EXPRESS SPOOLING ON THE APPLE IIGS
By Wayne Short
Copyright (c) 1992 Apple Users' Group, Sydney
Republished from Applecations, a publication of the Apple Users' Group, Sydney, Australia.
For some time, Macintosh users have had access to printer spooling to improve their productivity on their computer. The release of EXPRESS by Seven Hills Software is a serious attempt to redress the balance.
EXPRESS is a Control Panel Device that resides in the *:System:CDevs folder of your startup volume. It works with GS/OS application program that uses the Print Manager. This includes programs like AppleWorks GS and GraphicWriter III. It will not work with 8-bit programs like AppleWorks Classic that do not startup the Print Manager. EXPRESS works by intercepting all of the information passed to the printer driver as it sends data off to the printer. Instead the information is written onto disk where it can later be manipulated by EXPRESS. These files are referred to as "Spool Files".
Print Spoolers like EXPRESS do not in fact "speed up" the printing of documents. What they do is return control to you faster while the spooling software handles the printing as a background task. With this in mind, that actual time of printing may be longer but your overall productivity goes up because you can continue work with your GS. Multiple files can be spooled, printed more than once, and deleted from the spool list.
To use this program you will need a hard drive as the spool files occupy much greater space than the original file. You should reserve at least one megabyte of your hard drive for these spool files. This is because they contain all of the imaging data added by the printer driver.
The "Spool Files" that EXPRESS creates reside in a folder *:System:Express.Spools which is on the startup volume. This current version of EXPRESS does not allow configurations of alternative locations of the spooling folder.
Spooling Options
The program is configured from the Control Panel. The main EXPRESS window has
two major areas: "Spooling" (printing files to the hard drive) and "Printing" (printing the spooled files on the printer).
The initial Spool status popup menu is used to specify the setting that will be assigned to each spool file when it is created.
The default setting, Delete after Printing, tells EXPRESS to delete the file after printing. The next option, Keep after Printing, tells EXPRESS to print the file and then set its status to Don't Print. This option allows you to keep frequently printed files for further use so that EXPRESS doesn't have to create the spool file again. The final option tells EXPRESS not to print the "spool files" it creates. This allows you to direct documents to the disk for later printing.
There is also a checkbox to turn EXPRESS completely off (i.e. no spooling) if you are encountering disk space problems or running your Apple IIGS on a network. The current version of EXPRESS does not support network printing.
Printing Options
There are three modes for controlling how EXPRESS prints spooled files:
OFF : Deactivates printing.. requeues the document currently printing to head of queue. Note: re-align paper on printer after using this option.
NEXT : Prints the next available spool file only.
AUTO : Will print each available spool file in turn.
The main control window features a control item list showing all documents in the Print Queue and their print status. When a particular file is being printed, a small printer icon is displayed next to file in the list. Also a thermometer appears below to indicate how much of the file has been printed.
Double clicking on an item in the Print Queue presents more information about the spooled file. When the Print Queue is "OFF" it is possible to edit the file information or delete the file.
EXPRESS will work with system 5.0.4 or upwards. It is worth noting that the Finder supplied with System 6.0 has the Print Manager status of active. This allows you to print spool files with EXPRESS while in between applications and 'sitting' in the finder. When switching between applications EXPRESS will pause while the CPU does some heavy work but once again continue on its merry way.
The author of this interesting program is Richard Bennett, one of our own AUG members. Richard informs me that he is planning further enhancements in the near future.
Program : EXPRESS
Written by : Richard Bennett
Publisher : Seven Hills Software
Hardware : Apple IIGS, 1.25 MB, Hard Disk
Operating System : GS/OS System 5.0.4 or upwards
Distributor : Two Series Software (02) 606-9343
Price : $40 (AUD)

THIS CONTENT COPYRIGHT © 2007, APPLE MACINTOSH USERS' GROUP, SYDNEY
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PLEASE CREDIT THE AUTHOR AND THE SOURCE: Applecations, publication of the Apple Users' Group, Sydney, Australia

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