Printer Driver API/Resource Toolkit
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The printer driver user interface can be changed in three distinct ways. Through the .INI file, the resource files, and programmatically though the API. The dialog box tabs on the printer driver user interface also can be hidden by modifying a value in the printer driver’s .INI file. The .INI file can be set at installation time or they can be changed anytime, even programmatically from an application. The printer driver will read these values every time the printer driver user interface is displayed.

The dialog box templates and other resources used by Black Ice Printer drivers are stored in a separate DLL. The source code for the DLL that contains these resources are included in the Resource Toolkit. By modifying the resource DLL, application developers can customize the user interface of the printer driver. Controls on dialog boxes can be repositioned, resized or even hidden. The only items that cannot and must not be changed are the About box, the version and license information of the printer driver.

As the name of the resource DLL is stored in the printer driver's DEVMODE structure, the resource DLL can be renamed to avoid conflicting with other Black Ice printer drivers installed on the system.

The resource DLL also includes every text string used by the printer driver. Localization and internationalization of the printer driver can be handled very easily by translating these strings to other languages.

Furthermore, all the Black Ice printer driver components can be renamed to be used in a custom application. In addition to renaming the individual DLLs, the printer driver can be installed with a custom name to avoid conflict with other Black Ice printer driver installations.

The Print Job Control functionality included in the Resource Toolkit contains features, such as pausing, restarting and deleting print jobs. Developers can get a list of the current print jobs, then pause or delete any print jobs they need to control. Developers can also query the total number of print jobs for the specified printer and the status of each specified job to see if the status is printing, paused, and so on.

Additional print job-specific information that can be retrieved from the Black Ice printers includes:

• the name of the machine that created the print job
• the name of the user that owns the print job
• the name of the print job ( the document name, for example, "MS-WORD: Review.doc")
• the job’s priority
• the job's position in the print queue
• total number of pages in the document
• the number of pages that have printed
• the time the job was submitted

When the printer driver is used as a part of an application, there are several ways to allow the application to communicate with the printer driver.

The printer driver can communicate with the application in a number of ways:

• the application can capture printer driver messages sent by the printer driver's messaging interface
• the application can check the content of the group file generated by the printer driver
• the printer driver can start the application and pass command line parameters

The Printer Driver Resource Toolkit includes samples with full source codes written in several programming languages that demonstrate every aspect of the printer driver integration. These samples can be used as a starting point in the printer driver integration process and they can be easily modified to accomplish application-specific tasks.

For additional information on printer driver integration, please click on the links above.

If one intends to share the Black Ice printer driver on the network, one can find detailed information about the procedure on the following link. When sharing Black Ice printers, there are some restrictions that must be taken into consideration.

Print Job Control (C++) (Source code not available in DEMO)

Demonstrates how to control print jobs once they are put into the spooler.

Set up Redirect Printing (.NET C#, C++)

Redirect printing sample shows how to set up Black Ice Printer Driver to redirect printing to an additional physical printer.

Text Converter - Form Reconstruction (C++)

Black Ice Printer Drivers can extract the text information from the printed documents and save it into a separate text file. The information stored in the text file can be used to create or reconstruct forms. The text file converter sample shows how to rebuild an invoice from the generated text file by using a background image as a form template.

BiPlugIn (C++)

This sample DLL demonstrates how to implement custom DLL to create real-time printer hook.

BiPluginTestApp (C++)

Demonstrates the working of the BiPlugIn DLL without document printing. This sample can be used for testing your custom BiPlugIn DLL.

OutputFilename (.NET C#, .NET VB, C++)

The OutputFileName sample will show how to get the name of the output images from the group file.

Restrict Printing (.NET C#,.NET VB, C++)

The Black Ice printer drivers include a feature which allows the driver to refuse any print jobs other than those coming from the developer’s printing application. The restriction is made using a password.

SaveAsDialog (.NET C#,.NET VB, C++)

The printer driver supports seven different filename generation methods. However, sometimes the output files (images) need to be saved to different folders using different filenames.

Message Capture (.NET VB, .NET C#, C++)

Demonstrates how to capture the printer driver messages sent at every StartDoc, StartPage, EndDoc, EndPage.

Print to Memory (Memory Image Sample) (.NET VB, .NET C#, C++)

Demonstrates how to handle printed images generated in the memory.

Message Capture Service (.NET VB, .NET C#, C++)

Demonstrates how to capture the printer driver messages, using a service, sent at every StartDoc, StartPage, EndDoc, EndPage.