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Text File | 1989-05-10 | 15KB | 283 lines

ClipArTALOGUE aka PIC_LOG COPYRIGHT 1988 Chet Walters For HP DeskJet/LaserJet Epson LQ or Epson 9 pin printers UNLIMITED VERSION Seriously folks! I found a need for this program which is why I wrote it. Mind you, I wrote it just for me at first, but as it developed I thought maybe you might use it so I polished it up a bit and wrote a version for the HP Deskjet as well as my own Epson. It prints any DEGAS, Tiny or NEOchrome pics on your printer. I have a good number of clip art pics for use with our newsletter and I got quite frustrated with searching through all these pics to find just the right art to clip. Hey, I thought! Why not print them and put 'em in a ring binder! Simple enough you might say and so I thought, but I spent a full hour one night and got only about 12 pics onto paper. Yikes! There had to be a better way! Besides the fact that there's no really easy to use program that will just load and print a pic, there's also minor problem when printing quite a few pics from the ST screen on a 9-pin printer. The ST's resolution is 400 dots (points of 1/72 inch) top to bottom as far as the system's screen dump is concerned (even in the low and medium res). This is just a tad more than half of a page of printer paper. Eleven inch paper is 792 points high. Divide that by two and you get 396. OOOOPS! Just 4 points shy of an ST screen dump which means you must either waste half a page by printing only one pic to a page then punching the form feed button or you can try printing two pics to a page then roll the platen back a few notches starting again with a bit of a mess (8 points high) at the top of each page. THIS, I can tell you, requires MUCH babysitting while all the time listening to that unearthly rasp of the print head while it grates across the page! UGH! And for the Deskjet or LQ, well, Easy Draw will print only 9 graphics per page and the files can become quite large when dealing with entire screens to say nothing of the page layout procedure! Well, computers are supposed to make life less of a hassle (a point that's moot to some, no doubt) so I set to work to make it easier cataloging my full screen clip art. I put together ClipArTALOGUE in a few hours by using GFA BASIC v2.0 routines from various sources, some from the GFA book, some I had written, and a few borrowed from PD software. This program will load any DEGAS, Tiny or NEO pics in any resolution regardless of what resolution it's in currently (runs in all three, by the way). It will load a single pic and send it off or it will serially load and dump an entire diskfull of pics without the need of a babysitter (that's YOU if you know what I mean). It employs a few tricks to save paper by fitting two pics to a page on Epson 9 pin compatibles, 8 pics per on Epson LQ and 15 (YUP! count 'em) per page on the Deskjet! TAKE NOTE OF THIS! For EPSON compatibles, THE PROGRAM USES THE SYSTEM'S SCREEN DUMP SO YOU MUST HAVE YOUR DESKTOP SET UP FOR YOUR PRINTER. For Deskjet's & LQs there is a completely different algorithm for loading and printing which is why there's two separate programs (Also for memory conservation so you don't need the aggravation of loading both drivers) If you have an EPSON 9 pin printer, run PIC_LOG2.PRG. For Deskjet or LQs, run HPLQ_LOG.PRG. It may override some of your defaults so it's best to cold start the printer both before and after running the program. I'll say this only once here so read this paragraph again and take note. INITIAL SCREEN The initial screen has a box with three buttons marked SOME, ALL, and QUEST (SET for HP_LQ). Poking the SOME button enables you to load a single pic of any resolution which is then dumped to the printer after confirmation from you (in three possible sizes for HP owners). Short, sweet and simple with no tricks, bells or whistles. Period! FOR HP DESKJET or LQ OWNERS: (9 pins skip to next section) After you press the ALL button, you are greeted with the following: SHOWEM: This is a simple toggle which will cause the program to alternate among the three screens currently undergoing the print process. Since the program was primarily designed for use with monochrome pics on a monochrome monitor, showing color pics on a monochrome screen or ANY pics on a color screen will slow the print process because the pic must be redrawn EACH time. NO SHOW: This button will cause the program to display only the last pic of the three currently under print. There is no speed loss here. ABORT: Go back to the initial screen. The program takes full advantage of your printer's resolution and prints as many pics per page as can be comfortable for viewing. FOR EPSON: (HP LQ owners skip to next section) The QUEST button requires a bit of detailed explanation. I needed a word which would denote two choices because GFA 2 allows only three buttons to an alert box and the program required four choices at the initial screen. "Quest" is a combination of the words "quit" and "test" those being the choices this button allows. I arrived at this word after a few moments of careful consideration during which three combinations of the two words boiled to the top immediately. The first that came to mind was "TUIT" which combines the first letter of "test" and the last three of "quit." I tossed it out because not only is it an unattractive word, it is too easily pronounced "twit" with some unfavorable connotations (possibly related to this programmer). The second word that surfaced combined the first letter of "test" and only the last two letters of "quit." No dice. While that word has obvious connotations which may excite some of the more liberal minded of end users, I felt it had to go. "Quest" came to mind next, an attractive word with romantic connotations that looks quite good in a button box. QUEST allows you to QUIT the program, TEST your printer, or NEITHER. Why TEST the printer? To print a log of multiple screens properly without any babysitting, ClipArTALOGUE requires that the paper be set initially to EXACTLY TOP OF FORM with the top pin of the printhead precisely aligned with the perf. Punching the TEST button fires the top pin of the printhead in a series of dots across the page and also sets your printer at its tiniest paper advance increment. To use this button effectively, set your paper just a bit low of TOF and punch the TEST button. Note the position of the dots according to the perf then press the LINE FEED button on your printer until you feel that the top pin is aligned with the perforation. Punch the TEST button again. When those little dots are