The Impressario Programming Guide is written for the following users:

The 2.n release of Impressario contains these new features:

Impressario 2.0 also adds support for the following:

---

Note: The release notes list all supported printers and scanners, and have details about the JetDirect network adaptors. Additional drivers will be added for releases following Impressario 2.0 (i.e. 2.1, 2.2, and so on).

---

Since this guide has four separate audiences, the list provided below gives the areas of most interest to each user:

The followings conventions are intended to help make information easy to access and understand:

int
AdvanceFeeder(SCANINFO *scan)
{
    drverr = SCENOFEEDER;
    return -1;
}

vstiff /usr/tmp/sample.blastfile<Enter>

[optional_entry]

Chapter 1, “Impressario Architecture,” discusses the Impressario printing and scanning architectures and defines Impressario compliance for printer driver and scanner driver developers.

Chapter 2, “Printer Drivers,” provides an overview of printer driver processing, plus a detailed analysis and discussion of an example printer driver. The required printer filter/driver options are also covered.

Chapter 3, “Printer Model Files,” discusses the printer model files and describes the modifications to be made by printer driver developers to the printer model file template.

Chapter 4, “Printer Graphical Options Panel,” discusses the graphical options panel that visually showcases a printer's features. The major topics discussed are options handling, panel layout, development, naming, installation, invocation, and termination.

Chapter 5, “Printing Libraries,” describes the libraries used by printer drivers, filters, and applications. The libraries described are the libspool library, the libprintui library, and the libpod library.

Chapter 6, “Scanner Drivers,” explains how to write a scanner driver. It provides a detailed analysis of the template scanner driver. The major topics are the driver template, header files, data structures, functions, installation, and testing.

Chapter 7, “Scanner-Specific Options,” discusses how to implement scanner-specific options for a scanner driver. The major topics are the options program, perspectives, and installation and testing.

Chapter 8, “Generic Scanner Interface,” describes a generic interface between a scanner driver and an application program. The major topics are the coordinate system for scanning, data structures, and data type conventions.

Chapter 9, “Testing for Impressario Compatibility,” explains how to use the programs that test printing compatibility with the Impressario environment. It explains how to test Impressario printing compatibility, an Impressario printer, and an Impressario printer software installation.

Chapter 10, “Packaging Your Impressario Product,” explains how to package the Impressario software product that you have created.

Chapter 11, “Enhancing Impressario With Plug-Ins,” explains how to add new features to the Impressario open architecture. The major topics are how the Impressario file conversion pipeline works, how to add a new file type to Impressario, and how to use an alternate PostScript RIP.

Appendix A, “Stream TIFF Data Format,” describes the Stream TIFF file format, the primary interchange file format between printer filters and drivers; and libstiff, a C application program interface (API) used to read and write Stream TIFF files. Stream TIFF is also used by gscan to store images in TIFF files and to scan to the screen (in conjunction with vstiff).

Appendix B, “Silicon Graphics Image File Format API,” describes libimp, the C-language API for reading and writing Silicon Graphics Image format files. The image processing features of libimp are also described.

Appendix C, “Printer Object Database (POD) File Formats,” defines the file formats for printer configuration, status, and log files in the POD. The major topics are general syntax, input parsing rules for libpod files, printer configuration file format, and printer status file format.

Appendix D, “Transition Notes,” explains how to migrate from Impressario 1.2 software to Impressario 2.n. It also explains how Impressario application developers and filter/driver developers can take advantage of the new features in Impressario 2.n.

Appendix E, “Scanner Driver Architecture,” describes the architecture of a scanner driver and discusses the template scanner driver, required and optional functions, and queues and multi-threaded scanner drivers.

Appendix F, “Reference Pages,” lists all Impressario online reference pages: general interest, printer developers, and scanner developers.

Appendix G, “Color Management in Impressario,” discusses using ICC color profiles and PostScript Color Rendering Dictionaries to promote color consistency among devices such as monitors, scanners, and printers.

Appendix H, “Using the Adobe Configurable PostScript Interpreter,” discusses legal restrictions on developers who use software licensed by Silicon Graphics from Adobe Systems.

Appendix I, “Impressario PPD Driver Implementation,” documents the Impressario PPD driver available with Impressario 2.2 (and higher).