############################################################### # # # README file for GP ver. 2.5 # # # # Copyright (C) 1997-1998 UEDA Hiroyuki, NAKAI Hideyuki. # # All Rights Reserved. # # # # 15th Jan. 1998 # # # ############################################################### 1. What's GP? GP is an application for Unix and provides GUI interface of Unix Printing System. With GP, you can print easily and stably on Unix. BSD system, which is one of Unix systems, has commands (such as lpr, lpq, or lprm) for printing, and ensuring/removing print queues. These commands, however, are complicated for Unix novices. When a printer registered "/etc/printcap" has several filters, it makes them more complicated, and some novices may print PostScript files as Text files. Then you know what happens and it wastes lots of papers and time. To avoid this situation, use GP ver 2.5. When a file is selected, GP determines its filetype automatically by its filename extension and it also determines the appropriate printer. GP has Windows95-like user interface, which is employed in Tcl/Tk's minor version is the late of 1996. GP Ver 2.5 has GUI interface, so you can use GP easily. GP also has the following characteristics : You can avoid miss-printing because GP automatically recognize a file type and a default printer for the file by checking its file extension. You can preview a file before printing. When GP users try to print files and those files are specified not to be printed by the administrator, the users cannot print those files. Because File Selection Menu has a Windows95-like interface, Unix novices can use GP easily. 2. Environment for GP GP is an script written in Tcl/Tk, so you need Tcl7.6p2/Tk4.2p2 or later version (Latest release version is Tcl8.0p2/Tk8.0p2) But Tcl8.0/Tk8.0 has a menu bug and the bug has not been fixed any official patches from Sunscript, so I recommend you to use Tcl7.6p2/Tk4.2p2. According to Sun Microsystems, the bug will be fixed in next major release version. 3. Print Filter Applications GP provides you a GUI for BSD print commands, such as lpr, lprm, lpq. Most printers need some applications when you print Text files, TeX DVI files, PostScript files, Image files etc... For GP, we name such applications the filter and there are following types : Conversion to PostScript file Conversion to Printer Dependent Language file I use Canon BJC-400J(BubbleJet Printer) printer, so all files are converted to PostScript file for printing with Ghostscript. The filters I use are following : For Text file files ... a2ps(C/perl version) For DVI files ... dvi2ps For PostScript files ... psutils For Image files ... convert command of ImageMagick Any other filters can be used by GP with writing filter configuration files. If your filter can't work with GP, please contact me. 4. How to Install GP Please Refer to "Install" file in Doc directory. 5. How to Execute GP GP execution grammar is following (Options in "[ ]" can be omitted) : GP [-geometry +X+Y] [-vertical|-horizontal] "-geometry" specifies GP appearance coordinates(of X Window System). "+0+0" means the upper left and "-0-0" does the lower right. "-vertical" or "-horizontal" specifies the icons order. You can execute GP after starting X if you write following to ~/.xinitrc : GP -geometry -0+0 -vertical & 6. How to Use See HTML manual "index.html" in "Manual" directory with your favorite browser. 7. Notices (1) Method of Paper Scaling Even if a filter can use only a few kinds of papers, GP with psutils can use many kinds of papers, such as A3, A4, A5, B5, Letter, Legal, Tabloid, Statement, Executive, Folio, Quarto, 10x14 On scaling papers, GP use a default paper media of the filter as a standard size. If a default paper media of a filter is A4 and you want to print on A3, the filter makes A4 paper, GP magnifies/shrinks it, and you get A3 paper. (2) Strange Range of Paper Printing When you print part of a file, you maybe obtain strange part rarely. This is because of specifications of psutils. So check part of a file with PS preview if you can. (3) Clean Large Temporary Files in TMPDIR GP makes temporary files in TMPDIR directory when you preview or print a file as a PostScript file. Generally GP remove them when you quit GP correctly, but GP leaves large files in TMPDIR directory if you quit GP abnormally. So you should clean TMPDIR directory with "cron". 8. Copyright Copyright (C) 1997-1998 UEDA Hiroyuki, NAKAI Hideyuki This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. 9. How to Contact the Author If you find bugs and/or you have opinions about GP, please send a E-mail to following address : mailto:hueda@kamome.or.jp 10. Information of GP You can find information of GP on following URL : http://www.kamome.or.jp/hueda/GP/index.html Also I have registered my free soft on Tcl Contributed Sources Data Base, which has been maintained by Neosoft Com. (http://www.neosoft.com/tcl), refer to it, too. 11. Thanks I have no word to express my gratitude to KIRIYAMA Kazuhiko, who is one of FreeBSD ports maintainer and very active. Without his encouragement, I couldn't have completed GP ver. 2.5. Now any FreeBSD user can easily install GP with a ports made by him. FUJIMORI Kazuhiro is also indispensable for making GP ver. 2.5. He tested GP and gave me nice advice. And I deeply appreciate many people who have made nice, great and useful file conversion programs. During making GP, I printed out GP sources with GP and some file conversion program. 15th Jan. 1998 UEDA Hiroyuki