Printer dll

[Cableguy]

Hi guys

Before the forum was hacked,again, I had a thread about wrapping the Printer.DLL wich seems to be a native(?) dll...

Not sure who, but someone replied ( thank you ) saying that I only needed to establish a serial conection between the device and the printer and send string to it...

But I was targeting the Desktop....From what I could read in several pages in Internet, Printer dll support returning the default printer, setting a default printer, print preview, etc....

I think that with a working printer support our apps could turn much more powerfull, and thus making Basic4Ppc much more visible....

[Erel]

I've attached a small library named DesktopOnly.
As it name suggests it can only be used on the desktop.
Currently it only includes the Printer object which allows printing strings and text files.
In the future it will include more functionality and will be released with all other libraries.
The documentation is included in the zip file.

[petrbury]

Yupee .
Thank you very much Erel, you've made me happy this day.
Petr

[Cableguy]

Erel, you are supperb....

I don't know if this lib was already in the making and it was just my good timing or if I started you going...anyway...

Thanks!!!! a LOT

Only You to release a new Lib the day it was "requested"!!!!

[Erel]

Actually it was partially finished (some weeks ago).
But when I saw your request I've decided to finish the work and publish it.
As I wrote, this library will include much more functionality in the future.

[dzt]

Thank you Erel.

CableGuy,

Actualy before the forum restore you've posted a request for a printer libraryl based on the artice of the following link http://www.codeproject.com/netcf/CFPrinterClass.asp which is for the compact framework.

My answer was the following.

It is easy to print ASCII characters to a serial, IR, or Bluetooth line (or even page) printer (as the class you mentioned above does) from your device.

You need only to open a serial connection to your printer using serial library (with the right BaudRate etc.) and then send strings followed by CRLF to change line. When you are finished with your page send a form feed character (ASCII character 12) to change page. Then close the serial connection.

Send escape sequences (look to your printer's technical guide) for bold, italics, condensed, emphasized etc. characters.
It is that simple.

But this method prints only ASCII character (0-127) and Extended ASCII (128-255).

If you need to print graphics, barcodes or unicode strings then you must do much more because it is printer depended.

You should go deep into your printer as there is not a printing engine (as there is for Desktop Windows) for Windows Mobile with printer drivers etc. or use a third party control.

I personally to print to thermal label printers, I use from www.fieldsoftware.com it's PrinterCE.NetCF SDK. It is a commercial product and supports only concrete printers.

[Cableguy]

Dzt, thanks for retrieving my previous post a sub-sequencial reply....