Who really understands whats going on here? [video]

Jaymer

Happy Monday...
and a Brain Teaser to start off the week:

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0-9ulhmh8eHThb8I6wNloG6lA

Any idea how this is being done?
HINT: The vid shows me clicking on a button in a form - let me say I could just have easily selected a Menu Option that said "Print Shipping Labels" and 10 Labels would have come out without user intervention.

PS _ Bruce is ineligible (among other things) - I told him what I was working on.

customaware

If I was to guess.... you are calling some js to print straight from the browser to a local printer.

himanshu

https://www.neodynamic.com/articles/How-to-print-raw-Zebra-ZPL-commands-from-Javascript/

Jaymer

eagles9999 wrote
If I was to guess.... you are calling some js to print straight from the browser to a local printer.

nope. way off

Jaymer

himanshu wrote
https://www.neodynamic.com/articles/How-to-print-raw-Zebra-ZPL-commands-from-Javascript/

thats interesting... of course you do a lot of Javascript Himanshu, so easy for you.
But not me.
Thats really seems like a complicated way of doing it (all that JS I mean).
No JS in my solution.

And its probably obvious (cause I have a Zebra printer), that Yes, I'm using ZPL. +1

Jaymer

Hint: If you listen to my comments on the Video, there's a clue to connectivity. (applies more to Mark's guess)

intra

You've connected this label printer via a TCPIP connection and then sending ZPL commands either via python or some other back end script.

AIM processes the request, it constructs the required commands in ZPL format and then encapsulates it to the label printer.

himanshu

You must be using simple API on IP on which your printer is connected. 8-)

Jaymer

intra wrote
You've connected this label printer via a TCPIP connection and then sending ZPL commands either via python or some other back end script.
AIM processes the request, it constructs the required commands in ZPL format and then encapsulates it to the label printer.

EXACTLY!

... because they said it can't be done.
The "general consensus" is that to print something from Aware, you will get the popup window and the user has to click print.
We wanted to receive an item into the repair shop and immediately print a label.
Sure, we could have brought up a window (DISPLAY DOCUMENT) and then made the user print it, wait for it to go through windows print queue, get sent to the printer, eventually come out and then close the window.

I am cheating a bit... because I can send ZPL directly to the printer.
So I have this printer inside my home network. I use Print Forwarding to send traffic on a specific port to the Printer's IP.
I use ncat (net cat) to send a zpl file on the Aware server directly to the destination IP address.
I allow the Aware system to design ZPL as such:
Screen Shot 2020-02-03 at 1.39.00 AM.png
The button on the screen (in the video) starts a Process which locates the ZPL template,
performs some REPLACE_PATTERNs to merge the data,
Then a EXPORT DOCUMENT to a physical file takes the ZPL and puts it on the file system.
Then a simple EXECUTE PROGRAM starts a .bat script which does:
c:\nmap\ncat -4 -v --send-only 124.199.1.243 9100 < c:\zebra_label.zpl
which would print the label on the Repair Dept. Intake Printer.

ISSUES

I looked at PrinterLogic and PlusTechnologies. Both have systems which allow printing to IP printers. While installing a free trial, I wondered why I even needed their stuff - if I could get this ZPL out to a IP, then I could skip their tool.
"lpr" has been deprecated on Win 2016 servers. Following instructions here, I failed after the Install step. Don't know if it was because I'm using a hosted server, but it wasn't going to let me do it, so had to keep trying.
So, no "lpr" is no "print" from DOS, and I can't SHARE a Printer on this random network with my server. I had defined a Printer. It knew it was IP/Port printer, AND the Zebra print driver would let me send a file to it, but how to print from DOS?
Using the Generic/Text Only print driver option, I could print my ZPL from inside WordPad, for example. But I still needed a command line.
Netcat (been around a long time) lets me do exactly that - just push some text out to another address. Works a champ, as you can see.
I am not sure how a non-ZPL printer (ie. a regular laser printer) would work. Since I can't send a PDF to this Zebra, I can't test. Remember, Windows COULD print to this through WordPad - so perhaps Aware would work when using PRINT DOCUMENT.

You could always fall back to using PrinterLogic or PlusTechnologies solutions.
PlusTech prints with a command line - so you could EXPORT DOCUMENT to a PDF, then command-line that to a Destination IP address. You install an agent at the destination that polls the server for jobs. You can do it every 5-10 secs, and its a simple HTTP get (internally), so no real overhead. Then it would distribute it to the printer at the site. This would work for non-ZPL reports.

