🚀 go-pugleaf

tac@ysu.edu (Troy Allen Cross, Youngstown State U.) writes:

> I've been looking for a Waterloo Script Guru to answer a couple of
questions.  Maybe you can help.

> At YSU, we use both VM & MVS Waterloo Script and I need to know how to
direct script to print color (or colour, in Canada)?

> We have a Xerox 4850 Highlight Color Printer on our MVS system that is
driven by XPAF so that it looks like a AFP printer.  With IBM's DCF
(script) product, I can use the DEV(PG3A) parameter to print color on the
4850.  How does Waterloo Script achieve this?

Waterloo Script 92.1 was the latest release I installed and customized. 
It did not contain support for text color, and neither did 94.1 (there was
no 93.1).  But that doesn't mean it's not possible, because as we all
know, Script is very, very customizable.  I faced a similar situation a
few years ago when I needed rotated (landscape) text on an otherwise
normal (portrait) page.  We also used I3820 as our output device, and
post-processed the result for LIST3820, Xerox XPAF metacode, and HP PCL
page description languages.

The way I achieved this was to pass a transparent text string directly
from a macro into the I3820 file without Script touching it.  The string
was &'xtext("&x'27.o3.") representing an "orientation" escape sequence. 
The commands o0, o1, o2, and o3 signify text rotations of 0, 90, 180, and
270 degrees.

Since Waterloo Script does not normally recognize orientation escape
sequences, I added some fairly simple Assembler code to the I3820
post-processor module.   I can guide you through this procedure if you're
interested.  The end result is that the orientation escape in the I3820
file is recognized and transformed into an AFPDS STO (Set Text
Orientation) command in the final LIST3820 file.  The printer accepts it
without problems.

I have looked at the AFPDS specifications, and it seems to me that passing
a color escape code into the I3820 file should be almost identical to the
procedure described above.  The presentation text STC (Set Text Color)
command is treated inline in the same fashion as the STO command.  The
color values are 0-8, as follows:  default, blue, red, magenta, green,
cyan, yellow, default, and black.  

The one potential problem I see here is XPAF.  When I tried the program a
few years ago, it choked on Waterloo Script output until I complained long
and loud to the developers.  They had used DCF output as their model,
rather than accepting the full range of the AFP architecture.  Waterloo
Script handles interword spacing differently from DCF.  Although both
methods are acceptable under the AFP specifications, Xerox didn't want to
bother with true AFP compatibility.  They rewrote the output code from
Interpress to Metacode after I badgered them, and today XPAF can read
Waterloo output.  The moral of this story is that I can't be sure that
forcing inline color changes by my method, while valid in the AFP specs,
will work with XPAF.  But I think it's worth a try.

By the way, the XPAF developers are located in Longwood, FL, about 3 miles
up the road from where I live.  I tried to get a job there (seems like a
logical fit), but they have a hiring freeze. 

Please contact me if you want to pursue the post-processor changes.  I am
also posting this to the SCRIPT-L newsgroup for anyone else who might be
interested.


Jon Kessler
jskessler@aol.com