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Printing

ICEreader SDK provides a rich set of printing features for various content types. Some of the print features you can implement are as follows:

Feature
Description
Printing reference implementations
Examples are provided for printing under JDK 1.1.8, 1.2, and 1.3. For more information, see the following sections.
HTML 4 smart paging
In the HTML 4 pilot, smart paging allows for the paging and printing of web content that is longer and wider than a single page's imageable area.
The algorithm finds the most logical vertical and horizontal page breaks, avoiding breaks within text blocks and columns and rows in tables.
Page decorations
A page decoration is a graphic sprite that is painted on top of the StormPrinter's graphic content. It is used to add header and footers to print jobs.
You could also use it to print a transparent watermark on each page using Java2D or to add a logo to a header, for example. Implement the PageDecoration Interface for generic page decorations, or the AbstractPageDecoration for header- and footer-specific implementations.
Frameset printing
The Page setup dialog and the StormPageFormat object offer two ways to print HTML framesets. The first option, "as laid out on screen", prints all of the frameset's frames on one page. The second option, "all frames individually", prints the individual frames as if they are regular HTML pages, and lays out the pages to fit the current print media's imageable area.
Printing selected content
With JDK 1.3 and higher, the HTML4 pilot supports the printing of a selected content area. If you select an area of an HTML document and select "Selection" in the print dialog, only the selected content is printed.

Using the RICommon Printing Classes

The RICommon (ice.ri.common.print) package provides simplified printing procedures for various Java SDKs. You can quickly integrate printing into your application using the RICommon print classes, taking advantage of the StormPageFormat print features.

If you need to implement your own print routines, first review the printing source code available in the ice.ri.common.print package.

Using the StormPrinter Class

You can implement printing in your application independent of the Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) printing system or any other printing API. The printing functions work with Java 1.1.8 and higher and are compatible with third-party APIs. Your code uses the StormPrinter class as follows: 

StormPrinter stormPrinter = pilot.createPrinter();

Each pilot's print renderer prints to the contents of a Java Graphics object. The print renderer formats the content to best fit the specified page format. You use the StormPageFormat class to store properties about the page format, such as margin width and height, page size, and page orientation.

Printing under Java 1.1.8

The following code sample shows how you can set up printing in Java 1.1.8. The source code is available under ICEbrowserExamples/src/printing/JavaPrinting.java.

To support printing with JDK 1.1.8, you can use the ice.ri.common.print.jdk11 library. If your application is being deployed on a later JDK, use the ice.ir.common.print.jdk13 library instead, as it offers richer printing support.

The "Print Selection" option is not enabled in the print dialog. To use this feature, set the StormPageFormat object's setPrintSelected() method to true.

The following code assumes that you have already set up the object stormPageFormat. This object is passed into the constructor of a PageSetupDialog, which allows the user to configure the stormPageFormat object using the provided GUI. 

// Create and set up dialog
 
Viewport view = stormBase.findViewportByName(viewportId);
 
PageSetupDialog pageSetup = new PageSetupDialog(parentFrame, view,
 
	stormPageFormat);
 

 
// show the dialog and store the altered stormPageFormat
 
stormPageFormat = pageSetup.showDialog();
 

 
// Setup of the printer
 
PrintHelper11 printHelper11 = new PrintHelper11(view, stormPageFormat);
 

 
// Start the print job, where parentframe is an AWT Frame object
 
printHelper11.print(parentFrame);
Printing under Java 1.3

With JDK 1.3 and above, use the package ice.ri.common.print.jdk13, which allows the most flexible print configuration. You can set the JobAttributes to show a native, platform-independent dialog, or no dialog at all, when the print job starts. This package also respects any page attributes that are set when the print dialog is displayed, such as the number of copies, print selection, media size, and page ranges.

The following code shows how you can print rendered content. 

// Create and set up dialog
 
Viewport view = stormBase.findViewportByName(viewportId);
 
PageSetupDialog pageSetup = new PageSetupDialog(parentFrame, view,
 
   stormPageFormat);
 

 
// show the dialog and store the altered stormPageFormat
 
stormPageFormat = pageSetup.showDialog();
 

 
// Create new job attributes
 
JobAttributes jobAttributes = new JobAttributes();
 

 
// set the job to use the operating system native print dialog
 
jobAttributes.setDialog(JobAttributes.DialogType.NATIVE);
 

 
// Set up the printer
 
PrintHelper13 printHelper13 = new PrintHelper13(view, stormPageFormat,
 
   jobAttributes);
 

 
// Start the print job, where parentframe is a awt Frame object.
 
printHelper11.print(parentFrame);
Printing under Java 2

In some situations you may want to use the Java 2 print interfaces Printable and Pageable. The following code sample shows how you can set up printing in Java 2 using the StormPrinter. The example includes using the Java Print setup dialog box for editing properties in the StormPageFormat. The source code is available under ICEbrowserExamples/src/printing/Java2Printing.java. 

// Create printer for current pilot

Viewport viewport = stormBase.findViewportByName(viewportId);

Pilot pilot = viewport.getPilot();
 

 
// create a new StormPrinter

StormPrinter stormPrinter = pilot.createPrinter();
 

 
// create a new StormPageFormat with default properties

StormPageFormat stormPageFormat = new StormPageFormat();
 

 
// add some page decoration to the printer

stormPageFormat.addDecoration(new StringPageDecoration("URL",

    viewport.getLocation(),

    StringPageDecoration.TOP,

    StringPageDecoration.LEFT));
 

 
// set paper size

stormPageFormat.setPageSize(StormPageFormat.NA_LETTER);
 

 
// Set the zoom of the printer to fit the page width.

double scale = (1.0 / stormPrinter.getDimension().width ) *

    stormPageFormat.getImageableWidth();

stormPageFormat.setScaleToFitEnabled(true);

stormPageFormat.setScale(scale);
 

 
// turn off background images

stormPageFormat.setBackgroundVisible(false);
 

 
// assign StormPageFormat to Storm printer at which time

// the number of pages are calculated

stormPrinter.setStormPageFormat(stormPageFormat);
 

 
// start the print job

PageableDocument document = new PageableDocument(stormPrinter);

document.setPageDialogVisible(false);

document.setPrintDialogVisible(false);

document.print();
 

 
// post print clean up

stormPrinter.dispose();
Printing Pages with Multiple Frames in Java 2

The examples in the ice.ri.common.print package contain all the code you need to print multiple frames in JDK 1.1.8 and 1.3. However, in some situations you may want to print frames using the Java 2 print interfaces Printable and Pageable.

You can configure your application to print documents that include multiple frames. For an example, see the ICEbrowserExamples/src/printing/FramesetPrinting.java example code. The example shows how to print pages that have multiple frames in two ways:

Printing Multiple Pages

The StormPrinter interface uses the notion of a page count to describe the number of pages. The following example shows how to navigate through the pages in a print job: 

// Print all pages.

for(int i = 0; i < stormPrinter.getPageCount(); i++){

    Graphics g = printJob.getGraphics();

    stormPrinter.printPage(g, i);

    g.dispose();

}

Copyright 2005. ICEsoft Technologies, Inc.
http://www.icesoft.com
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