FF or Print oR SAVE -- an ALT/HELP vector stealer..... These programs are Copyright 1989 Chet Walters **** NO RIGHTS RESERVED **** This is a revision of an earlier program named HP_RSAVE. This program is specific to HP Laser Jets and compatibles and others need not apply. This has a special feature for HP Lasers only! It's called FF_RSAVE which means Form Feed, Print or Save the current screen. The WHY... I simply got tired of loading a separate program into memory then rebooting or running something that stole the ALT/HELP vector depending on what I wanted to do -- that is whether I wanted to SAVE the screen as a PI? pic or whether I wanted to dump the screen to the printer (I have a Panasonic KX-P4450). The WHAT... So, I wrote and ALT/HELP vector stealer that did both! Yup, depending on what keys you press, the Print oR SAVEr will either print the screen on the printer or save it to a disk. There is one version here. The HOW... SAVING PI? pics with Print oR SAVE First, it's not necessary to hold the key presses for any length of time. Just use a normal key press for the keys. It's best to put FF_RSAVE.PRG Dead last in the AUTO folder and you can also run it from the desktop anytime and it will work OK. Back up the program you're going to use. Then copy it to the AUTO folder. The program comes defaulted to the root directory of drive A: for saving the PI? pics. You can change that, however, by running the FF_RSET.PRG. You will be first asked to locate the copy of the program to modify (normally the one you've copied into the AUTO folder). If you don't select the right program, then the SET program will ask again and again until you get the right one or hit CANCEL on the FSEL. Once you choose the right one, you will be asked to choose the path to which you wish your screen dumps saved as PI? pics. With this program, pressing the RIGHT-SHIFT / ALT / HELP combination will save the currently visible screen to the path you have set as an appropriate Degas PI? picture file. The program can save 26 screens consecutively starting with the name SCREEN_A.PI? and ending with the name SCREEN_Z.PI?. It starts scanning with the 'A' and the first time it encounters an empty slot, that's the name it will use. With this in mind, it's a good idea to often clean out the path of old pics since this will speed the process of searching for an empty slot and also will keep you from getting confused as to which pic is which. Pic Saving Caveats... Now, one is not supposed to go poking around accessing the disk and saving screens while another program is running without first asking that program's permission. That's what we're doing here. We're cheating. Along down the road we're gonna crash the machine. Someday, sometime the inevitable bombs will appear. Don't say I didn't warn you. Eventually you'll come upon a situation where trying to save the screen will crash the machine. Make sure before you go to save a screen, that you save any important work you might be in the process of creating. THEN save the screen with the RT SHIFT/ALT/HELP keys. Also make sure you don't press those keys when there is any disk or printer I/O going on at the time. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! BTW - if a save is successful, you'll hear a bell chime. If it's _NOT_ successful (disk full, no names left, whatever) then you'll hear _no_ bell chime (or see bombs maybe). Too, if another program has moved the keyboard vector after we're installed, the SHIFT KEY may be ingnored by the system (then again maybe not). If that happens, you won't be able to save the screen but the print dump should still work (then again, maybe not). These problems will be minimized if you put this DEAD last in the AUTO. USING FF_RSAVE.PRG There are a few more things you LJ owners will encounter when configuring your FF_RSAVE.PRG. You will be asked to set some other parameters. You see, this ain't just a screen dump. This is a real fancy screen dump (at only 1600 bytes of memory when installed, it ain't gonna be THAT awful fancy, but I think it's nice and you will too). TWO SIZES (CONTROL/ALT/HELP) FF_RSAVE can dump in two sizes (neet). The SMALL size is roughly 4 1/4 by 2 3/4 inches. The LARGE size chimes in at 6 1/4 by just under 4 inches. Set the one you want as default (I like 'em small -- saves toner and time). You can change the size ON THE FLY by pressing the CONTROL/ALT/HELP keys for a dump. That will set the printer to the OPPOSITE of the default like above. If you have SMALL set then for THIS DUMP ONLY you'll get LARGE when you hold down the CONTROL key while you press ALT/HELP. Small size dumps will fit three to a page and large will fit two. That's why I included the following extra feature. PAGE EJECT (HOLD the ALT KEY FOR ONE SECOND) You can set FF_RSAVE to ALWAYS eject the page for every dump. That's just what it will do. Before each dump, the printer will bring up a new page