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willed · Jun 11, 2003, 06:00 AM

Back in the day, my Mac Classic with OS7.0 was one of the first machines with background printing. And it does it better than my iBook 500 with OSX. Why, with pre-emptive multitasking, the power and stability of UNIX etc, does Word (or any other program) still hang for a few seconds while the OS prepares the pages. Then why does it have to open up a separate application, Print Centre? This alone can take a while when I have everything running on my iBook. Printing is then affected by everything - if you switch applications or windows there is a pause in the printing. Why isn't printing a transparent part of the OS yet?? I don't want print centre opened, I just want the document printed!

Developer · Jun 11, 2003, 06:15 AM

Are you British or what?

Print Center is opened because it is the app that's doing the background printing.

JKT · Jun 11, 2003, 06:22 AM

Originally posted by willed:
Back in the day, my Mac Classic with OS7.0 was one of the first machines with background printing. And it does it better than my iBook 500 with OSX. Why, with pre-emptive multitasking, the power and stability of UNIX etc, does Word (or any other program) still hang for a few seconds while the OS prepares the pages. Then why does it have to open up a separate application, Print Centre? This alone can take a while when I have everything running on my iBook. Printing is then affected by everything - if you switch applications or windows there is a pause in the printing. Why isn't printing a transparent part of the OS yet?? I don't want print centre opened, I just want the document printed!

Why not simply leave Print Centre open and hidden? Put it in your Login items to get it launched and hidden at startup/login. Then forget about it. Good point about printing causing apps to be made inactive until spooling has finished, though.

willed · Jun 11, 2003, 06:27 AM

Originally posted by Developer:
Are you British or what?

Yes.

Good idea about leaving print centre open though JKT, cheers.

Mediaman_12 · Jun 11, 2003, 06:50 AM

Originally posted by willed:
Back in the day, my Mac Classic with OS7.0 was one of the first machines with background printing. And it does it better than my iBook 500 with OSX. Why, with pre-emptive multitasking, the power and stability of UNIX etc, does Word (or any other program) still hang for a few seconds while the OS prepares the pages. Then why does it have to open up a separate application, Print Centre? This alone can take a while when I have everything running on my iBook. Printing is then affected by everything - if you switch applications or windows there is a pause in the printing. Why isn't printing a transparent part of the OS yet?? I don't want print centre opened, I just want the document printed!

???? in OS9 Background printing sucked spectacually, the entire system just ground to a halt, and the printing took loads longer. You where better of disabiling it compleately, and going off having a coffee while waiting for the print. OS9 also loaded a seporate app that held the print spool and showed the que?

willed · Jun 11, 2003, 07:32 AM

Originally posted by Mediaman_12:
???? in OS9 Background printing sucked spectacually, the entire system just ground to a halt, and the printing took loads longer. You where better of disabiling it compleately, and going off having a coffee while waiting for the print. OS9 also loaded a seporate app that held the print spool and showed the que?

Maybe you're right... This is the first time I've had a printer with my Mac for some years (last one was a StyleWriter 1500) so maybe I was expecting too much. I'd got used to the laser printers on our college PC network which pretty much print the thing before you've clicked 'OK'.

[pedant] btw, queue [/pedant]

Diggory Laycock · Jun 11, 2003, 08:40 AM

Also - if you keep Print Center/Centre open in the dock then you can drag files directly onto it and they print.

Appleman · Jun 11, 2003, 08:48 AM

Originally posted by Diggory Laycock:
Also - if you keep Print Center/Centre open in the dock then you can drag files directly onto it and they print.

You can do that as well when you have the icon of Print Center in the Dock, I mean it doen't have to be open for that matter.

Geobunny · Jun 11, 2003, 02:36 PM

Originally posted by Diggory Laycock:
Also - if you keep Print Center/Centre open in the dock then you can drag files directly onto it and they print.

Wow, that's a new one on me. Thanks!

bradoesch · Jun 11, 2003, 03:17 PM

Originally posted by Developer:
Are you British or what?

Canadian's spell it 'centre' too.

Mithras · Jun 11, 2003, 04:49 PM

It won't help the spooling, but if all you have is a pathological hatred of Print Cent[er|re], you could:

1. Click Print
2. Save as PDF (say, to ~/Desktop/doc.pdf)
3. In Terminal, type lpr ~/Desktop/doc.pdf
4. Print without Print Cent[er|re].
5. Manage your documents at http://localhost:631/jobs instead.

