Print SB Preview?

[smk]

Ok here's an idea if it's not already available. Having a convenient way to print out the SB Preview screen. The only way I have found is to use "print screen" button, paste the image in to "Paint", crop it down, and then print it.

[paco]

With many screen capture utility, you can just grab single window instead of whole screen. With The GIMP, this is what I use.


4574

If you need to come directly from the SB3 preview screen, you need to request the feature to SB... directly (http://www.shopbottools.com/suggestion.htm).

Have you checked out Bruce Clark's SB File visualizer (http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/show.cgi?tpc=32&post=47572#POST47572)? P'etty cool!

[Brady Watson]

You can just press the 'PrintScreen' button on your keyboard & open up MSPaint & hit paste too...Every computer has that capability built in...no need to wake up the gimp


-B

[paco]

Yeah, I admit it's an over kill but...
quote:The only way I have found is to use "print screen" button, paste the image in to "Paint", crop it down, and then print it.The GIMP was just a suggestion... and promoting a Open Source project I benefit a lot!

I really enjoy Bruce's utility on my control PC for quick preview.

[bill.young]

If you hit the ALT key and the Print Screen key at the same time it just saves the active window to the clipboard and not the whole screen. You still have to paste it into a graphics program but it saves the cropping step.

[Brady Watson]

Hey nice tip Bill! Thanks!

-B

[paco]

I didn't know about that one. Thanks Bill!

[bill.young]

Someone told me about that years ago and I'm pretty sure it's been there since the DOS days. Makes you wonder how many other handy little tricks there are like that we don't know about...

[bcammack]

Well, if you hold down the "Windows" key and press the letter "E", you immediately launch Windows Explorer. I'm always moving files around from PC to server, or from PC to USB drive, etc. so it's quite convenient for me.

[ed_lang]

Bill's Alt Print Screen and Bretts Windows key and E tip are great one!!

What do you folks think about starting another thread with Windows tips you fine useful in running your CAD/CAM/Shopbot?

Ed

[bruce_clark]

Just out of curiosity, would a tool that automatically "printed" the preview window be of use? I have done that for another program and it would be a very simple change to make it work with the ShopBot Previewer window. Nothing fancy, just a simple program that would save about 2 or 3 steps.

Any interest?

Bruce

[myxpykalix]

If you are talking about printing a screen of the part viewer that we are beta testing, I would think that it would be too small to see good details, but i could be wrong, if you are talking about printing the screen of the shopbot software screen then yes i'd say go for it! thanks for your efforts so far!

[bruce_clark]

ShopBot Print Preview Tool:

There is NO dialog for this tool. You need to have the view you want to print "showing" in the ShopBot Preview window. Since this is a "hack" program, I am unable to obtain a really high resolution image of the ShopBot Preview Window data. What this program does is "capture" the drawing window and then scales that information UP to the resolution of your printer. So, for best results, make your ShopBot Preview window as large as you can and make sure EVERYTHING you want to print shows up in the drawing window. NOTE: Make sure NOTHING is covering the ShopBot Preview Window drawing window (no other windows or programs. If you don't, those windows that cover the ShopBot Preview window will show up on the print out as well.

Also, since it works on my machine, but maybe not on your, if you have a "Preview" option on your printer driver, please select that until you feel comfortable with the output the HardCopy tool is producing. This is truely an ALPHA program and I would really appriciate feedback on this one.

Since this tool is a "Virtual Tool" for the Controller, here is how to _ADD_ it to the virtual tool list.

Locate the file called "VirtualTools.ini". It is usually located here:
C:\Program Files\ShopBot\Virtual Tools\VirtualTools.ini

Open this with Notepad and add this line to the very end of the file:

VT = [&X] SBP Print Previewer, Virtual Tools\ShopBotPrintPreView.EXE,0,0

Save the INI file and close Notepad. Copy the SBPPREVIEW.EXE file to the Virtual Tools folder.

Now, you can print out the preview window by pressing "T" and then "X"

Bruce Clark


ShopBot Print Preview Application
ShopBotPrintPreview.zip (http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/messages/20164/ShopBotPrintPreview-19369.zip) (23.0 k)

[bruce_clark]

Opps. The line above should read:

Save the INI file and close Notepad. Copy the ShopBotPrintPreview.EXE file to the Virtual Tools folder.

Sorry about that.

Bruce