| Re: "hyper" PS_FORM [message #10760 is a reply to message #10709] |
Mon, 19 January 1998 00:00   |
Craig Markwardt
Messages: 1869
Registered: November 1996
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Senior Member |
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hahn@hrz.tu-darmstadt.de (Norbert Hahn) writes:
> European users should add the /isolatin1 to the parameter list of device.
> This simplifies the use of national characters.
I can try to put this into PS_FORM as well.
> [snip]
>> * Selection of paper size, including A4 and a myriad of other eurometric
>> paper dimensions. Please test this for me, since our printers are
>> exclusively US Letter size here.
>
>
> ... A more modern procedure should be able to read the PPD
> of the printer and find out the imageable area. The user may then shrink the
> imageable area to suit his purposes.
>
> Maybe I've overlooked it: How does ps_form center the printable area?
Neither my nor Fanning's version of PS_FORM will intelligently select
the print area. In my version, you can specify a default margin, but
that does not address the more general problem. Indeed, I am not sure
that the general problem can be solved to everybody's satisfaction.
My version of PS_FORM does support custom page layouts. You may
supply a list of "named" configurations to PS_FORM which appear as
predefined page layouts in the dialog box. I have used this to define
a "portrait", "landscape", etc. You could do the same for your
special purpose printers, enterring the specific margins for each.
You could enter this as a common block in your startup file and thus
have the same printer setups available in each IDL session. It's not
perfect, but it can work.
As for the use of common blocks, I understand Fanning's trepidation.
I chose to use them because they provide named, persistent, and global
storage between calls to PS_FORM. I didn't see any other facilities
in IDL to do this. If you are a stickler, you can call PS_FORM with
the NOCOMMON keyword and then the common is not declared or accessed.
I'm open to suggestions.
Craig
P.S. For those who are coming late, you can find my revised PS_FORM,
an IDL widget dialog box for configuring your PS printer, at
http://astrog.physics.wisc.edu/~craigm/idl/idl.html
It is originally based on David Fanning's IDL procedure of the same
name, but heavily modified. More documentation is on the web page.
--
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Craig Markwardt, Ph.D.
EMAIL: craigm@lheamail.gsfc.nasa.gov
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