Processing 1.0 - Processing Discourse - Make a PDF at the desktop?

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Index › Programming Questions & Help › Other Libraries › Make a PDF at the desktop

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Make a PDF at the desktop? (Read 1135 times)

nutmeg

Make a PDF at the desktop?
Apr 6^th, 2009, 8:43pm

Starting from scratch (totally clueless), I would like the standalone application to print the current window. I see only the processing.pdf library as a means so I working with it. I can create the PDF but I cannot print it to the desktop without explicitly indicating the full path as /Users/<me>/Desktop/<pdf name>. The application could be running on any machine with any user. If I try something like ~/Desktop/<pdf name> I wind up with a folder ~ and a folder Desktop created with the pdf in the latter. In fact, the pdf library seems to create the path structure if it does not already exist. So, one, is there a way to print (working in OSX) and if not then how can I create the PDF at the desktop without hardcoding a specific path? Thanks.

PhiLho YaBB Moderator Offline Posts: 4190 Near Paris (France)	Re: Make a PDF at the desktop? Reply #1 - Apr 7^th, 2009, 1:54am Maybe Printer Output thread can help (haven't tried).

nutmeg YaBB Newbies Offline Posts: 15	Re: Make a PDF at the desktop? Reply #2 - Apr 8^th, 2009, 5:23pm Thanks for the link. I see nothing there that looks like help. I'll dig deeper. The post are a bit dated also. It branches into an old thread that is actually about the PDF library, but again I see nothing. I figured this is such a basic question and need that someone would have an answer.

PhiLho

Re: Make a PDF at the desktop?
Reply #3 - Apr 9^th, 2009, 5:50am

I was referring to seltar's code, using the Java Print API, which probably haven't evolved a lot since 2006.
I started myself to look at this API, finding it interesting, but I can't help yet.

Beside, I have read more attentively your message, beyond the PDF and print keywords... Tongue

I don't think you need to output a file to print, so it might solve your problem.
I guess you are running on a Mac (ah, yes, you mention OSX), so nearly a Unix system. So you should put your temp file in /tmp, that's what it is made for (unless Macs haven't this folder?).
Or in a more Java way, you can get the official temp dir with String tmpDir = System.getProperty("java.io.tmpdir");

nutmeg YaBB Newbies Offline Posts: 15	Re: Make a PDF at the desktop? Reply #4 - Apr 18^th, 2009, 1:03pm Thanks, actually Mac OSX is a Unix system with an interface on top. So for example printing is handled by CUPS but the user would never know it. Knowing that, how would I shift the PDF written to /tmp out to a printer if I can get it to do that?

nutmeg

Re: Make a PDF at the desktop?
Reply #5 - Apr 23^rd, 2009, 8:38pm

Be it right or way off base, what works for me on OSX is for the standalone application to create the PDF and then pass it to Preview. The first task involves knowing where processing.pdf creates the file, which means knowing what folder the application is running in. That task requires System.getProperty("user.dir"), but what confused the issue is that the user.dir result is the folder that Processing is in, not the application's folder, when the application is running in the Processing IDE.

The second task requires using Runtime.getRuntime().exec as in:
Code:

Runtime.getRuntime().exec("open -a Preview " + myPDFJob);

as what many net research examples claims would work, but simply doing that results in "Unhandled Exception type IOException" when trying to run in the Processing IDE . The following does work. I don't know why and maybe someone can explain why.
Code:

 try{
      Runtime.getRuntime().exec("open -a Preview " + myPDFJob);
    } 
    catch (IOException e){
      e.printStackTrace();
    }

PhiLho

Re: Make a PDF at the desktop?
Reply #6 - Apr 24^th, 2009, 6:48am

nutmeg wrote on Apr 23^rd, 2009, 8:38pm:

The first task involves knowing where processing.pdf creates the file

You can provide an absolute path to the createGraphics call.

Quote:

The second task requires using Runtime.getRuntime().exec

You can also use open().

Quote:

simply doing that results in "Unhandled Exception type IOException" when trying to run in the Processing IDE . The following does work. I don't know why and maybe someone can explain why.

It is simple: exec() wants you to handle exceptions as the message says. That's because you are not sure the program you want to run actually exists on the current system, so you must handle such exceptional () case. You add the try/catch, you handle the exception (correctly or not, that's not the problem of Java), Java is happy! Cool

nutmeg YaBB Newbies Offline Posts: 15	Re: Make a PDF at the desktop? Reply #7 - Apr 27^th, 2009, 7:13pm Thanks PhilLo. I think I recognize the error message now. Its at compile time and its similar to the one you get making a boolean function not knowing that there is not a default false state.

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