PrintSpeed  -  Turbo-charge your printer

by Matt Browne

Version 1.01

for RISC OS 3.1 or later

Printers version 1.22 or later is strongly recommended

PrintSpeed is a utility to greatly speed up the time it takes for you to regain control of the computer when printing, especially on PostScript printers. When PrintSpeed is loaded and you print from any application, the output is sent through Scrap and queued for later printing. Assuming you have the Background printing option selected in Printers (version 1.22 or later), printing will then be queued sensibly and will take place in the background, allowing you to get on with whatever else you want to do.

Note that PrintSpeed requires Scrap (as does Printers to run efficiently). If you are using a pre-Risc PC machine, make sure that Scrap has been seen or booted before running an application that has been installed with PrintSpeed.

The PrintSpeed module is written in 100% ARM Assembler for maximum speed and efficiency, and the PrintSpeed installer follows normal RISC OS conventions.

Installing PrintSpeed
Before it will work, PrintSpeed needs to be installed into your Printer Manager. This will probably be Printers, but doesn't have to be; PrintSpeed will work with any Printer Manager that is designed for use with RISC OS 3 or later.

After PrintSpeed has initially been installed, you can forget about it. It doesn't use much memory, it works completely transparently, and it will be loaded automatically as part of the application into which it has been installed.

Installing PrintSpeed is a very simple process: just double-click on the !PrntSpeed icon and drag into the window the application (e.g. Printers) that you want PrintSpeed to be installed into. And that's it! If you accidentally install PrintSpeed in an application that isn't a Printer Manager, don't worry! It won't affect the application in any way, and can easily be removed.

To remove PrintSpeed from an application, simply drag that application back into the PrintSpeed installer window; it will be uninstalled automatically.

Technical matters
PrintSpeed itself is a relocatable module. It works by intercepting dialogue between an application (designed for any version of RISC OS) and a RISC OS 3 (or later) Printer Manager. The printed output is then redirected into <Wimp$ScrapDir>.PrintSpeed and queued for printing. This means that the proper job-queueing mechanism is used properly by all applications. Assuming the Background printing option is set in Printers, printing will then occur in the background. The PrintSpeed file inside Scrap is deleted automatically when it is no longer needed.

You can install PrintSpeed inside an application by copying the PrintSpeed module inside !PrntSpeed to the relevant application and then altering its !Run file so that the module is RMLoaded when the application is run. It's probably a good idea to insert an RMKill PrintSpeed line at the end of the !Run file so that it doesn't remain in the RMA when it isn't needed.

Hints on using PrintSpeed
If you are using !Printers, make sure you get version 1.22 or later. You can obtain the latest version from Acorn Customer Services, any good public domain library (but note that Printers is copyright software), from Beebug, via most Acorn-related bulletin boards or from Acorn's Internet FTP site.

Ensure that you set the relevant option in the Printer Manager you are using to enable background printing. In recent versions of Printers, this is in the Connection... window of loaded printers.

Whenever printing takes place in the background (under normal circumstances as much as with PrintSpeed), make sure an application doesn't take over the whole machine for a long time, stopping it multitasking. If it does, some printers (usually PostScript ones) time-out after a while and abort whatever was printing.

Author:	Matt Browne
		matt@hell.btc.uwe.ac.uk

Copyright  RISC User 1996