AutoHotkey Community

[Firewolf91]

I want to write a script for not only use here at the office, but also anyone else that does the work we do, to detect printer status.

These are disc printers (Rimage is one of the largest producers of such equipment), so print jobs are done differently than your standard printer.
I've been working on a program that is capable of most of the work, and the portion i'm working on right now doesn't seem to be consistent...as the files i'm reading are not populated the same way each time for some reason. So what i would LIKE to do now is just bypass the software included with the printers (which are buggy themselves) and detect when a disc has been printed.(used for counting how many prints are left on the ribbon[think of a ribbon as ink])
So basically, i need to be able to read the data/reports going back and forth between PC and printer. i can work with that from there, hopefully...depending on what the data says.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but i'm gonna take a guess i need to use COM and start learning it.

At the moment, i'm reading a file that stores the data that keeps track of the prints (how many completed, how many need to be printed total, etc), but the file can be anywhere locally or on the network, random filename (tho i know what it ends with), and doesn't always work even from the set location on my test PC. Very annoying. Thus, i'd like to try my hand at skipping the crappy software and detecting this stuff on my own with AHK.

The reason i can't give you guys a lot of specifics here is because i don't know how it might be setup on another office's PC. I've heard some people only print over the network. We do both, but we have a PC hooked up (with a monitor) to the printer, so when we send the job over the network to the printer, we see the status window on the locally connected monitor/PC. The files are also stored on the local PC. Again, i want to ignore the files and software and strictly use the communications thru the port, if possible, so i know when a print has been used on the ribbon. If i can get that working, it'll make my software more accurate than the original (hopefully), and people can actually keep a pretty accurate count and i can warn ahead of time when the ribbon will run out. Would be a very helpful tool.

I only hope i'm being clear enough here to get a "not possible" or "possible, use *these* commands, here's an example how to use it and some links that might help".

[Firewolf91]

if i'm not clear, not specific enough, or just barking up an empty tree (trying to do something that isn't possible), please say exactly that so i can try another route or clear up my explanation.

so like, if i'm not clear enough...just reply "not clear enough" and if you feel like it, including what u don't understand. would be very helpful for me.

all i'm really looking for is direction. i don't want to pursue COM if it's not going to work. a definite "yea you can use COM to do that" would be enough even. then i'll start my research right away.
same if there's any other way to get the information in my last post. basically, it would be the same as a regular printer and retrieving any error messages sent from the printer (i.e. errors, completed status, page # of # printed, etc.)