Rumor: Panther - Scriptable Printing Improved

If true, I hope this includes the oft requested ability to print to PDF via AppleScript.

set we_can_only_hope to paragraph 2 of these_rumors

:slight_smile:

Thoose fetaures are available from a ‘do shell script’, have a look to lpr,lp,lpstats,cancel, all thoose are inheritance from CUPS (common unix printing system). :wink:

Also look at http://127.0.0.1:631/printers/

huuuuuuuuu, nice one (damm, If I was taking the time to read each time the manual to the end, i would be aware of such features !)

Yeah, and it’s all on your local drive. You can get to the pages via
http://localhost:631/

this is interesting too
http://localhost:631/sam.html#4_3

Seems like being able to make a PDF from the comand line is possible

I’d still like to see direct AppleScript support since it’s a bit tricky trying to explain AppleScript AND the shell to newbies who have never done more than click on UI widgets. :wink:

Thanks for the info!

– Rob

I’m sure that Apple will make it 10 times easier than using twelve 'do shell script 'to get the same result :smiley:

Well done Rob, this is it, I’ve been able to run the PDF service by making a Data Fork script. here is how i made it with osacompile :


set theText to yourScriptAsText
--removing tab, for a more readable command line
set theText to change tab into "" in theText
--every line should begin with -e 'theline'
set theText to change "^(.+)$" into "-e '\1'" in theText with regexp
--remove all returns
set theText to change return into " " in theText with regexp
set shellscript to "osacompile -d " & theText & " -o ~/Desktop/test.scpt"
do shell script shellscript

BTW congratulations for making your 1000th post recently :stuck_out_tongue:

Excellent! I knew you would find a way. :slight_smile:

Thanks! I hadn’t noticed!

– Rob (the chatty one) :wink:


on idle
    tell application "Forum" to set nbPosts to count (get posts whose author name is "Rob")
    if (nbPosts mod 1000) is 0 then display dialog "Rob, you've made "& nbPosts&"!"
    if (nbPosts mod 100000) is 0 then display dialog "Rob it's time to change your keyboard !"
return 24*60*60
end idle

Hmmm, ‘Rob it’s time to change your keyboard !’. I guess that means I would be forced to pick up a new PowerBook!! Al-l-l-l-l-righty then! I guess I’d better pick up the post pace! :wink: