Java Print API For Web based Applications?

[vikram nalagampalli]

Hi,
I am working on the web based application, which requires certain information to be printed out to the clients prrinter, when something fails. I am using java.awt.print to have this acheived, but the problem is the print dialog pops up on the server instead of the users Browser.
I will really appreicate if some one can help me acheive this on web based application, using Java Print API or anything other available up there.

Thank you
vik

[Paul Sturrock]

You have two choices:

1. run the print stuff on the client's machine (i.e. an applet)
2. find the user's printer and queue the job over the network.

1 is easy enough. 2 however is not. You would need all clients to be on the same network as your server. Print jobs generated by the Printing API tend to be very large (everything is an image) so you may well take a big performance hit trying this. Users would have to set the name of their printer in your app (you can't just call the default, because as far as the serverside code is concerned, the default printer is whatever is set up as default on the server). So I wouldn't recomend it.
[ June 04, 2004: Message edited by: Paul Sturrock ]

[vikram nalagampalli]

Hello Paul,
Thanks for your comments...I am wondering jdk1.3 Print API has the ability to locate the Printer on the same network the server is running.

I am ok even if i can hardcode the printer in my app where i want the print to be spooled. Can any one provide me a way to do this.

Thank you

vik