ReadMe.txt for wxPr

Version 0.5 build 890+ Feb 25/09

What is new:

The program has been converted to Unicode, but for machines 
running Win98/ME an ANSI version is also available.

A new choice box has been added to allow selecting the printer
 - or printer equivalent utility - such as PDF or XPS generator 
 - to which the output should go.

This is a preliminary release. Some intended features are not
implemented as yet, the rest have been tested but may still
contain more bugs. ;-) YMMV

For the current version see:
http://www.columbinehoney.net/wxPr.shtml

The program is intended as a replacement for the old PCMag utility
winPrn by Jeff Prosise published back in June 1994.

It is implemented as wxWidget based dialog application.

Currently it only handles one and 2 up printing.

This is a beta release to allow testing and feedback. Hopefully,
it also will encourage some more review of the wxWidgets printing
framework - or at least my understanding of it.

General rant:

The file wxPrintFrameWork.txt contains a skeleton flowchart for the
wxWidgets print framework.

I have yet to completely understand its intricacies. In fact I
suspect that it is not completely as it should and could be.

The problem as it sits right now is that there seems to be no
consistent way to paginate a file properly without resorting to
contortions which should not be necessary.

In order to paginate a file, we need a printer context, but that is
not available in the suggested flow of control until after the printer
dialog box has been displayed and dismissed. But, to be able to decide
which pages or range of pages to print - which ought to be displayed
and selected as part of the printer dialog - one need to have the file
paginated, which requires a printer DC, which .....

So I looked through the code and concluded, that perhaps calling the
main Print() function with a 'false' argument might be the way to go
and it almost seems right, because in that case we never call
OnPrintPage() - because at this stage maxPage still = 0 and so we
can't do any printing.

But ... we still display the "Printing - Abort" message box.

Perhaps, this might be a problem inherent in emulating the MS
print framework too closely, perhaps the 'Abort' dialog should be
conditional on maxPage > 0 as is the actual calls to print pages.
I don't know, but would like to find out.

Installation:

This release comes as a ready to run installation package, complete 
with an un-install feature.

When using the program, ignore the temporary "Printing - Abort"
message box. It is shown during the time it takes to paginate the file
and I have not found a way to hide it or prevent it from showing
without modifying wxWidgets itself. This will not be visible on some 
of faster machines.

Other details:

Page Setup has not been thoroughly tested -and is currently disabled
until I can do more testing. Preview has not been tested a lot,
but does work after a fashion in that it does work on one-up, but on
2-up it displays each half page separately. At present it seems to 
come close to the actual printed copy you will see. There are times 
when there are some minor differences.

Also, in this release, one still can't print from Preview. You need 
to go back to the main dialog for that.


------------------------

Problems - to be fixed

if 'Border' is not enabled, the footer - if enabled - overwrites the 
last line of text.

Preview for 2-up displays only half a page at a time.

------------------------
Wibnis & Todos

  Drag & Drop?

  Booklet printing

  Multiplex - double sided printing

  4-up printing