Good luck
Jaymer...

intra

Where did you get the consenus from?

As far as i know, this has been available for a while and is easy under a Linux environment.

Regardless still a good outcome.

BLOMASKY

I always thought I needed to "View" the PDF or report output in the browswer window then then click the silly printer button to direct what is in the browser to the printer. Of course, I am using windows.

Bruce

intra

I guess the technical description of what is happening here is server-side printing capabilities using a ZPL language.

The holy grail is 'client side' printing which can be achieved by javascript , that way it embodies a complete webapp style application that can talk to a local resource. In this example there's fiddling with the backend (which is fine provided your application is one tenant and dedicated infrastructure), for a SaSS app you will need to go down the 'client side' route to allow for flexibility and less administrative work.

Jaymer

intra wrote
I guess the technical description of what is happening here is server-side printing capabilities using a ZPL language.

The holy grail is 'client side' printing which can be achieved by javascript , that way it embodies a complete webapp style application that can talk to a local resource. In this example there's fiddling with the backend (which is fine provided your application is one tenant and dedicated infrastructure), for a SaSS app you will need to go down the 'client side' route to allow for flexibility and less administrative work.

"fiddling" !!! :? Ain't doin' no fiddling.
I don't fully agree with that... at least in this limited scenario.

"Consensus?"
First of all, Roger Ross needed to print Baggage Tags for his Travel app, and Vlad told him (Roger told me this) it had to be done with the "Aware" way of printing to the screen and the user clicking print.
Robin needs to print a receipt at a Dr.'s Office, and they have to train the users to click the Print button on the PDF viewer.
... this is the "Standard Aware" way.

I wasn't happy with that and when my client said they needed a label printed when equipment came in, I called both Robin & Roger and no progress had been made with "direct/automatic/unattended printing" so I made my own way. And if I needed PDFs I would have investigated those other solutions... but I don't, so I published this and stopped.

Strictly speaking in terms of SAAS, if my app offered a way to print a label for : Receiving, Inventory, PropertyLabel, etc., then I would tell the Tenant: Purchase a printer for each Label Type/Location, Put it on the network and adjust inbound port rules, and enter some setup data in your Client tables so the appropriate printer IP can be sent the job data. Thats not very tough. No Drivers on local PCs. No Printer Shares on the network. No PC is directly printing to any printer.

Its a utility/specialty printing issue. "Regular" reports from Aware can just be printed [to any printer] once the reports appears on the screen.

Now, for non-ZPL printers that need to be sent a PDF, thats where Bruce needs your help... in a Windows environment.
Sure, Linux still has printer daemons - stuff thats being removed from Windows Servers.
How does Bruce directly print 5 PDFs back-to-back to a printer unattended at 1AM in the morning?

PS _ And in this app, it a single company use (non SAAS).

intra

Jaymer wrote
"fiddling" !!! :? Ain't doin' no fiddling.
I don't fully agree with that... at least in this limited scenario.

Strictly speaking in terms of SAAS, if my app offered a way to print a label for : Receiving, Inventory, PropertyLabel, etc., then I would tell the Tenant: Purchase a printer for each Label Type/Location, Put it on the network and adjust inbound port rules, and enter some setup data in your Client tables so the appropriate printer IP can be sent the job data. Thats not very tough. No Drivers on local PCs. No Printer Shares on the network. No PC is directly printing to any printer.

This is fiddling... you're adjusting rules and other settings. Again.. its not hard.. but in a SaSS scenario it becomes a 'management task'. Under a 'client side' integration, this isn't needed as you would have direct access to the resource without the need for back-end communications to the script.

Again, i'm not trying to steal your thunder, you've done what you needed to do and its an outcome that worked for a customer and that's important part as it gets you paid.

Jaymer

I don't view it as trying to steal my thunder. Yes, it works, and I say it would work reliable for any SASS tenant.
If you want this functionality, then:
buy printer
buy labels
set the IP address of the printer
get it hooked to the network
[above steps have to be done anyway before fiddling]
add a firewall rule (this is fiddling?)
enable functionality in the SAAS software: [ ] Enable Receiving Label Printing.... IP address of printer: [...] Port: [____]

... and done!

Is that harder than installing print drivers on multiple machines/OS on every Aware station. and then Sharing that print queue on all those. And then where does the setup happen to print "Inventory" labels on PrinterA, and Intake labels on PrinterB. If I missed some technical issue, then tell me.

And please address the other issue of printing regular reports without user intervention from an Aware button click.
How has that been available for "quite some time"?