Solaris Common Desktop Environment: Programmer's Guide

Complete Print Integration

To do complete print integration, your application must:

Provide a print action
Use the four desktop printing environment variables

Desktop Printing Environment Variables

To have fully integrated printing, your application must use the values of the following four environment variables. The LPDEST variable is particularly important. It provides the ability for the user to choose the print destination by using a particular printer drop zone.

Printing Variable
	Description
`LPDEST`	Uses the specified value as the printer destination for the file. If the variable is not set, the default printing device for your application should be used.
`DTPRINTUSERFILENAME`	Specifies the name of the file as it should appear in the Print dialog or print output. If the variable is not set, the actual file name should be used.
`DTPRINTSILENT`	Specifies whether to display a Print dialog box. When the variable is set to True, the Print dialog should not be displayed. If the variable is not set, the dialog box should be displayed.
`DTPRINTFILEREMOVE`	When the variable is set to True, the file should be removed after it is printed. This functionality is intended for temporary files that don't need to be retained after printing is complete. If the variable is not set, the file should not be removed.

A Fully Integrated Print Action

The print action is usually defined in a configuration file, app_root/dt/appconfig/types/<language>/name.dt.

If your print action starts a program that dereferences the four environment variables indicated in "Desktop Printing Environment Variables", then your data type is fully integrated. The print action must be written to be specific for the application's data type and should accept only a single file.

For example, the following print action is specific for a data type named ThisAppData:

ACTION Print 
{
 	ARG_TYPE			ThisAppData
 	EXEC_STRING		print_command -file %(file)Arg_1% 
}

If your application handles the ToolTalk Media message set Print request, then your print action could send a variant of it with the following actions.

ACTION Print 
{
 	ARG_TYPE				ThisAppData
 	ARG_CLASS			FILE
 	ARG_COUNT			1
 	TYPE					TT_MSG
 	TT_CLASS				TT_REQUEST
 	TT_SCOPE				TT_SESSION
   TT_OPERATION		Print
 	TT_FILE				%Arg_1%
 	TT_ARG0_				MODE	TT_IN
 	TT_ARG0_				VTYPE	%Arg_1%
 	TT_ARG1_				MODE	TT_IN
 	TT_ARG1_				VTYPE	LPDEST
 	TT_ARG1_VALUE		$LPDEST
 	TT_ARG2_MODE		 TT_IN
 	TT_ARG2_VTYPE		 DTPRINTUSERFILENAME
 	TT_ARG2_VALUE		 $DTPRINTUSERFILENAME
 	TT_ARG3_MODE		 TT_IN
 	TT_ARG3_VTYPE		 DTPRINTSILENT
  TT_ARG3_VALUE		 $DTPRINTSILENT
 	TT_ARG4_MODE		 TT_IN 
  TT_ARG4_VTYPE		 DTPRINTFILEREMOVE
 	TT_ARG4_VALUE		 $DTPRINTFILEREMOVE 
} 
ACTION Print 
{
 	ARG_TYPE					    	ThisAppData
 	ARG_CLASS						   BUFFER
 	ARG_COUNT			   			1
 	TYPE				         TT_MSG
 	TT_CLASS				     TT_REQUEST
 	TT_SCOPE				     TT_SESSION
 	TT_OPERATION					 Print
 	TT_ARG0_MODE					TT_IN
 	TT_ARG0_VTYPE				 %Arg_1%
 	TT_ARG0_VALUE				 %Arg_1%
 	TT_ARG1_MODE					TT_IN
 	TT_ARG1_VTYPE				 LPDEST
 	TT_ARG1_VALUE					$LPDEST
 	TT_ARG2_MODE					TT_IN
 	TT_ARG2_VTYPE					DTPRINTUSERFILENAME
 	TT_ARG2_VALUE					$DTPRINTUSERFILENAME
 	TT_ARG3_MODE					TT_IN
 	TT_ARG3_VTYPE					DTPRINTSILENT
 	TT_ARG3_VALUE					$DTPRINTSILENT
 	TT_ARG4_MODE					TT_IN
 	TT_ARG4_VTYPE					DTPRINTFILEREMOVE
 	TT_ARG4_VALUE					false 
}

If any of the four environment variables are not set, the corresponding message argument will be null. When the message argument is null, refer to "Desktop Printing Environment Variables" for the default interpretation.

Creating Print Actions for Filtered Data or Data Ready to Print

The desktop print utility /usr/dt/dtlp provides functionality on top of the lp subsystem. It gathers lp print options and prints the specified file.

Your application can use dtlp if either of the following conditions is true:

The data files do not need to be processed before they are sent to a printer.
Or, your application provides a filter for converting its data files to a ready-to-print form.

For more information about dtlp, see the dtlp(1) man page.

If the file is ready to print, the Print action runs dtlp in the EXEC_STRING.For example:

ACTION Print 
{
  ARG_TYPE       ThisAppData
  EXEC_STRING       dtlp %Arg_1%
}

If the application provides a conversion filter, the filter must be run before running dtlp. For example:

ACTION Print 
{
 	ARG_TYPE				MyAppData
 	EXEC_STRING				/bin/sh `cat %Arg_1%| filter_name | dtlp`
}

where filter_name is the name of the print filter.