HTML ATASCII Printer - Enhancement Suggestion

[+DrVenkman]

So there was a topic in the main A8 forum in the last couple days about how to print ATASCII program listings. There are several options of course, including the G: device driver from A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing (Oct 1985), and the FujiNet ATASCII printer setting. I got interested enough that I ran the program from A.N.A.L.O.G. to create the AUTORUN.SYS file that loads the G: driver and read the article that accompanied the program. The driver is sophisticated enough to have several different printing options, including limiting printed output the same margins as the standard Atari 40 column screen. BTW, the G: driver actually works with FujiNet when you set it to "Epson 80" mode.

 

Messing around with the HTML ATASCI driver tonight for comparison, I realized that long program lines extend past the usual 80 columns available to most printers. The HTML output from the driver will open in any browser, and most browsers allow you to "print" that resulting HTML file to a PDF for later use or manipulation, or actual physical printing.  However, program lines that extend past the vintage 40 column length, or the modern ~80 columns per page in landscape mode aren't wrapped. So to print a program listing requires either setting your printer to Landscape orientation or else shrinking the scale down to fit, sometimes to as low as 60% or so. It would be a nice enhancement of the HTML printer if the user could set the output margins to something besides the length of the program line. Maybe a toggle to set the page width between 40, 80 and 132 columns? Something to wrap longer lines so they can be printed without running off the edge of the paper and being truncated, or having to be shrunk down in size too small to be legible to older eyes. 

 

What does everyone think?

[tschak909]

19 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

So there was a topic in the main A8 forum in the last couple days about how to print ATASCII program listings. There are several options of course, including the G: device driver from A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing (Oct 1985), and the FujiNet ATASCII printer setting. I got interested enough that I ran the program from A.N.A.L.O.G. to create the AUTORUN.SYS file that loads the G: driver and read the article that accompanied the program. The driver is sophisticated enough to have several different printing options, including limiting printed output the same margins as the standard Atari 40 column screen. BTW, the G: driver actually works with FujiNet when you set it to "Epson 80" mode.

 

Messing around with the HTML ATASCI driver tonight for comparison, I realized that long program lines extend past the usual 80 columns available to most printers. The HTML output from the driver will open in any browser, and most browsers allow you to "print" that resulting HTML file to a PDF for later use or manipulation, or actual physical printing.  However, program lines that extend past the vintage 40 column length, or the modern ~80 columns per page in landscape mode aren't wrapped. So to print a program listing requires either setting your printer to Landscape orientation or else shrinking the scale down to fit, sometimes to as low as 60% or so. It would be a nice enhancement of the HTML printer if the user could set the output margins to something besides the length of the program line. Maybe a toggle to set the page width between 40, 80 and 132 columns? Something to wrap longer lines so they can be printed without running off the edge of the paper and being truncated, or having to be shrunk down in size too small to be legible to older eyes. 

 

What does everyone think?

Somebody indeed did do a small tweak to the CSS to automatically wrap, which should fix the issue, I'll fold it in and see what everybody thinks.

-Thom

 

[tschak909]

Made the change here. for the next build!

https://github.com/FujiNetWIFI/fujinet-platformio/commit/c2a153795672ccc53e9d3cd6356f89c58aa6027b

 

-Thom

[+DrVenkman]

Thanks, Thom! When mozzwald has a new build ready, I’ll update and give it a spin.