If you refill your StyleWriter ink cartridge, you may have discovered that one thing you should try not to do is to let it run dry. This utility silently monitors the number of pages printed and warns you when the ink cartridge is close to running out, so that you can refill it.
This utility owes its original inspiration to Sven Jakubith’s StyleWriter II PageNum utility. SWIIPrintUseMonitor supplements rather than replaces that utility.
This program is free-ware, so it can be copied and distributed freely.
If you want to you can drop me an email at
smiths@ferndown.ate.slb.com
Steve Smith
How it Works
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SWIIPrintUseMonitor examines a file called ‘StyleWriter II Log’. This is a TeachText document that is updated by the StyleWriter II driver every time a document is printed. SWIIPrintUseMonitor processes this file and counts how many pages the StyleWriter has printed so far. If the number of pages is greater than a pre-defined number (default 300), a warning message is displayed in a console window. If the number of pages printed is less than this number then the Application exits without printing a message (and without creating a console window).
Installation
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SWIIPrintUseMonitor has to be run in the ‘Printing Prefs’ folder inside the ‘Preferences’ folder inside the ‘System Folder’, where the ‘StyleWriter II Log’ file lives. Having copied it there, make an alias to SWIIPrintUseMonitor and move it to the ‘Startup Items’ folder. Thereafter, whenever you start your Mac, SWIIPrintUseMonitor will check and warn you if the number of pages printed exceeds the suggested maximum.
Customising the utility
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I have set the default maximum expected cartridge life to 300. If you want to change it to something else, then you can do this by adding the following line to the ‘StyleWriter II Log’ file...
*** Maximum Ink Cartridge Life:xxx
...where xxx is your new maximum. Make sure that you get the syntax exactly as printed here. There is an example ‘StyleWriter II Log’ file included with this release.
When you replace or refill your ink cartridge, be sure to initialise the ‘StyleWriter II Log’ file, either by removing the contents using the TeachText editor, or by replacing it with the example copy included with this release.
Of course, if your ‘StyleWriter II Log’ file was not initialised when you last changed your cartridge, you will have to ‘cook the books’ a bit. One way is to have a guess at how many pages you have printed so far, and then add a line to the ‘StyleWriter II Log’ file...
Number of pages printed: nnn
...where nnn is your ‘fiddle factor’. Again, make sure that you get the syntax exactly right, including the 2 leading spaces.
