Print Explorer Wiki

Odd quirks have given me quite a lot of trouble when using the support for Printing in Java. Built this test program as a means to systematically explore and report the problems.

Usage

PrintExplorer is pretty straight-forward.

Select the printer (PrintService) that you want to use from the selector at the top.
Select a tab for the particular dialect you wish to exercise.
Click buttons to adjust parameters and invoke print-related operations.

Notes...

Parameters and relevant information are presented in "before" and "after" panels.
Each tab corresponds to a Print API dialect.
The program records a log file "print-test-log.html" with the parameters used and the APIs invoked.
Before and after parameters are color-coded (blue for before, red for after) both in the GUI and in the HTML log.

If you can come up with a sequence to reproduce a bug, the log shows the exact series of operations. Should be useful in reporting bugs.

(The program is still a work in progress, and the DocPrinterJob tab works, though not for a Doc using a Reader.)

Print Dialects

There seem to be three distinct attempts at defining a Printing API for Java. Bit of a mess. They do not really interoperate, and none strike me a well-factored.