Espen Isaksen · Jun 11, 2003, 05:02 PM

5. Manage your documents at http://localhost:631/jobs instead. [/B]

That's cool! Didn't know about that one.

Brass · Jun 11, 2003, 06:23 PM

Originally posted by Developer:
Are you British or what?

Print Center is opened because it is the app that's doing the background printing.

No Print Center is NOT doing the printing, or to be more accurate, is not NECESSARY to do the printing. It is simply a print monitor (to use a Mac OS 7 term). It allows the user to monitor status, and halt queues, delete jobs, etc.

It is the CUPS printing subsystem that should be doing all the real printing work. This is a unix printing system that Mac OS X uses and it has no real GUI of it's own.

It should NOT be necessary to launch the Print Center to print. It should be optional such that a user can launch it manually if they wish to monitor (or alter) a printing job, or perhaps Print Center could have some preference as to whether or not it launches automatically.

Every other unix I use prints virtually instantly when I hit the print button (or print comand). Mac OS X is a slow dog when it comes to printing, and I believe it is mostly due to the unecessary GUI implementation.

Even OpenOffice.org in X11 on Mac OS X prints quicker than "native" Aqua applications, because it uses the printing subsystem directly.

Brass · Jun 11, 2003, 06:39 PM

Originally posted by Mithras:
http://localhost:631/jobs

Why have I never been able to get anything at that URL except an error? Do I have to enable something specifically first?

biscuit · Jun 12, 2003, 04:08 AM

I like that Terminal print command, could be very handy. I suppose it only works with PDFs right? Anyway to control the output at all? More specifically I'd like to print two pages in one.

And yes, Print Centre does seem to be a bit lame. Don't worry though, Panther will fix everything

biscuit

icruise · Jun 12, 2003, 06:57 AM

Originally posted by bradoesch:
Canadian's spell it 'centre' too.

But interestingly they don't spell "Canadians" with an apostrophe...

pliny · Jun 12, 2003, 08:23 AM

Originally posted by Appleman:
You can do that as well when you have the icon of Print Center in the Dock, I mean it doen't have to be open for that matter.

Yes you can do this but it's not true drag and drop like in OS 9 days, where you can drag X number of documents to the desktop printer and it spools all of them and takes care of it all. In X you still have to manually "feed" each document by pressing "ok". And if your print settings are different than the default you have to set those too since they never ever stick even though you may create a new printing profile for this exact purpose.

Mithras · Jun 12, 2003, 09:32 AM

Originally posted by Brass:
Why have I never been able to get anything at that URL except an error? Do I have to enable something specifically first?

Are you still running Internet Explorer for some bizarre reason? It has a problem with 'localhost'. Use http://127.0.0.1:631 instead.

JKT · Jun 12, 2003, 10:43 AM

Is it possible for Apple to stick printing/spooling into a separate thread so that when you do click print, you don't have to wait for the "Printing Page X" dialogue to eventually disappear before you can use the app again? It seems a bit lame that this still happens in OS X.

Mediaman_12 · Jun 12, 2003, 11:01 AM

Originally posted by JKT:
Is it possible for Apple to stick printing/spooling into a separate thread so that when you do click print, you don't have to wait for the "Printing Page X" dialogue to eventually disappear before you can use the app again? It seems a bit lame that this still happens in OS X.

At that point it hasn't got to the OS yet. That is the app prepering the file to print. So it's the App that need's to be properley multithreaded

wadesworld · Jun 12, 2003, 01:02 PM

I'd got used to the laser printers on our college PC network which pretty much print the thing before you've clicked 'OK'.

I don't know if this is the case for you or not, but keep in mind that many Mac printers are Postscript printers, while PC printers are usually PCL.

Postscript takes a *lot* longer to prepare and process than PCL does.

Wade

Brass · Jun 12, 2003, 06:28 PM

Originally posted by Mithras:
Are you still running Internet Explorer for some bizarre reason? It has a problem with 'localhost'. Use http://127.0.0.1:631 instead.

Nope, only ever use MSIE for one web site that requires it.

Using Camino.

I've never been able to get that printer web page working using "localhost" or the 127 IP address. What am I doing wrong???

Brass · Jun 12, 2003, 06:34 PM

Originally posted by JKT:
Is it possible for Apple to stick printing/spooling into a separate thread so that when you do click print, you don't have to wait for the "Printing Page X" dialogue to eventually disappear before you can use the app again? It seems a bit lame that this still happens in OS X.

No. Imagine if the print subsystem is half way through spooling your 1,000 page document in one thread, while in another thread, you are modifying pages 800 - 932. The result would be very unpredictable.

