[whatwg] window.print() when printing is not supported

Michael A. Puls II shadow2531 at gmail.com
Mon Dec 28 11:58:11 PST 2009


On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:39:06 -0500, Michael A. Puls II  
<shadow2531 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 12:08:48 -0500, Boris Zbarsky <bzbarsky at mit.edu>  
> wrote:
>
>> On 12/28/09 9:54 AM, Michael A. Puls II wrote:
>>> As for window.print(), what if it returns false if printing is not
>>> supported?
>>
>> It might be better as |true| (crappy API issues aside), because  
>> otherwise if a page writes |if (window.print())| it'll get false in all  
>> existing browsers, no?
>
> Ah, I see. Good point.

Since making print() return something isn't going to help with older UAs  
and returning true would feel backwards, instead of:

if (window.print()) {
     alert("Printing is not supported");
}

, we could do this:

if (typeof navigator.printingEnabled === "function" &&  
!navigator.printingEnabled()) {
     alert("Printing is not supported");
} else {
     window.print();
}

It's more verbose though and I'm not sure any will like it. But, tossing  
it out there.

-- 
Michael



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