SDK Programming Guide

• Driver components. These are system dll modules and settings files. This is mandatory part of Publisher.
• Core component (mp_core.exe). This is the heart of the whole system. It takes data from the driver, keeps it in internal queue and manages all other components - plug-ins and UI.
• UI (mp_ui.exe). This is User Interface component. This is COM client of Core component; it uses Core methods and receives COM events from Core. UI interacts with Core only; it have no direct access to other components. User Interface module is not required for Publisher Core and Driver, they can work fine without UI. To display transport and rendering plug-ins user interfaces, UI loads its own set of plug-ins as an ActiveX components.
• Format plug-ins. Inproc dll ActiveX modules which performs conversion from internal graphics representation into particular graphics format and, optionally, to convert from supported graphics format to internal representation (bitmap). Core component manages these modules.
• Transport plug-ins. Inproc dll ActiveX modules which allows to save resulting files to some locations. Core component manages these modules.

• coclass MP (MiraplacidSE.Publisher {C9828C82-2136-4e25-894F-399109583971}). This is the main part of Publisher.
  The folowing interfaces included:
  • IMP (default interface). Includes all methods and properties which control Publisher functionality, including plug-ins.
  • _IMPEvents (default, source interface). This interface is collection of COM events and provided for Core and UI interoperability.
  • Some other internal interfaces which are out of scope of current document. You do not have to learn them to build your system.
• coclass MP_Register (MiraplacidSE.PublisherRegistrator {235836F3-0079-4067-98B9-7F2E8FFE5876}). This objects includes single interface IMP_Register, which manages registration and verification services.

1. UI is launched by Core when it receives a new job and AutoSend property is in false state or by user when he clicks on Publisher icon on Desktop or Programs folder.
2. UI loads MP object and obtains IMP interface pointer.
3. UI establishes a connection with Core and loads configuration (by reading properties). After initialization steps (when it will be ready to receive events), UI must set UILoaded property to 1 (true). This property counts active UIs, and, if UI was loaded and the last UI sets UILoaded=0, core will save configuration automatically.
   When Core launches UI, it looks for "WaitUILoaded" parameter in its registry folder (HKLM).
   
   If WaitUILoaded = 0 (default value), Core does not wait for UI to be loaded. So, when UI will be ready to listen events, it will appear in the middle of print job (OnStartJob + some page or whole job events may be missed).
   And, even if user starts UI from Desktop, it may connect to Core with current print job already waiting for user input (save or cancel).
   To avoid this situation and get current status correctly, there are two possibilities exists:
   • Get the current job status from core before subsribing to events, as did in .Net UI example. This is the most correct method.
   • Use UILoadedWithEvents = 1 construction. This property will feed UI with all needed events for current job automatically, if Core has active job.
     This is the most simple method, but it has one side-effect: if you use several applications listens events from Core, all them will receive print job events missed by this UI. This is the only way for applications written in languages like VB, which creates objects and subscribes to events in one operation (Dim WithEvents).
     In this case, you need to set UILoadedWithEvents right after object creation.
   We recommend to use this method for UIs intended for interactive job with user.
   
   If WaitUILoaded = 1, Core waits UI to be loaded (on StartJob) for 60 seconds maximum, then continues job processing. This method is convenient for UIs which perform job data processing in automatic mode, without significant user intervention.
   UI should use any method of events subscription and UILoaded=1 and it will not miss any events from Core.
   If you wish to use this mode, do not forget to set WaitUILoaded parameter to 1 in your installer.

4. OnStartJob: On this event UI may read document name and examine print job status. Job may already be completed (printed) if next job was printed on background before finalizing previous one.
5. OnPagePrinted: If the job was already completed, this event will not be generated. On this event, its possible to ask for a page by calling PreparePage method.
   Calling this method will force Core to start processing of the page. It makes sense to ask only for page which is currently displayed.
6. OnAllPagesPrinted: This is informational event which allows UI to update its internal state (and interface elements like SaveAll button).
7. OnPageReady: Core sends this event if UI asked for a page and it is ready for displaying. UI may read the picture and display it. This event may be generated not only in responce to PreparePage call; Core will fire it when it saves all job, in page-by-page or multipage mode. The order of pages may be reverse in this case, depending from image format, so page_id parameter is important.

8. User can change settings. Appropriate Core properties must be set by UI. During this process, OnError event might be raised in response to incorrect property change. OnSettingChanged event will be received by UI.
9. User can change active printer, save its configuration for current user or for all users.
10. User can save current page. UI shall call SendPage method.
11. User may want to save all pages. UI shall call SendAllPages method. In response to this call, Core will notify UI by raising OnCancelJob event when job is done. On this event, UI must get ready for the next job. If some transports fail, Core raises OnRewindJob event (but does not cancels the job). On this event UI can rewind the job to the first page, show some (additional) error message, etc.
12. User can cancel the job. UI must call CancelJob method. In response, Core generates OnCancelJob event.
13. During saving process, Core will generate OnProgress events or OnError if some error happened.

