Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Ehud Lamm]

Is there a package/binding that gives you easy printing functionallity
from Windows. I basically want to be able to draw rectangels, print text
etc. I do not want to deal with low level details.

Anything like this exists, or is it time to think of creting something
new?

Ehud Lamm     mslamm@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il

Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Tom Moran]

CLAW has a printer handling package.  Basically you create a "canvas"
that is a printer, rather than a screen window, device, do a little
setup on it, and then use Windows calls to draw rectangles, text,
whatever.

Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Jerry van Dijk]

Ehud Lamm (mslamm@mscc.huji.ac.il) wrote:

: Is there a package/binding that gives you easy printing functionallity
: from Windows. I basically want to be able to draw rectangels, print text
: etc. I do not want to deal with low level details.

You would like AdaGraph extended with a 'print' procedure ?

Jerry.

-- 
-- Jerry van Dijk  | email: jdijk@acm.org
-- Leiden, Holland | member Team-Ada
-- Ada & Win32: http://stad.dsl.nl/~jvandyk

Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Al Christians]

Ehud Lamm wrote:
> 
> Is there a package/binding that gives you easy printing functionallity
> from Windows. I basically want to be able to draw rectangels, print text
> etc. I do not want to deal with low level details.
> 

I would also be interested in whatever solutions might be available or
easily devised for preparing good-looking documents programmatically 
from Ada code under MS Win32.  

The basic idea of Windows is that you're not supposed to have to worry 
too much about it.  If you can put it onto the screen, Windows and the
(printer, etc) drivers are supposed to be able to print it, fax it, 
or whatever.  There are standard editor and viewer routines and programs 
(not in Ada) that should be easy to call from Ada that can handle the 
display and printing of the data. The problem is preparing the document 
in the right format.  Here are some things that might work under 
Windows: 

1. Ascii text -- This is very limited, but the easiest to create.
  
2. HTML --  Any good general purpose Ada HTML generator packages?	
Unfortunately, HTML is not particularly strong at specifying the
appearance of a printed page. Will XML be any improvement for that
purpose?
	
3. RTF  --  Maybe only a little more complicated to generate than 
HTML.  It has facilities for mail-merge type document creation, 
embedded graphics, etc.  This was my best choice for rapid mass-
customization of documents.  Unfortunately, I have not found that
there is much code available for generating RTF programmatically.        
Would this be a good use for Ada?  

4.  PS and PDF -- These are more complicated.  There is a 
C program called Lout that can generate these from specially marked-up
Ascii text.  You could generate the Lout input in Ada. 

5. Crystal Reports --  Set up your document as a report. Put the custom
data in a text database written from your (Ada) program. Call Crystal as 
a DLL (from Ada or otherwise). 

The conventional (non-Ada, off-the-shelf) solutions are fairly
competitive if you have adequate money, adequate bandwidth to the user's
desktop, and performance is not a problem.  I had an application 
recently where all that was not quite true.  We were supposed to come
up with a program that could be distributed on diskettes and would 
put a good-looking report of about 10 pages with about 1000 customized 
fields on the screen in about 10 seconds with wysiwyg printing. TIA
for any suggestions about how to meet such requirements.

Al

Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Ehud Lamm]

Never used CLAW but it does seem nice. However I was thinking of something
that may be freely avialble to students, preferably with source code.

Ehud Lamm     mslamm@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il

On Sat, 24 Oct 1998, Tom Moran wrote:

> CLAW has a printer handling package.  Basically you create a "canvas"
> that is a printer, rather than a screen window, device, do a little
> setup on it, and then use Windows calls to draw rectangles, text,
> whatever.
> 
> 

Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Tom Moran]

>Never used CLAW but it does seem nice. However I was thinking of something
>that may be freely avialble to students, preferably with source code.
  My understanding is that rrsoftware does give source code to
purchasers of Claw (hard to do otherwise, since it is portable across
Ada compilers) but I don't know what the student price is.  Last time
I looked, the free demo version did not include the printer package.
  (Having worked on CLAW, I hope they get some money so I can afford
time to add to it in the future.)
  The original question was about printing, though.  If you know
enough of the Windows API to draw text and graphics in a screen
window, you are very nearly there to printing.  You just need to do
your drawing to a printer, rather than screen window, "device
context", plus a little setup to account for which printer, and the
special characteristics of that printer, and handling end of page etc.

Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Ehud Lamm]

On Sun, 25 Oct 1998, Tom Moran wrote:

> The original question was about printing, though.  If you know
> enough of the Windows API to draw text and graphics in a screen
> window, you are very nearly there to printing.  You just need to do
> your drawing to a printer, rather than screen window, "device
> context", plus a little setup to account for which printer, and the
> special characteristics of that printer, and handling end of page etc.

This is all true. So I thought some one already encapsulated this
functioanllity. Alas, as usual, reuse is more of a dream than a reallity.
Maybe someday it will be easier to find components you need. Until now the
best way seems to write code yourself. Some much for Bazars etc.

Ehud Lamm     mslamm@mscc.huji.ac.il
http://www2.cybercities.com/e/ehud/ada               ADA & SE

Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Tom Moran]

>This is all true. So I thought some one already encapsulated this
>functioanllity. Alas, as usual, reuse is more of a dream than a reallity.
>Maybe someday it will be easier to find components you need. Until now the
>best way seems to write code yourself. Some much for Bazars etc.
  That's not quite fair.  Someone *did* encapsulate this functionality
so it is reusable, and a simple post to this newsgroup led to at least
one, and possibly two, sources of the component you need.  But now you
are asking for those software components to also not cost anything.
There are many things in this world that you can buy, rather than
make.  There are quite a bit fewer that somebody will make for you,
and donate to you for free.

Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Ehud Lamm]

Check out to see if the Bazar model doesn't talk about free software as a
source of collaboration. I was specific.

What's more, we live in real life. When I try to compare ADA and C (for
example) cost is also a factor. I think it quite fair to use it when
deciding what to use. One last point: the idea behind reuse is to lower
costs and to improve quallity. Note that cost is part of this equation.

But I do agree that things can be worse. Don't take offense so quickly. 

Ehud Lamm     mslamm@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il

Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Tom Moran]

>Check out to see if the Bazar model
What/where is the "Bazar" model?  
In "Some much for Bazars etc." I thought you were referring to
"bazaar" which my dictionary defines as "a market or street of shops
and stalls", "a shop for selling various kinds of goods", "a sale of
various articles, usually to raise money for a club, church, etc:"
  Is "Bazar" a person's name?

Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Ehud Lamm]

I suggest you point your browser to
http://sagan.earthspace.net/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/ . I think
you'll like it.

Ehud Lamm     mslamm@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il

On Mon, 26 Oct 1998, Tom Moran wrote:

> >Check out to see if the Bazar model
> What/where is the "Bazar" model?  
> In "Some much for Bazars etc." I thought you were referring to
> "bazaar" which my dictionary defines as "a market or street of shops
> and stalls", "a shop for selling various kinds of goods", "a sale of
> various articles, usually to raise money for a club, church, etc:"
> Is "Bazar" a person's name?
> 
> 

Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[dennison]

In article <3634aec6.547292@SantaClara01.news.InterNex.Net>,
  tmoran@bix.com (Tom Moran) wrote:
> >Check out to see if the Bazar model
> What/where is the "Bazar" model?

Check out
http://earthspace.net/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar.html

> In "Some much for Bazars etc." I thought you were referring to
> "bazaar" which my dictionary defines as "a market or street of shops
> and stalls", "a shop for selling various kinds of goods", "a sale of
> various articles, usually to raise money for a club, church, etc:"

I think he is referring to his own misunderstanding of the Bazaar software
engineering model, which apparently runs something like this: "Someone else
writes everything I need for me and does all the work to get it running
reliably, and then gives it to me for free. I expend no effort whatsoever."

