

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