The only way this could be done, would be to copy the entire document first, in the same thread, then fork a new thread which spools from the copy.

May as well, spool it in the one thread as copy it.

ginoledesma · Jun 12, 2003, 10:11 PM

Originally posted by wadesworld:
I don't know if this is the case for you or not, but keep in mind that many Mac printers are Postscript printers, while PC printers are usually PCL.

Postscript takes a *lot* longer to prepare and process than PCL does.

Wade

Er... Not all Mac printers are Postscript printers. I think only Laser printers (though not all) are Postscript. The old term for non-Postscript printers for the Mac was "Quickdraw" printers, but I'm not sure if this term is still applicable/relevant today. I doubt that Macs speak PCL, but I could be wrong.

Printing in OS X is indeed slow, and how a user's use of the computer during printing is still bothering me. I have old Pentium II PCs running Linux and Windows and using the computer during printing doesn't have too big an effect in the print speed.

Sarc · Jun 12, 2003, 11:53 PM

anybody agree if I send this thread to Apple Feedback alongside an explanation ?

synner · Jun 13, 2003, 11:47 AM

Originally posted by Icruise:
But interestingly they don't spell "Canadians" with an apostrophe...

nereus · Jun 13, 2003, 07:16 PM

I'm still using 10.1.5, so if this has changed, I'll be thrilled.

The thing that bugs me the most is that if I print something then logout, my print job is summarily terminated, not even cancelled. Once I start printing, the spooler, which should be running permanently in the background, should handle things.

But no. If the print center(centre) job is terminated with prejudice (from my logging out), the job just ends, requiring printer reset, etc. (HP 990cxi with HP drivers, no CUPS).

Perhaps CUPS fixes this?

gthyb · Jun 13, 2003, 07:30 PM

I have fond memories of my mac classic w/ system 7 and style writer II...

-Q- · Jun 13, 2003, 11:45 PM

Originally posted by Brass:
Nope, only ever use MSIE for one web site that requires it.

Using Camino.

I've never been able to get that printer web page working using "localhost" or the 127 IP address. What am I doing wrong???

What OS are you running? CUPS was only implemented in Jaguar. I know, probably a silly question but I wanted to make sure...

Pretzel · Jun 14, 2003, 01:55 AM

Maybe you need to install the Gimp-Print drivers as well as the ghostscript postscript interpreter - only for MacOs 10.2.x

see
http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/p_FAQ_OS_X.php3

Tsilou B. · Jun 14, 2003, 05:11 AM

Originally posted by Brass:
Nope, only ever use MSIE for one web site that requires it.

Using Camino.

I've never been able to get that printer web page working using "localhost" or the 127 IP address. What am I doing wrong???

You have to turn on "Printer Sharing" in the Sharing panel in the System Preferences.

DVD Plaza · Jun 14, 2003, 09:59 AM

Originally posted by biscuit:
Don't worry though, Panther will fix everything

Hehehe - just like Jaguar

willed · Jun 14, 2003, 01:24 PM

Originally posted by Sarc:
anybody agree if I send this thread to Apple Feedback alongside an explanation ?

Yeah, why not? Go for it if you think it will help.

bracken · Jun 14, 2003, 04:07 PM

Originally posted by bradoesch:
Canadian's spell it 'centre' too.

Yeah, but Canadians always have some sly comment about Americans every time they mention something. He didn't.

Hozie · Jun 14, 2003, 05:09 PM

Originally posted by Tsilou B.:
You have to turn on "Printer Sharing" in the Sharing panel in the System Preferences.

If you have a proxy, then you have to bypass the proxy for local addresses. Put 192.168 in the appropraite network setting tab and you'll be able to access that page...

JKT · Jun 16, 2003, 06:45 AM

Originally posted by Brass:
No. Imagine if the print subsystem is half way through spooling your 1,000 page document in one thread, while in another thread, you are modifying pages 800 - 932. The result would be very unpredictable.

The only way this could be done, would be to copy the entire document first, in the same thread, then fork a new thread which spools from the copy.

May as well, spool it in the one thread as copy it.

Fair enough, but what if they applied the dialogue sheet metaphor to printing, so that only the document you were currently spooling was stalled, whereas others in the same app could be worked upon/opened/closed? It doesn't affect me particularly at present, but I was just imagining what it must be like if you do have to print a few hundred pages in one go with several images... shudders.

Xeo · Jun 18, 2003, 08:31 AM

So if your location is the U.K, is the name actually Centre and not Center?