--
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Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Ehud Lamm]

On Tue, 27 Oct 1998 dennison@telepath.com wrote:

> In article <3634aec6.547292@SantaClara01.news.InterNex.Net>,
> tmoran@bix.com (Tom Moran) wrote:
> I think he is referring to his own misunderstanding of the Bazaar software
> engineering model, which apparently runs something like this: "Someone else
> writes everything I need for me and does all the work to get it running
> reliably, and then gives it to me for free. I expend no effort whatsoever."
> 

I suggest its time you read the article yourself. (You may read about
politeness too, but maybe I am misunderstanding you too).

ESR says Linux embodies the Bazar model. As far as I know it free. But
than again maybe I misunderstodd this bit too.

Bazar talks about contributing software. Note I asked "deos something like
that exist or maybe it is time to write something new". But I guess this
means I want someone else to do all the work. Or maybe you misunderstood
me.

Ehud Lamm     mslamm@mscc.huji.ac.il
 

Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Arun Mangalam]

In article
<Pine.A41.3.96-heb-2.07.981028000513.72144E-100000@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il>,
Ehud Lamm <mslamm@mscc.huji.ac.il> wrote:

>On Tue, 27 Oct 1998 dennison@telepath.com wrote:
>
>> In article <3634aec6.547292@SantaClara01.news.InterNex.Net>,
>> tmoran@bix.com (Tom Moran) wrote:
>> I think he is referring to his own misunderstanding of the Bazaar software
>> engineering model, which apparently runs something like this: "Someone else
>> writes everything I need for me and does all the work to get it running
>> reliably, and then gives it to me for free. I expend no effort whatsoever."
>> 
>
>I suggest its time you read the article yourself. (You may read about
>politeness too, but maybe I am misunderstanding you too).
>
>ESR says Linux embodies the Bazar model. As far as I know it free. But
>than again maybe I misunderstodd this bit too.
>
>Bazar talks about contributing software. Note I asked "deos something like
>that exist or maybe it is time to write something new". But I guess this
>means I want someone else to do all the work. Or maybe you misunderstood
>me.
>
>Ehud Lamm     mslamm@mscc.huji.ac.il
> 

I think this elitist view that Tom and many other Ada-users have is what
cut short Ada's life early on. Making everything public domain (in which
you can and probably should contribute) is one of the reasons other
languages such as C and C++ have taken off. I doesn't take much time for a
government contractor or a business consultant or a moran with enough time
to reel off a particularly insensitive and shallow comment. Please refrain
from such comments, because all this tends to do is show how "exclusive"
Ada is.

As of now, I'm using C (which is making me gradually sick of).I
particularly like Ada and as a hobbyist I'd like to see more experimental
and useful code out there. Of course, when I am more experienced I will
most definitely contribute. In fact, I think this is gradually happening
with new Linux-style development occurring for Ada and all the excellent
available software contributed by the U.S. government. ;)

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Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Ehud Lamm]

On Wed, 28 Oct 1998, Arun Mangalam wrote:

> I think this elitist view that Tom and many other Ada-users have is what
> cut short Ada's life early on. Making everything public domain (in which
> you can and probably should contribute) is one of the reasons other
> languages such as C and C++ have taken off. 

I agree with you here a 100%.

> As of now, I'm using C (which is making me gradually sick of).I
> particularly like Ada and as a hobbyist I'd like to see more experimental
> and useful code out there. Of course, when I am more experienced I will
> most definitely contribute. In fact, I think this is gradually happening
> with new Linux-style development occurring for Ada and all the excellent
> available software contributed by the U.S. government. ;)

Yes. One of the nice things is to see how much Ada code is available right
now for public use. It also helps you practive "reuse" instead of just
preaching for it.

