WinRT Metro App Direct Printing (Without Printing Dialog) - printing

I require a way to print direct invoices to the printer without opening a print dialog to choose the printer.
Its basically for a restaurant sales application and I dont want the user to first preview the slip etc and then choose a printer ect.
I dont mind having to use a printing button on the UI of somesort, but the dialog is breaking my user experience.
I've also looked at Windows 8 Developer Preview Metro style app samples but only normal printing is explained and shown there.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

In the current release of WinRT there is no way to skip the printer selection screen, though the printer configuration screen can be sufficiently extended to include application-specific settings. The Print Sample illustrates how to make these customizations.
If the ability to skip printer selection is critical to your application, you will need to consider a classic desktop application in this release.

As a heads-up, the Chrome WinRT app is able to print without triggering the WinRT print dialog. Sadly, I'm not yet sure how it does that.

Related

Using blueprism to Spy Smart Card reader

We are implementing blue prism and have an issue to proceed.
We use the object spying for our web application which works fine. However before the application opens, we have smart card authentication. So there is a pop up for entering the smart card pin.
I am not able to detect that. Can you provide me an idea how to detect the same?
Awaiting your response.
I have tried all the Spy modes but none of it seems to work.
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Are you using Blue Prism version 5 or 6? There was a similar question in the past, you can look it up here.
To sum up the options:
Firefox or Chrome plugins (you'll need to change object type to browser based for Firefox and Chrome) and HTML spying mode.
UI spying mode.
Use Surface Automation techniques - Region mode.
Web services that will use website's API (if applicable).
Options 1 & 2 are exclusive for version 6.
As for this particular problem, I would also try to create separate object for Smart Card application/pop up and treat it as separate entity (you would need to test different spying modes as well).
Hope this helps

Printing a page to different printers in a web app

I want to write a web app that can process a users presentation which when submitted, gets sent to their local system printers - one part of the order will go to B&W laser printer and another part goes to another printer for another process.
Ideally, this will be able to run on any of the major systems - Linux, OSX or Windows.
It could be a packaged Chrome or Firefox app or extension, but I can't tell if there is sufficient access to the system printers. (I can see all the printers available to my current chrome installation - but are they available to an extension?). I can't see the code in any demos or libraries.
I've seen reference to NPAPI, but I can't tell if that's what I need either - if so would I need to write an app for each of the major platforms or each kind of printer?
In Firefox it is possible to print from an extension. Using only javascript, that is (you're free to mess about with C++ if you like).
Extensions are essentially the browser: Everything the browser can do, an extension can, too.
There is however not much documentation about using the printer. To be precise, there is none that I'm aware of. However, the browser is open source, and the UI is mostly Javascript, so you can just read the code.
printUtils.js would be a good starting point to check out how this might work. Also there is a component implementing nsIPrinterEnumerator. See the firefox-addon info section for a collection of "Getting started" and documentation resources about add-on development in general.
I don't think the Chrome extension API provides ways to control printing the way you'd need.
The NPAPI plugin API does not provide enough control over printing. You just basically get a buffer to draw into, but no way to control printing setting or initiate printing yourself. You could cheat of course, and have your plugin directly print something via OS bypassing the browser, like e.g. those PDF readers do. However, it should be noted that NPAPI plugins are the past... Don't develop new ones, if possible.

How to write a text box control on C++/CX for Windows Metro Style application?

I need to write a text box control for Metro Style app. And I need that this text box can invokes a touch keyboard, when my app runs on tablet PC.
Microsoft advices me:
If you are writing a custom text control (whether in Xaml or not) you will need to make sure it supports the UI Automation TextPattern and ValuePatterns and focus changed events
and
You will need to provide an AutomationPeer which supports the ITextProvider and IValueProvider.
But I can't to figure out what actually I need to do. I will appreciate any help.
You need to implement a UI Automation Provider; in particular, you need to implement a server-side provider. Start with the UI Automation Provider Programmer's Guide, and pay particular attention to the Document Content Provider Sample, as it demonstrates how to implement TextPattern. There are more samples as part of the Windows 8 SDK, in the samples/ui/uiautomation directory. Also, there's a very quick introduction to server-side introductions here, written by one of the architects of UI Automation.

How to read from a cheap generic USB device?

I bough a cheap RFID reader from eBay, just to play about with. There is no API, it just writes to stdin - that it to say, if you have Notepad open and tap an RFID tag to the reader its Id number appears in the Notepad window.
I am looking around for a reasonably priced reader/writer with an actual API (any recommendations?).
Until then I need to knock together a quick demo using what I have, just to prove the concept.
How can I best intercept the input from the USB connection? (and is there a free VCL control to do this?)
I guess if I just have a modal form with a control which is active then I can hook its on change event. But modal forms seem a bit rude. Maybe I can hook keyboard input, as it seems to be injecting like types chars?
Any idea? Please tell me if I cam not explaining this clearly enough.
Thanks in advance for your help.
In the end, I just hooked the keyboard, rather than trying to intercept the USB. It works if I check that my application is active and pass on the keystrokes otherwise. My app doesn't have any keyboard input, just mouse clicks (and what I read from RFID is digits only, so I can still handle things like Alt+F4. Maybe not the perfect solution for everyone, but all that I could get to work)
Based on your description, it sounds like the RFID reader is providing a USB HID keyboard interface.
I don't know if there is anything similar in delphi, but in libusb there is a libusb_claim_interface, which requests that the OS hand control over to your program.
A Delphi library for doing HID devices:
http://www.soft-gems.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=33

Web-based printing solutions

I'm building a new web-based product. The problem is that many clients have specific printers to print specific documents. Just think reports,barcodes,invoices etc. All on a special printer with the right paper etc...
Usually when printing from the web you cannot make the software choose a printer or change the settings. However it's just that that I want to do.
I want to print without a dialog. And enter the printer + settings with my software
The only solution I know of now is the commercial version of acrobat that has some javascript printing support..
Does anyone know of any other alternatives ?
Thanks in advance !
small-medium business
No heavy installion but common stuff is ok
ie. flash/silverlight/acrobat/whatever is possible
I generate what is necessary for printing (PDF/Tiff etc)
Who are your customers -- enterprises or SOHO? Are you generating PDFs? Or, raw tiffs? If you are generating PDFs there is something called a JDF file where you can specify the print settings to your heart's content. The flip side is the device needs to be capable of understanding JDFs. You can then attach the JDF with the PDF as a mime package. If you are generating tiffs, I think there isn't much need of printer settings except for the correct device profile(s) to be installed.
Because of security reasons, you cannot control that from within the browser.
If I where in your shoes, I'd create a small program for my clients to install, registering a specific file extension to this program and creating files in this format on the website, and have the program do the printing for me.
Your easy choices are either PDF or Microsoft's Reporting/Report Viewer

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