Re: Oracle forms runtime printing in character mode.

David Winslow <dwinslow_at_maroon.tc.umn.edu> wrote in article <01bc3eab.d857e560$7f1cd992_at_WINSLOW_DAVID.GENMILLS.COM>...
> We are in the middle of a project to convert from forms 3.0 to forms 4.5
> and we have discovered a real issue with printing. The screens oracle
> displays to print the current screen are much more complex than their
> counter parts in 3.0. The 3.0 version had one simple screen that you
> chose either to print to a file or print to a printer (1 screen 1
> question). The new version first pops up a file save dialog box and
 gives
> you no indication of what to do if you want to print to a printer. The
> second window requires you to know the name of your printer, something
 our
> users will probably never know. We would like a way to bypass these
> screens entirely, or at least give a default printer. Oracle tells me
> this is not possible.
>
> Does anyone have a way around this? We are running under HP-Unix and
> don't mind writing some extra code to get around this.
>
> Please email me if you have any suggestions.
>
> Thanks,
> Dave
>
> dwinslow_at_maroon.tc.umn.edu
> or
> WINSL000_at_mail.genmills.com
>

Use the text_io package to create a character-mode screen print equivalent in a file, and then use the host command to lpr your newly created file.

You will need to manually format the output, and keep it in sync with the real screen,
unless you do something clever by stepping through all the fields in all the blocks and reading the properties (ie canvas, X & Y location, displayed or not etc), and using this to format the output.

If you do the latter, it is probably worth creating a generic library and attaching it to each form.

Anyway, thats how I would tackle it....there may also be forms 4.5 equivalents to the forms 3 environment variables (as I recall) ORACLE_PAGER, ORACLE_LP which partially automate the screen print dialogue box choices. (If your screen is graphic, you will print a large bitmap, also!!).

Hmm... another idea, if you are running an X terminal is to use the standard X programes to grab a screen dump and print it, call these from a host command in the form.

-- 
Miles Thomas
Logica UK Ltd
thomasm "at" logica "dot" com
The above are personal opinions, and are
not necessarily the opinions of my employer.