Ehud Lamm     mslamm@mscc.huji.ac.il

Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Tom Moran]

>>On Tue, 27 Oct 1998 dennison@telepath.com wrote:
>>
>>> In article <3634aec6.547292@SantaClara01.news.InterNex.Net>,
>>> tmoran@bix.com (Tom Moran) wrote:
>>> I think he is referring to his own misunderstanding
I'd like to point out that the quote-count ">>" is incorrect here.  I
did not say anything about anybody's misunderstanding - that was
Dennison's comment.
> Making everything public domain (in which
>you can and probably should contribute) is one of the reasons other
>languages such as C and C++ have taken off

  Having paid for the vast majority of my C coded programs, I'm
surprised to hear that everything in C and C++ is public domain.
  Having posted a substantial amount of Ada source code in the past to
BIX and Compuserve (and the PAL, although they apparently dropped it)
I feel that I've contributed at least my share of free software.  
   Since my grocer wants cash, I cannot afford to donate 100% of my
time to writing and giving away free software.  If you want things
like the Windows printer code this thread started with, you can either
pay to buy what's available today, or you can wait until someone has
free time to write it for you - in fact CLAW exists today, and Jerry
van Dijk implied that he might make available a free version in the
future.  So you can pay in money or waiting - your choice.   

Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Arun Mangalam]

In article <36373bbe.408787@SantaClara01.news.InterNex.Net>,
tmoran@bix.com (Tom Moran) wrote:

>>>On Tue, 27 Oct 1998 dennison@telepath.com wrote:
>>>
>>>> In article <3634aec6.547292@SantaClara01.news.InterNex.Net>,
>>>> tmoran@bix.com (Tom Moran) wrote:
>>>> I think he is referring to his own misunderstanding
>I'd like to point out that the quote-count ">>" is incorrect here.  I
>did not say anything about anybody's misunderstanding - that was
>Dennison's comment.

I'm sincerely sorry. I saw my mistake as soon as I saw the original. In
any case, my reply was almost accurate since your reply did have
unnecessary sarcasm, unless you really didn't know what was meant by [sic]
"Bazar".

>> Making everything public domain (in which
>>you can and probably should contribute) is one of the reasons other
>>languages such as C and C++ have taken off
>
>  Having paid for the vast majority of my C coded programs, I'm
>surprised to hear that everything in C and C++ is public domain.

I'm pretty sure your paid-for C-coded programs are more complicated than
just printing code. If not, well, either you are well-endowed or the
company or organization you work for is well-endowed. :)

In any case, I'm sure I can find public-domain code out there for the
simple WinAPI functions such as printing for C as well as C++. That is not
to say C or C++ is better or their users are better. In fact, your
previous posts were very helpful for understanding what needs to be done
to get such simple printing functions working with Ada. I have looked at
CLAW, and I think their comprehensive framework is probably very good. I
would like just a very simple implementation of print if someone has it
around, so I can just play around wth it. In fact, the first thing I tried
to do with GNAT as soon as I installed it on my Win95 machine is find out
how well it interfaces with Win95 as is. I would love to create interfaces
for it for the Macintosh. Anyway, I digress...

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remove the CRAZYSPAM to reply.
These spamming buggers are really annoying.

Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Ehud Lamm]

On Wed, 28 Oct 1998, Tom Moran wrote:

> Having paid for the vast majority of my C coded programs, I'm
> surprised to hear that everything in C and C++ is public domain.
> Having posted a substantial amount of Ada source code in the past to
> BIX and Compuserve (and the PAL, although they apparently dropped it)
> I feel that I've contributed at least my share of free software.  
>  Since my grocer wants cash, I cannot afford to donate 100% of my
> time to writing and giving away free software.  If you want things
> like the Windows printer code this thread started with, you can either
> pay to buy what's available today, or you can wait until someone has
> free time to write it for you - in fact CLAW exists today, and Jerry
> van Dijk implied that he might make available a free version in the
> future.  So you can pay in money or waiting - your choice.   

I think this thread is really starting to diverge too much.

But when on this topic of free code, let's make a few points clearer.

One can be in favor of public domain code, and software sharing and still
believe it is morally accpetable and practically inevitable to sell
software. 

It is also clear that in many cases it makes life easier if you find some
code already written you can build on. For this people need to be able and
willing to donate code. It is entirely with them to decide whether they
want to give code away for free, the ammount and the licenscing required.

All these issues are not really relevant to comp.lang.ada etc.

What may be of interest is to comapre two things:
1)The ammount of code publicly available. This is interesting as it both
tells you something about the community and about where it may be more
interesting to lock.