• It must be included into "Miraplacid Publisher Format Plug-ins" COM category (FBFE9C5A-8D40-46bd-99C1-93F162E30AE7), but not create it.
• It must implement IMP_FPLUGIN interface (69E3226F-C540-4829-9CB4-88738766C9E4) and realize _IMP_FPlugin_Events connection point dispinterface (20B34C58-2EE5-4f87-AC73-F8080DA8ABE1).
• It must not register its own type library. Ready for use type library provided in imp_fplugin.dll.

IMP_FPLUGIN interface:

_IMP_FPlugin_Events interface:

IImageCollection Core interface:

Format plug-in working scheme

1. UI starts and loads plug-ins. It subscribes to _IMP_FPlugin_Events events interface.
2. UI gets Layout property. According to Layout parameters, it reads appropriate FormatParam properties from Core and sets as a Values of plug-in (using ValueNoCheck property and calls CheckSettings).
3. Core creates plug-ins too and subscribes to events. OnProgress event inform Core about conversion progress. Using OnChangeParam event, plug-ins may have special parameters which will be changed dynamically and will be supported by Core as a part of configuration and will be saved in registry.
4. Core gets Layout property. According to Layout parameters, it reads saved values from configuration (registry) and sets as Values of plug-in (using ValueNoCheck property and calls CheckSettings). If configuration for current printer does not exist, Core calls InitSettings.

5. User changes settings of plug-in. Plug-in updates its internal state and raises OnChangeParam to UI.
6. In responce, UI sets appropriate Core property with FormatParam. In result, all parameters are in sync.

7. When Core needs to convert (and save) current page or all pages in a single miltipage file, it calls Convert method.
8. Plug-in calls Count property of IImageCollection imterface provided as paramter. If count = 1, plug-in calls Item method and get a name of filemapping obect.
   Then, it just converts an image containing in this object to appropriate image fomat and saves it to file.
   Format of filemapping image is bitmap (BimapInfoHeader + bitmap bits, in 24-bit format).
9. If count > 1, that means plug-in need to save several images to a single multipage file. Formats which support multipage images (TIFF, animated GIF) may use these possibilities; other formats should just make one lenghty contiuous image file.
10. Upon loading configuration, Core may call ConvertToBitmap method to load background image.
11. If some "dynamic" parameter will be changed during working process, plug-in will fire OnChangeParam event. Core will broadcast this event to all subscribers and save it in configuration.

• It must be included into "Miraplacid Publisher Transport Plug-ins" COM category (92D23852-D793-4251-83C2-9D577A779DFB), but not create it.
• It must implement IMP_TPLUGIN interface (A24B0942-EDCC-47c5-AF3C-82A6A2E4FD11) and realize _IMP_TPlugin_Events connection point dispinterface (DD69A786-C884-410a-B27B-DECA265042C9).
• It must not register its own type library. Ready for use type library provided in imp_tplugin.dll.
• Default write-only properies docname and extension may be used in transport plug-in to capture this setting from UI.

IMP_TPLUGIN interface:

_IMP_TPlugin_Events interface:

ITransportHelper Core interface:

Transport plug-in working scheme

1. UI starts and loads plug-ins. It subscribes to _IMP_TPlugin_Events events interface.
2. UI gets Layout property. According to Layout parameters, it reads appropriate TransportParam properties from Core and sets as a Values of plug-in (using ValueNoCheck property and calls CheckSettings).
3. Core creates plug-ins too and subscribes to events. OnError and OnProgress events inform Core about saving progress. Using OnChangeParam event, plug-ins may have special parameters which will be changed dynamically and will be supported by Core as a part of configuration and will be saved in registry.
4. Core gets Layout property. According to Layout parameters, it reads saved values from configuration (registry) and sets as Values of plug-in (using ValueNoCheck property and calls CheckSettings). If configuration for current printer does not exist, Core calls InitSettings.

5. User changes settings of plug-in. Plug-in updates its internal state and raises OnChangeParam to UI.
6. In responce, UI sets appropriate Core property with TrandportParam. In result, all parameters are in sync.

7. In response to Save or SaveAll method call, Core initiates saving procedure. Several plug-ins may work at the same time.
   Care calls Start method of each plug-in.
8. After that, it calls Process method with appropriate parameters. During this call, plug-ins may call TranslateString method provided by Core.
9. Finally, Core calls End method.
10. If some "dynamic" parameter will be changed during working process, plug-in will fire OnChangeParam event. Core will broadcast this event to all subscribers and save it in configuration.

• About Miraplacid Publisher 2024 SDK
• Miraplacid Publisher 2024 SDK: Installation
• Miraplacid Publisher 2024 SDK: SetupMaker
• Miraplacid Publisher 2024 SDK: Installation Component
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