Ted Ashton ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
: Please pardon my intrusion of a not-quite-entirely on-topic message.  Has
: anyone on the list had experience with PJL, in specific, with the OPMSG
: command?

: I want to print special forms on my LaserJet 4 and I don't want to use forms
: messages to do it.  I went looking through my PJL book and located what
seemed
: the thing.  The @PJL OPMSG DISPLAY = "Something" is supposed to turn the
: printer offline and display Something on the display.  This it does--much too
: well.  That is, the beginning of the job is fine.  I get the message, read
: what forms need to be in, insert them and press online.  The job prints
merrily
: along until it reaches a point almost precisely 3 pages before the end of the
: job.  It then deals with the OPMSG command for the next job, turning the
: printer offline and displaying the message.  So I pull out these forms, put
in
: the next forms and voila, we have 3 pages of the old job printed on the new
: form.  I have tried adding the UEL command in all kinds of amazing places, I
: have tried using @PJL JOB and @PJL EOJ pairs.  I have tried everything I can
: think of and I can't get the printer to finish what it is doing before it
pops
: up that next message.

I'm really surprised that the printer acts on an OPMSG out of sequence, but
as we didn't use it in the network printing spooler, I can't testify to any
aspect of its behavior.  (We do use the RDYMSG command to display the spoolid
of the file being printed).

What are you using to print your files?  Are you using the network spooler
on 5.5?  A serial connection on any release?  A third-party despooler?  If
you are experiencing this problem with the network spooler, you should
have a chat with your friendly RCE and get that on our plate.  The network
spooler waits for a job to be completely delivered to the output station
before starting a new job.  So the printer shouldn't even see the next
job's OPMSG until the current job is done.  If that isn't working, we need
to fix it.

Unless, of course, you have disabled the spooler's PJL support of your
printer with a "pjl_supported = false" item in your NPCONFIG file.  In
that case you could experience this behavior even in the network printing
environment, because the spooler will then not send any PJL commands, nor
will it wait for job completion.

The network spooler uses the @PJL USTATUS JOB=ON command.  Then it sends
the @PJL JOB command at the start of a print file and @PJL EOJ following
the last data.  It then sits back and waits for the printer to return
a @PJL USTATUS JOB <CR><LF> END <CR><LF> ... before continuing.  The
printer only does this after the last page is delivered to the stacker,
so any OPMSG in a succeeding file is not sent until well after the
printer finishes the current file.

If you are not using the network spooler, then are you using any flavor
of MPE or third-party spooler, or are you rolling your own?  If you are
managing your own printing (and have a bi-directional print path), you
can do what the network spooler does.  If not, I can't offer any useful
suggestion, because if the spooler itself does not support monitoring
the printer for that USTATUS, it will probably charge blindly on into
the next job.

If you *are* using the 5.5 network spooler, have you considered sending
your @PJL OPMSG via an ENV file (ENV=<filename> on your file equation)?
Remember you can put anything in that file that the printer can under-
stand when it sees it.  So you would probably need a UEL, the @PJL
OPMSG command, and a @PJL ENTER LANGUAGE=...<whatever>.  This should get
you the job separation you need.

Sorry this got so long, but I hope it helps.

-Larry "MPE/iX Spoolers 'R' Us" Byler-