2)How easy it is to find public code AND integrate it into new code. This
may give hints into the reuse powers of the language. We may safely assume
that using a set of routines encapsulated in a package is easier than
simply trying to combine many C routines. Beyond this trivial comparison,
things get more complex and more interesting.

Since this thread stated because of a question of mine, I feel I need to
make myself clear. If I want free code, so I can point my students to it
and let them explore, it does not mean I think anybody owes me such code,
or that any of you should not be payed by whom ever is employing you right
now. :-)

Ehud Lamm     mslamm@mscc.huji.ac.il
   

Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Tom Moran]

>unless you really didn't know what was meant by [sic]
>"Bazar".
I didn't know about the "Cathedral vs Bazaar" article, so I double
checked my understanding of the meanings of "bazaar" with my
dictionary.  All seemed to involve buying and selling things.  I now
know that's not the meaning intended in the article.

Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[dennison]

In article <asmang-2810980804270001@192.168.0.22>,
  asmang@CRAZYSPAMmail.wm.edu (Arun Mangalam) wrote:
> In article
> <Pine.A41.3.96-heb-2.07.981028000513.72144E-100000@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il>,
> Ehud Lamm <mslamm@mscc.huji.ac.il> wrote:
>
> >On Tue, 27 Oct 1998 dennison@telepath.com wrote:
> >
> >> In article <3634aec6.547292@SantaClara01.news.InterNex.Net>,
> >> tmoran@bix.com (Tom Moran) wrote:
> >> I think he is referring to his own misunderstanding of the Bazaar software
> >> engineering model, which apparently runs something like this: "Someone else
> >> writes everything I need for me and does all the work to get it running
> >> reliably, and then gives it to me for free. I expend no effort whatsoever."
> >>
> >
> >I suggest its time you read the article yourself. (You may read about
> >politeness too, but maybe I am misunderstanding you too).
> >
> >ESR says Linux embodies the Bazar model. As far as I know it free. But
> >than again maybe I misunderstodd this bit too.
> >
> >Bazar talks about contributing software. Note I asked "deos something like
> >that exist or maybe it is time to write something new". But I guess this
> >means I want someone else to do all the work. Or maybe you misunderstood
> >me.
> I think this elitist view that Tom and many other Ada-users have is what

Uhhh. Just to set the record a little more straight, I think you mean to be
flaming *me*, not Tom. :-) Poor Tom's name should have been trimmed out of the
attributions above, because none of the text is his.

But all I was really trying to say is that you can't take the attitude that
Bazaar doesn't work, just because something you want doesn't already exist as
open software. If there's a niche out there that needs to be filled, its up to
the interested parties to make it happen.

--
T.E.D.

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Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Tom Moran]

>The ammount of code publicly available. This is interesting as it both
>tells you something about the community and about where it may be more
>interesting to lock.
Does anybody have any numbers on the *fraction* of Ada programmers who
post free code, vs the fraction for C or other languages?  If you just
look at total SLOC, clearly C, in English, is going to dominate.

Re: Laser printing from ADA (Windows)

[Ehud Lamm]

On Wed, 28 Oct 1998 dennison@telepath.com wrote:

> Uhhh. Just to set the record a little more straight, I think you mean to be
> flaming *me*, not Tom. :-) Poor Tom's name should have been trimmed out of the
> attributions above, because none of the text is his.

Sorry for any misunderstanding here. I am not sure who I wanted to
flame... I just wanted to clear the "misunderstanding".

> 
> But all I was really trying to say is that you can't take the attitude that
> Bazaar doesn't work, just because something you want doesn't already exist as
> open software. If there's a niche out there that needs to be filled, its up to
> the interested parties to make it happen.


with this I agree 100%. This is why I asked "does something like this
exist for free use or is it time to write it". 

It seems there are packages which are close to what is needed, and are
free. So maybe their oweners/writers would like to add features to them.
If not - it is indeed up to those interested (including me) to "make it
happen".

Hope we all agree now!!

Ehud Lamm     mslamm@mscc.huji.ac.il