bug#3838: 23.0.96; printing.el - Be able to specify a printer using IP address

bug#3838: 23.0.96; printing.el - Be able to specify a printer using IP address

[Drew Adams]

Dunno if this is just a request for information (doc bug) or a feature
request. I can't tell from the doc and commentary for printing.el
whether this is a missing feature or there is just no explanation of
how to do it.
 
I need to be able to add a printer, which is not on a a Windows share,
to both `pr-txt-printer-alist' and `pr-ps-printer-alist'. Is that
possible? If so, how do I do it?
 
The printing.el doc shows how to specify a printer that has a network
share, and that's what I've used in the past. Example:
 
(setq pr-txt-printer-alist
  '((toto nil nil "/D:\\\\foobar\\toto1135b")))
(setq pr-ps-printer-alist
  '((toto "print" nil "/D:" "\\\\foobar\\toto1135b")))
 
But now I need to add a printer that has only an IP address (TCP/IP
port): fooprinter.my.company.com (with protocol Raw and port number
9100).  There is no Windows share address. How can I do that?
 
I tried adding this entry to `pr-ps-printer-alist', but it didn't
work: (fooprinter "print" nil "/D:" "fooprinter.my.company.com")
 
I don't see any output or messages that lets me know what's happening.
All I see is this message: "Wrote c:/Documents and Settings/me/Local
Settings/Temp/prspool-5396-Rl.ps."  Nothing seems to be added to the
printer queue, and nothing is printed.
 
Likewise, if I try to print using text (non-PostScript) printing, with
this entry (in this case, the message says Spooling...done.):
 
 (fooprinter "print" nil "/D:"  "fooprinter.my.company.com"
             (ps-spool-duplex . t))
 
I don't see anything in the doc of `printing.el' that says how to do
this, but I'm probably reading it wrong.
 
 
 
In GNU Emacs 23.0.96.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600)
 of 2009-07-09 on SOFT-MJASON
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 5.1.2600
configured using `configure --with-gcc (3.4)'
 

bug#3838: 23.0.96; printing.el - Be able to specify a printer using IP address

[Drew Adams]

Any news on this?

I tried following up with Vinicius off line about this, but I didn't get too
far.

My impression is that it is more and more the case that printers are configured
this way now (i.e., using only an IP address, as opposed to a Windows network
address such as \\foo\toto123), at least for Windows.

In my company, at least, all of the new printers are configured this way, so
it's getting hard to find a printer I can still access from Emacs.

Emacs should provide a way to access such printers, in particular from Windows.

Thx.