Conference iosg::all-in-1_v30

Did this work in V2.4?

What is the Data type and Handling of the LOTUS documents?


Richard

    Richard,
    
    Yes, the printing of graphs works fine under V2.4 and LOTUS 1.0.  I
    have not been able to convince the customer to upgrade LOTUS to 1.5 
    on their major production IOS 2.4 system, so I don't know if LOTUS
    1.5 has the same problems under IOS V2.4.
    
    I did some more testing and found out that the worksheets print fine
    from LOTUS, so the only problem is the printing of graphs.  I can
    also create a graph to a file in the IOS file cabinet, but I have
    no way of printing this document since IOS says it is a LOTUS
    document and LOTUS says it is not a valid worksheet.
    
    The Document type is 123 WK3 and the Handling is LOTUS 1-2-3 for the
    worksheet files and the Document type is 123 CGM and Handling is
    LOTUS 1-2-3 for the graph file.
    
    Nancy

Does the FORMAT master entry for "LOTUS 1-2-3" define a Print function for 
formatting LOTUS documents?


Richard

    Richard,
    
    The FORMAT record shows DO L123A1_FORMAT_P for the print function,
    DO L123A1_FORMAT_R for the read function and DO L123A1_MENU_E for 
    the edit function.
    
    The L123A1_FORMAT_P.SCP file was created 5-Aug-1992 and is 2 blocks
    long.  The file is in the OA$L123_A1_DO_SHARE which is where the 
    CM$SITELOG record shows it should be. 
    
    Nancy

I suggest you do a trace and check if the L123A1_FORMAT_P.SCP script gets 
executed, and what it does.


Richard

    Richard,
    
    I did a trace and now am more thouroughly confused than before.
    It seems that LOTUS is using the edit function, but not the
    print function in the LOTUS 1-2-3 format record.  I tried
    printing from the LOTUS screen and also from within LOTUS.
    Both traces showed no reference to L123A1_FORMAT_P.SCP script.
    Instead, the print from the menu executed a script called
    L123A1_MENU_P.SCP and the print from within LOTUS showed
    no references to any script from what I could tell.  Just
    to confirm my suspicions, I removed the script from the format
    record and nothing changed.  The traces still showed the same
    things.  The L123A1_FORMAT_P.SCP seems to only be used when
    a document with data type LOTUS 1-2-3 is printed from somewhere
    other than the LOTUS menus.  It simply puts out a message that
    LOTUS documents can only be printed from the LOTUS menus.
    
    From this, I am assuming that the problem is within the LOTUS
    program itself.  Is that a safe assumption?  As for my confusion,
    maybe you can explain something to me.  How can the LOTUS menus
    be bypassing the print function in  the format record?  When the
    document is printed, it displays the normal message that the
    document is being formatted for printing, just like other
    documents being formatted by IOS.  How does a normal document
    get handed to the IOS formatting functions and when does the
    format record get used?
    
    Thanks for your info and help.
    
    Nancy  
    

> How can the LOTUS menus be bypassing the print function in the format
> record? 

It's possible that printing from the LOTUS screen and within LOTUS bypasses
some of the ALL-IN-1 printing sub-system.  The ALL-IN-1 print sub-system
(WPPRINT script) can be called to print an ALL-IN-1 document or a VMS file.
The LOTUS sub-system could be creating the listing file itself and is only
using the ALL-IN-1 print sub-system to print the file it has created.  If
LOTUS is implemented in this way it will not be using the FORMAT master
file. 


> When the document is printed, it displays the normal message that the
> document is being formatted for printing, just like other documents being
> formatted by IOS. 

The same informational messages are displayed when the print sub-system is 
called to print a VMS file.


> How does a normal document get handed to the IOS formatting functions and
> when does the format record get used? 
    
When the ALL-IN-1 print sub-system is called to print a document it uses
the data type and/or handling to determine how to print it.  This is used
to look up in information in the FORMAT master.  If the FORMAT master entry
has a 'Print function' defined this is executed to format the document.
From your description of what is happening it seems that the LOTUS function
does not format the document, but instead outputs an error message.  I
don't know enough about LOTUS to know if it is possible to format the
document.  If the LOTUS formatter is callable it should be possible.



Richard

    Nancy,
    
    Here at the CSC we have a system running Lotus v1.5 and ALL-IN-1 v3.0
    and we have a group that supports this product day in day out who could
    help you with this problem and hopefully solve it.
    
    Regards,
    
    Andrew.D.Wicks

    Andrew,
    
    I did go to the CSC two days before I entered the first note here.
    While they were very helpful and worked with me for several days,
    including dialing in to the system, we could not find any answers.
    
    The call was finally elevated to LOTUS and after working with
    LOTUS technical support for 2 days, we finally solved all but
    one problem.  I still can't print draft mode graphs to the LJ250,
    but I can at least print graphs in final mode to the LJ250 and
    in postscript mode to the LPS20.
    
    Seems LOTUS does all the formatting for the printer and then
    passes it to the ALL-IN-1 function identified by the SMPRINTER
    tables.  In order to prevent reformatting of the already
    formatted file, we had to identify the LPS20 as an LPS20 instead
    of an LPS20-PS and specify a generic postscript queue, even 
    though the graph is a postscript document.  The LJ250 problem
    was similar and we had to define the printer to ALL-IN-1 as
    an LJ250 and SYSTEM PRINTER.  Then define it to LOTUS as a
    LJ250 in DECmode w/graphics.
    
    Thanks for the suggestion.  I just wanted to share the info
    LOTUS and I found and let you know that I firmly support and
    use the CSC to help me solve problems whenever I can.
    
    Nancy