[whatwg] [html5] window.print() undefined

Greg Kilwein gkilwein at fbsdata.com
Tue Jul 19 06:59:21 PDT 2005


Dimitri Glazkov wrote:

>On 7/19/05, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
>  
>
>>What functionality are you lacking? (Both in screen and print.)
>>    
>>
>Like, adding contextual content for print. Just like your main content
>is not the only thing on the page, same may hold true for the print.
>
>I think this discussion is about to turn into debunking of specific
>application requirements and approaches, but I'll bite:
>
>a) my invoice format requires a timestamp that says something like
>this: printed by [person] on [timestamp].
>
>b) To capture the essence of the browsing session, I would like to
>build a breadcrumb at the bottom of the printed page, displaying
>titles and urls of pages the user have visited on the site during this
>visit.
>
>:DG<
>  
>
I'll add another case: the onafterprint event could be used in a 
"wizard"-style application where printing some document is step 3 of 10, 
for example.  The application could proceed to the next step (not 
necessarily a different document) automatically without requiring a 
button that says "click here when done printing".  That's a case that a 
media-specific stylesheet cannot handle.  Automating tasks and reducing 
clicks are both high priorities in my development of web applications.

If the ability to set printer settings such as portrait/landscape is 
available, an "onbeforeprint" event could be used to prompt the user 
whether they'd like to automatically switch their paper orientation to 
portrait or landscape before printing.  (The same can be said for 
margins and headers/footers.)  This can be done in the print dialog, but 
if it is truly important to how the page prints, a separate step that 
highlights the importance of the print setting to the user would be 
helpful in reducing calls to my company's tech support line.

Greg

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