Printing limitations [was Re: Why isn't Rev more popular?]

[graham samuel]

On Mon, 05 Dec 2005 21:00:58 -0800, Richard Gaskin  
<ambassador at fourthworld.com> wrote:

> [snip]

> In OS X, Mac Classic, and Windows, it's common to define the  
> parameters
> for the print job in the Print window, with some settings defined in
> Page Setup.  Rev gives you access to both:
>
>    answer printer -- brings up the OS standard Page Setup dialog,
>                      which retains settings during the current session
>
>    open printing with dialog -- initiates a print job with the Print
>                      Job dialog presented first.  You can also print
>                      without the Print Job dialog by ommitting "with
>                      dialog".
>
> If you filter the Transcript Dictionary with "print" you'll find a lot
> of properties which govern printing.  You can set these up without  
> ever
> showing the Page Setup dialog, including margins, orientation, scale,
> and more.
>
> The one weakness Rev has is integrating its internal settings with the
> OS print dialogs.  It would be nice to be able to save and restore  
> Page
> Setup info as we can with QuickTime transitions using "answer effect".
>
> The difficulty is that while there's only one QuickTime API, the APIs
> for printing vary broadly and deeply from OS to OS.  This isn't to say
> it wouldn't be worth pursuing (hence the Bugzilla request for it), but
> at least it helps you understand why that's not in place just yet.
>
> Once Classic support is dropped from the engine (no, I've heard of no
> plans, just wishful thinking for the future), printing can be greatly
> enhanced as OS X's printing architecture is more like the rest of the
> world and Classic's is from outerspace.

Yes, more comprehensive interaction with printers is sorely missed  
and would be great... what I find worst about the present situation  
is that I can't tell the true page size available to the marking  
engine of a given printer, i.e. the minimum margins/maximum printable  
area: this means that I can't script the design of a printout to  
exactly fill a page and I can't allow the user to set margins without  
some danger that the printing will be cropped. Some perfectly  
respectable Mac apps (GraphicConverter for example) seem to know  
where to get this info from regardless of the printer driver being  
used, and there are many examples on Windows too... anyway it's been  
Bugzilla'd (5 May 2004, still UNCO, 57 votes at the last count) and  
I'm still hoping for a result.

Graham

----------------------------------------
Graham Samuel / The Living Fossil Co. / UK and France