and after each dump it will spit it out. If you set ALWAYS, there is NO WAY to change it on the fly. If you set it to KEY then pressing ALT/HELP will just print the screen wherever the paper lies and will stop printing leaving the paper right where it is with a small advance so's not to print on top of the last one. This is nice for getting two or three screens on a sheet. But, when you get to the end of a sheet, it would be a pain to get up and eject the page manually, now wouldn't it? So, if you press ALT/HELP then release the HELP key but continue to hold down the ALT key for the count of 'one mississippi -- two mississippi then the page will eject once the dump is done! Neat! Now, there's an alternative here too. After obtaining a laser printer, I have discovered a real pain with lasers. If the printing you are doing does not fill a page, whether it be text or graphics, then the ole printer will just sit there waiting for more data and you will sit there forever if you just wait for the page to show up. The only solution is to get up, press the ON LINE button so the printer goes off line, then press the Form Feed button (other names for various printers, but you know). Then and only then will the page get spit out for you to look at. Sheesh! Pain! There's a solution built right into this little program. It's detailed below...... PAGE EJECT (Press LEFT SHIFT / ALT / HELP ) To eject the current page from the printer (which is called "print remaining data" in most laser manuals) all you need to do is press LEFT SHIFT / ALT / HELP. All this key combination does is feed the damned page out. This works within any program and anytime you need it. Say you're in FLASH and you print a short block of text. The printer just sits there with a buffer full of text. Instead of getting up and doing all that happy stuff with the panel buttons, press LEFT SHIFT / ALT / HELP and spit out the page! ANYTIME the printer sits there with a non blinking busy light lit (meaning there's stuff waiting to print) just press those keys and out it comes! These keys will NOT cause a screen dump, just a form feed. You'll love it! ABORT PRINTING (power down the printer) You're wondering now how to abort a print in progress? You can't and here's why: if you have the program set to NOT feed the page for every dump, then go ahead and shut that puppy off. That's about the only way to abort a print. Once the engine in that laser starts to whine, LEAVE IT ALONE. If you shut it off then, you'll hafta open it up and undo the paper jam. Let it roll once it starts. KEY SUMMARY -- Print keys ALT/HELP --------------- prints the screen with current defaults LEFT-SHIFT/ALT/HELP ---- Issues a form feed ONLY CONTROL/ALT/HELP ------- toggles (CONTROLS) the size delay ALT KEY release -- causes page EJECT after dump -- Save keys RIGHT-SHIFT/ALT/HELP -- saves current screen to default path -- Crazy keys RIGHT-SHIFT/LEFT-SHIFT/CONTROL/ALT/HELP (all keys at once) will cause FF_RSAVE to fall through to whatever driver was installed BEFORE itself (likely the system dump so you'll get a whole bunch of smiley faces and lots of other garbage on the page unless you have another printer hooked up temporarily and need to print a screen on it). FF_RSAVE caveats Again, since FF_RSAVE does a little cheating to do what it does for you, it might (rarely) bomb when dumping a page to the printer. Save any important work before dumping a screen. Saving a screen is much more prone to bombing like explained. FF_RSAVE will NOT dump LOW RES screens to the printer. Pressing any of the print key combinations will cause absolutely NOTHING to happen at all. HI RES screens turn out terrific! MED RES screens turn out terrific about 95% of the time. The other 5% you are advised to save the screen (like in LOW RES) and use some other program to print them (hey, waddaya want for 1600 bytes). I have strived to make FF_RSAVE compatible with just about anything at all. It works great for me. However, there's likely SOME program SOMEWHERE that won't like the key presses involved here. To this I say (and you can quote me), "TOO BAD!" It's free and it won't tie your shoes or make dinner for you, but try it... you might get hooked on it! That's about it! If you want a heck of a good program for cataloguing all those screens you'll be saving, get IMAGE CAT from WizWorks. Only $24.95 postpaid and it catalogues IMG, Degas PI# & PC#, Tiny (all types) and NEO (all types) and also MAC pics from both the PC world and the MAC world. Now, if you want to work on those screens afterward in monochrome only, then get Dr. Bob's Handy Dandy MVG for only $49.95 postpaid! Great stuff. If you send $2.00 to: WizWorks! PO Box 45 Girard, OH 44420 We'll send you out a disk of the Demo Versions of these programs. If you then return the demo disk with an order, you get the $2.00 back! Oh, and we accept MasterCard and VISA too! Just call 216-536-5623!!