nearly invisible because they are printed directly on the perf your printer is set at EXACTLY top of form. You are now ready to punch the ALL button on the initial screen. Here you're greeted with again three buttons: 2/PAGE F-FEED IGNORE If your printer is If your printer This button will capable of reverse line won't perform reverse cause the program to feeds (push tractor line feeds (pull just load and dump the types), this button tractor type), this pics without any will cause the program button will cause the concern for paper to use every last program to print two positioning. This available point on each screens on a page then works well if you do page printing two pics advance the paper to not decollate the fan to a page until the the next TOF leaving a fold when printing is files it finds within blank page between done (leave the paper the path you have printed pages (recall as is and stick it in chosen are exhausted that two screens won't a manilla folder in (and your ribbon too!) fit on a page). your filing cabinet). We accomplish the 2/PAGE feature by stealing two scan lines from the top of each pic and a like number from the bottom (you'll likely not miss them). We then move the pic up to the top of the screen and after the dump we reverse the printer 4 points to cover the empty space. This makes 8 lines reversed for each page making the subsequent page start at TOF. For the F-FEED feature, we load and print the entire first pic then steal the bottom 8 lines of the second pic on each page. Though the printer will attempt to print onto the next page, there is only blank space to dump so no ink actually gets onto the paper. Between each set of two pics there will be a completely pristine blank piece of paper which you can use as you see fit once you decollate your catalogue. The quality of the catalogue resulting from your pressing either of these buttons is greatly dependent upon your setting the printer to exactly TOF so you can see the value of the QUEST button. Use it to your advantage. FOR EVERYONE: (HP LQ and EPSON owners read the following) After you punch one of these three buttons, the GEM fileselector will appear. Choose the path from which to print (ClipArTALOGUE will not dig into any subdirectories on its own so the pics you wish to print must be visible in the fileselector window) and click on the OK button. The filenames matching protocol for extenders (ie PI1-PI3, PC1-PC3, TNY, TN1- TN3, or NEO) will be extracted and displayed on the screen. You then have to opportunity to enter a name for this section of catalogue or you can type "!" to abort the print. Normally you would enter disk name or number here. For the EPSON dump, in the upper right hand corner of the screen prior to printing each pic, the program prints the name of the pic and also this string. For the HP DESKJET run, this string is printed in the upper right hand corner of the page along with the current path. This is to help you reference the pic easily among your files, but keep it short. CAVEATS (ain't there always some!) This program was written in a very short time with little attention to bells, whistles or ERRORS. Though it runs flawlessly when treated properly, it may crash with bad media or unprompted disk swaps so don't try to play tricks on it. It was designed primarily for use with HI RES pics of clip art and though it will load and dump any resolution screen from any resolution, the actual hues of a color pic will not display since colors are set to print in the grey_scale. This program is best run in monochrome or at least medium resolution though it will run in low. Color screens will MURDER your ribbon if you're using an EPSON and will empty a Deskjet cartridge rather quickly! Pay close attention to your printer and ribbon! A frayed ribbon will DESTROY your printhead if you don't keep an eye on it. Frayed ribbons should be discarded! If you are using an EPSON, you can print on both sides of the paper but make sure your ribbon is rather dry at the start (it will be at the finish .. guaranteed!) Do not try to dump 700 pics at once from your hard drive, you'll annihilate your printer! Print thirty relatively uncomplicated pics (roughly a diskfull) and let your printer cool. If you're printing color pics, half that amount. If you're using an HP Deskjet, it is not recommended you print on both sides of the paper since the ink has a tendency to print through. I do not have access to an HP LASER printer so I can make no claim as to compatibility with LASER printers. If you have access to one and find that this program works, please let me know (address below){see notes}. This program was written in GFA BASIC v2.0 and assembly routines were coded with ASSEMPRO. Dox were written with Word Perfect v4.1 (I am finally getting used to that program and find it fun to play with so I had a tendency to ramble with this dissertation, sorry). Version 1.6 of PIC_LOG and 2.1 of JET_LOG and this doc are: COPYRIGHT 1988,89 Chet Walters NEO STAG P.O. Box 45 Girard, OH 44420 They are not to be distributed nor sold without permission in writing of Chet Walters by any club, organization or anyone but NEO STAG. If you have obtained these programs from a BBS, purchased them as part of a club disk or have obtained them from anyone other than NEO STAG, please write to the address above and let us know where you got them. Support the SHAREWARE NETWORK! NOTES: Version 2.0 of HP/LQ has an initial Alert at the beginning which asks you to choose your printer. If you have an HP Deskjet, click on HP. If you have an Epson LQ or compat, click on LQ. Subsequently, your choice is echoed in the SOME ALL SET alert. CLick on the SET button to re-select if you have made an error. Click on SET also to exit the program. 2/13/89 v2.1 Thanks to Gary at B&G Electronics in Lakewood near Cleveland, we have now been able to add compatibility with the HP LaserJet as well. It seems there are some differences in the ROMS between the DeskJet and the Laser printer and even some differences in the ROMS of like models so you may have to experiment with the settings in the program. If you find that your pic titles are either creeping up or down into the screen dumps as the page progresses, try a different setting. What you need to do to toggle this "fudge factor" on or off is to hold down the SHIFT key when clicking the HP button in the title box. What seems to be the norm is holding SHIFT down for LaserJet printers and leaving it alone for DeskJets. 4/11/89 For all your Atari hardware and software needs, call: B&G Electronics 15729 Madison Ave. Lakewood, OH 44107 216-521-2855 (tell Gary that Chet sent ya!)