[Coco] Printing on a Coco with modern printers.

[Aaron Wolfe]

On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 7:11 PM, Tim Fadden <t.fadden at cox.net> wrote:

>> Actually it generates files in one of several image formats (PNG, jpeg,
>> etc).
>>
>> It can then invoke the command or script of your choice, which means
>> you can feed these images to a printer automatically or into a PDF or
>> pretty much anything else you like.  I suppose I could add an option
>> to have DW feed the printer directly too, just never had anyone ask
>> for that :)
>>
>> --
>> Coco mailing list
>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
>> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>>
> Guess I Need to RTFM!  my bad.....    Straight to a printer would be nice
> though.
>

I don't think there is anything on the Wiki about printing.  It's
pretty straightforward though.

In config.xml you'll find a printer section like this:

<Printer category="printing">
   <Driver list="TEXT,FX80" type="list">FX80</Driver>
   <OutputDir type="directory"/>
   <OutputFile type="file"/>
   <FlushCommand type="string"/>
   <CharacterFile type="file">default.chars</CharacterFile>
   <Columns max="132" min="1" type="int">80</Columns>
   <Lines max="132" min="1" type="int">66</Lines>
   <DPI max="1200" min="50" type="int">300</DPI>
   <ImageFormat list="JPG,GIF,PNG,BMP" type="list">PNG</ImageFormat>
</Printer>

Driver can be TEXT or FX80.  If TEXT, Drivewire just writes whatever
the CoCo sends to a file.  If FX80, DW sends it to an emulated epson
fx80, which then outputs image files.

OutputDir and OutputFile specify where the output is created.  If
OutputFile is set, all output is written (appended) to the same
specified file.  Probably not what you want unless it sounds like
exactly what you want.  Most folks will not want to set it, and
instead will set OutputDir which tells DW to create new files for each
print job (or page, in FX80 mode) in the specified directory.  If both
are set, OutputFile wins.

FlushCommand is any command you'd like executed after DW writes a new
file or appends to the OutputFile.  If the string '$file' is in this
command, it will be replaced with the full path of the file DW just
created.

The remaining settings only apply to FX80 mode:

CharacterFile is the font definition for the FX80.  The default
setting specifies an included file that matches the default font the
FX80 used.  Its a very simple human readable format.

Columns and Lines define the dimensions of an FX80 text page.  You
could for instance change Columns to 132 to emulate one of those
really wide variants in the epson fx family, or change Lines to
simulate different paper length.  The defaults match what a regular
FX80 used on 8.5x11 paper.

DPI and ImageFormat control the image files that the FX80 emulator produces.