Re: [LINUX5250] lp5250d as a windows service?

[James Rich <james@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004, Paolo Marchiori wrote:

> Coming to the real questions:
> 1) is there a way to install lp5250d as a NT/2000 service? in the remote
>   site where most iSeries users reside there's only a w2k server, and is
>   lp5250d could be installed as a service it would be the ultimate solution
>   to print PDF files. I think slight modifications are needed (suppress the
>   GUI, providing a default configuration file and default outfile repository).
>   I know just the guidelines a .exe must follow to qualify as a possible
>   service, and I'm not a w32 programmer, so I don't know if this is
>   feasible nor how to do it.

I know nothing about windows, but when you say, "suppress the GUI" what 
GUI are you talking about?  lp5250d doesn't have a GUI.

> 2) any scs2pdf win32 binaries out there?

scs2pdf should compile if you have a unix environment for windows.  I 
think cygwin provides this.  The reason this is needed is that lp5250d 
uses a pipe to send the data to scs2pdf (at least I think this is how it 
works - maybe Scott did something special for windows?).

> 3) paper length in scs2pdf is fixed - does it make sense to provide a way
>   to change it? and a way to fix width too, or to switch between different
>   fixed formats depending on the number of columns (instead of enlarging
>   by steps the width like it's done currently, if I have read correctly
>   the code)? And what about changing the character width?
>   I can patch the program myself, but if it's already been
>   done, it's unuseful to reinvent the wheel...
> 4) Am I wrong or in scs2pdf CRs don't do what they should (that is:
>   carriage return and then writing OVER the previous line)?

The paper size is chosen based on a best guess.  The AS/400 sometimes 
sends the paper size to us and sometimes doesn't.  So scs2pdf tries to 
guess what is best.  Maybe some option to force a certain size is a good 
idea.

As for CRs I believe scs2pdf is behaving the way it should.  But, it has 
been a long time since I worked on scs2pdf and I know there are bugs.  A 
CR doesn't necessarily mean "go to the next line", it simply means "go to 
the left edge of the page".  If you have a case where scs2pdf does the 
wrong thing let me know.

James Rich

It's not the software that's free; it's you.
        - billyskank on Groklaw