Re: Can anyone recommend a video(s) or a guide on how to use RDi to build PRTF's?

[Brian Parkins <goodprophet.bp@xxxxxxxxx>]

Bad News. RDi doesn't provide WYSIWYG support for the AFP keywords in 
DDS such as LINE, BOX, PAGSEG, etc. It <would> be nice, but a I doubt an 
RFE would ever see the light of day. (Printer files are used less and 
less in favour of PDF generation, email, spreadsheet download, etc.)

Sadly IBM's AFPU utility has also been withdrawn:

"IBM® Advanced Function Printing Utilities (5770-AF1) is no longer 
supported.
The last release for IBM Advanced Function Printing Utilities (5770-AF1) 
was IBM i 7.2. The Advance Function Presentation data stream is now an 
open architecture managed by the AFP Consortium. Replacement products, 
which offer support for a wider range of image formats and modern font 
technologies, are available from several of the companies that are 
members of the AFP Consortium. Among the replacement products are 
DocPath Boulder Suite (from DocPath) and Overview AFP Designer for 
iSeries (from Isis-Papyrus). This is not a comprehensive list of 
replacement products, as other companies may also offer function which 
replaces Advanced Function Printing Utilities."

This was a neat green-screen tool in its day.

You've indicated that you cannot implement Bill's approach for creating 
*OVL objects. I can only suggest searching for some 3rd-party software 
that might do the trick.

Printing and AFP has always been something of a "Cinderella" function 
within the IBM i, partly because it has been the responsibility of a 
separate business within IBM. (Printing invoices has always seemed to me 
to be a fundamental need of any business!) This is definitely an area 
where RDi could up its game - perhaps an opportunity for some external 
plug-in?

Brian.

On 24/05/2019 16:45, dfreinkel wrote:
> I am building a new AR statement program and am trying to build a modern
> statement that is using boxes, lines and fonts.
>
> Its been years since I last created a printer file and so decided to use RDi
> rather than RLU to create the printer file.
>
> I have found it very difficult to use. It seems basic and I find myself
> using the source tab to enter  stuff or create record formats. Surely, this
> is not how to do that.
>
> The WYSIWIG also does not appear to work. I cannot see the boxes, lines or
> font changes and have to print the page from a rpg program to see what it
> looks like.
>
> Darryl Freinkel