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    New from krüe: TreeHugger, a GS/OS Printer Port Driver
    <http://a2central.com/2760/new-from-krue-treehugger-a-gsos-printer-port-driver/>


By: tdiaz <http://a2central.com/author/tdiaz/>

TreeHugger is a GS/OS Printer Port driver which supports the
AppSocket/JetDirect protocol. Essentially, this means you can print to
any networked printer that supports the JetDirect (AppSocket) Protocol,
that a native mode IIgs Printer Driver exists for. With Harmonie and
Independence that means an awful lot of printers out there have the
potential to work as PCL is the de-facto standard among the major
printer manufactures. Like Postscript®, that was Apple’s choice for
raster image printing starting with the Apple LaserWriter, and natively
supported by the Apple IIgs, PCL was HP’s answer to PostScript®. With
the introduction of the Harmonie and Independence printer support
packages, PCL support and a lot more choices for printers were suddenly
available to Apple IIgs users. But network printing was still mostly out
of reach unless you used LocalTalk and an Apple LaserWriter or
compatible printer. Until now, that is.

Announced with a surprise comment in /A2Central’s/ IRC channel this
evening, krüe says, “Please test. Remember that I have no idea what I’m
doing…” and almost instantly met with enthusiasm and praise, this is the
first release, and as such it is set with a version # of ’0.0′. I can’t
say I’ve seen that before. :)

TreeHugger requires Marinetti to work, and while the 2.0.1 features were
used, testing was done with 3.0b3 and an Uthernet
<http://a2retrosystems.com/products.htm> card, using the Harmonie
LaserJet III 300×300 dpi driver with a LaserJet 6p connected via a
software based print server, p910nd <http://p910nd.sourceforge.net/>.
Currently other aspect ratios do not work and there are various issues
with the page setup dialog and crashes that are being worked out. as
krüe says, “..it probably doesn’t work for anyone else but me..” he does
expect to be working on it more, but for now input on what works and
what does not would probably go a long way.

TreeHugger is available at http://krue.net/treehugger/.

