Overview
--------
AppleShare Print Server (APS) is a new revision of the LaserShare print
server.
- With APS, you can print a document without having to wait for an open
printer.
- APS supports LocalTalk LaserWriters and LocalTalk ImageWriters.
- APS acts as a go-between for workstations and printers on your network.
- APS takes documents to be printed, temporarily stores them on disk, and
sends them to the printer.
- The APS server is supported on a LocalTalk or EtherTalk network.
- APS can run either as a standalone application or as a concurrent
application under AppleShare File Server 2.0. It does not run
concurrently with older versions of AppleShare. You need to have a hard
drive connected to the computer running APS.
The rest of this article describes the new features of the AppleShare Print
Server.
Support of Multiple Printers
----------------------------
APS can act as a spooler for up to five printers. APS creates a new
"printer" that is accessed from the chooser DA. Each printer that is
spooled maintains a separate print log and print queue.
Warning: You can capture a printer in a different zone. The spooled printer
will appear, under Chooser, in the same zone as the APS server. If bypass
printing, or allowing printing from both the spooler and workstation, is
not allowed, the printer will no longer appear in the original zone. This
can cause a user to think there is a problem with the printer. The user
will have to select the zone of the APS server to see the spooled printer.
Automatic Reconnection To All Printers
--------------------------------------
When the APS server restarts, it connects with the printers and restarts
any print jobs that were not completed.
Printer and Window Menu
-----------------------
To display the windows on the screen, select the printer and window from
the Printer menu. This brings up a list of different printers, then uses a
hierarchical menu to display the options, log, or queue window. (If the
hierarchical menu does not come up, the user could be operating with older
system software.)
You control the display of the queue, and log windows that appear on the
screen, from the Window menu. There are options to Stack, Tile, or Hide the
windows. You can also move the windows using standard Macintosh click and
drag techniques. The server continues to spool documents, whether or not
the queue or log windows are open.
Support of AppleTalk ImageWriter II and LQ
------------------------------------------
APS supports printing to the AppleTalk ImageWriter II and ImageWriter LQ.
The Options dialog contains information about these printers.
When some applications print to an ImageWriter II or LQ, they treat each
page as if it were a separate document. If two or more users print at the
same time, pages from the various documents will be intermixed as they come
off the printer. APS can group the pages into a single print job. This
feature is called the Inter Page Timeout.
After APS receives a page from the workstation, it waits (five seconds is
the default) to see if any more pages are sent from the same workstation.
If APS receives another page in the allotted time, it assumes the page is
part of the first document, and appends the page to the current document.
If APS does not receive the document in the allotted time, APS assumes that
it has received all of the document. If any additional pages come in, they
are treated as a separate document.
Because applications differ in how long it takes to print a page, the
time-out option is adjustable. You don't want to make the time between
pages too large, because the spooler may combine two documents into one
document. You can adjust the time-out from zero to 60 seconds, using Set
intervals in the pop-up menu.
The LaserWriter logs list the Document Name and User Name. The ImageWriter
drivers don't send the necessary information to display the Document and
User Name, and the space is left blank. If you are printing a Draft style
document to an ImageWriter printer, the first fifteen characters of the
document appear in the document name field.
Print Queue and Logs
--------------------
Print Queue and Print Log are now disk-based. The new maximum is 1,000
entries in each.