Printing Support

[spicypixel]

Interesting

[matchy]

Good! HTML to OS browser would be my first quick and easy choice. Problem solved! Tea and scones anyone?

[ampos]

On my TPV proam done in Blitz3D, I use this system to print (pseudo-code):

Code (glbasic) Select Expand

OPENOUT 1,"ticket.txt"
PRINT #1,texts$
CLOSEFILE 1
EXEC "print.bat"


and the print.bat file has:

Code (glbasic) Select Expand

type ticket.txt >lpt1

[Kitty Hello]

Nah. Just call InternetExplorer with an HTML file and "/P" in the parameter list.
Or Wordpad (write.exe) on any windows.

[ampos]

It would be nice to know... 5 years ago

I have been using this since I did my first TPV program looooong ago in TurboBasic.

[TI-994A]

There's 2 very easy ways to do it.

1st: Write a temp HTML file with optional PNG images and call a webbrowser to print it (OK, you must make that platform specific, but only 3 platforms, right?)

2nd: Write an RTF file (a bit harder but gives very accurate control of everything. It's a WORD doc in ASCII so to say. Use Wordpad to get started with the format.

Not very preferable workarounds, ruling out WYSIWYG formatting. The API option would seem to be the only solution, but is there an equivalent call for OSX?

[Slydog]

You could write the equivalent code for OSX using GLB wrappers probably.
Here's some OSX printing info:
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/Printing/Printing.html

Or, this may be more difficult and not what you want, but you can create PDFs from code using Adobe SDK.
This will give you pixel perfect control of the final document, but wont print it for you.
I don't know how this is done or how hard it would be to do through GLB but nothing is impossible.
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/library.html

[TI-994A]

You could write the equivalent code for OSX using GLB wrappers probably.
Here's some OSX printing info:
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/Printing/Printing.html

Or, this may be more difficult and not what you want, but you can create PDFs from code using Adobe SDK.
This will give you pixel perfect control of the final document, but wont print it for you.
I don't know how this is done or how hard it would be to do through GLB but nothing is impossible.
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/library.html

Thanks for the info; will give it a try.

[Moru]

But what do you want to print with bitmap fonts? :-)

[TI-994A]

But what do you want to print with bitmap fonts? :-)

My font of preference would be TrueType, not bitmap. In VB, these fonts can be placed in a LOGFONT structure and drawn with precise positioning and scalability using the CREATEFONT and DRAWTEXT functions. Even images can be positioned and scaled with similar precision using functions like CREATEBMP and BITBLT / STRETCHBLT.

When printing functions are relegated to HTML or RTF output, format control is lost.

[Moru]

But GLBasic only has bitmap fonts what I know of.

[Moebius]

Save as png, print that.  Full control using GLB's commands.   

GLB is designed really for games, and VB is intended for applications.  Unfortunately, you can't expect to find all the features of one programming language in another.  That said, compare how complex it is to have 3D - or even 2D - graphics in VB as opposed to GLB...

[TI-994A]

Save as png, print that.  Full control using GLB's commands.   

GLB is designed really for games, and VB is intended for applications.  Unfortunately, you can't expect to find all the features of one programming language in another.  That said, compare how complex it is to have 3D - or even 2D - graphics in VB as opposed to GLB...

Can GLB print PNG files?

The functions indicated in the previous post (CREATEFONT / DRAWTEXT / BITBLT / etc) are not native VB commands, but rather a subset of the Win32 API. GLBasic can also call and use these functions; the only difference is, with VB these routines can be done in BASIC, while in GLBasic they have to be coded through inline C/C++.

And it's true that VB isn't well suited for extensive graphics programming, which is yet another reason why VB isn't a tool of choice. However, to say that such a powerful cross-compiler like GLBasic should be considered specifically for game development, is selling it short. PureBasic also handles 2D/3D graphics with similar ease, and it is pretty much an all-round development tool. But with the mobile platform support (WinCE / iPhone / etc), GLBasic has a clear advantage.

Considering all these points, expecting native printing support within GLBasic shouldn't be too much to ask.

[Kitty Hello]

RTF is a file format pretty close to wysiwyg. Also, I found out that PDF files are pretty simple text files as well. Pasting a PNG file within a pdf might not be too complicated. That would be worth a try.

[TI-994A]

RTF is a file format pretty close to wysiwyg. Also, I found out that PDF files are pretty simple text files as well. Pasting a PNG file within a pdf might not be too complicated. That would be worth a try.

Thank you, and you're right; the RTF format does produce close to WYSIWYG output, so this is worth looking into. However, the actual printing is still delegated to an external application, assumedly through their command line switches.

Once again, thank you, and to all who have enthusiastically given their suggestions.