Click Image to Print (Can use Touch Screen)

Thumnail images can be quickly retrieved for use in a variety of interfaces, such as this simple "touch to print".

This example retrieves the full status of RIP and Print Queues for Print Unit one, and uses it to create a web page that can then be used for printing from the Print Queue. Simply clicking on an image causes a print to be produced.

With a "kiosk" web browser this can be used to create a simple touch screen that can be used with a tablet from anywhere on a factory floor.

# This Python 3 script creates a web page with thumbnail images from the Print Queue. # # It can be used in various ways, for example, with a "kiosk browser" # to create touch screen interfaces that can be run from a tablet. # # The web page in this simple example makes one print for one click. # # It can be dressed up with more features, to request quanities and # order numbers, and generate layouts with automatic nesting and # order number identification for routing. # import urllib.request import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET import webbrowser printUnit = 1 # this demo is simply wired to print unit one columns = 4 wasatchSoftRIP = 'localhost' # just localhost in this example def getPrintUnitElementTree(printUnit): # get both queues into an Element Tree url = 'http://' + wasatchSoftRIP + '/xmlQueueStatus.dyn?PRINTUNIT=' + str(printUnit) try: p = urllib.request.urlopen(url) mybytes = p.read() p.close() x = mybytes.decode("utf-8") if 'Not configured' in x: return 'Unit: ' + str(printUnit) + ', Not configured\n' xmlRoot = ET.fromstring(x) # parse the XML retured by SoftRIP return xmlRoot except: print("Failure on access to " + url) quit() def getRipAndPrintQueues(root): ripList = [] prtList = [] ripQueue = root.find('RIPQUEUE') for item in ripQueue.iter('ITEM'): ripList.append(item.attrib['job']) prtQueue = root.find('PRINTQUEUE') for item in prtQueue.iter('ITEM'): prtList.append('w' + item.attrib['index']) return ripList, prtList def makeLink(idx, copiesToPrint, printUnit): # this is the link that will submit the file to SoftRIP url = 'http://' + wasatchSoftRIP + '/xmlSubmission.dyn?' data = '<WASATCH ACTION=JOB><PRINTUNIT>' + str(printUnit) + '</PRINTUNIT><PAGE>' data += '<PRINTQUEUE><INDEX>' + idx + '</INDEX><Copies>' + str(copiesToPrint) + '</Copies></PRINTQUEUE>' data += '</PAGE></WASATCH>' #print(url + data) url += urllib.parse.quote_plus(data) # escape all special characters in data return url def addQueueToHtml(qList, title, queue, columns): html = '<h3>' + title + '<h3>\n' column = 0 for l in qList: html += '<a href="' + makeLink(l, 1, printUnit)+ '"> ' html += '<img src=\"http://' + wasatchSoftRIP + '/%s.1/%s.png\"' % (queue, l) + ' /></a>\n' column += 1 if column >= columns: html += '<br/>\n' column = 0 return html root = getPrintUnitElementTree(printUnit) ripList, prtList = getRipAndPrintQueues(root) # # assemble the html to be delivered # html = "<html><head>\n" html += '<title>Select One</title>\n' html += '<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=UTF-8\" / >\n' html += '</head><body>\n' html += "<H1>Wasatch SoftRIP</H1><h2>Very Simple Touch Screen Interface</h2>\n" html += '<form id="myformid" method="GET">\n' #html += addQueueToHtml(ripList, "RIP Queue", "ripqueue", columns) # RIP Queue not used in tbis demo code html += addQueueToHtml(prtList, "Print Queue", "prtqueue", columns) html += '</form>\n' html += "</body></html>\n" # # html is complete - let's run this in a browser # htmlFile = 'temp.html' f = open(htmlFile, 'w') f.write(html) f.close() webbrowser.open(htmlFile)

Review the XML Access Option for more information on this foundation for custom web-based interfaces.