(Lack of) Printing from ArchiCAD 8 (Mac OS10.2, G5 Dual)

[Anonymous]

Recently upgraded to ArchiCAD 8.0, and, to celebrate, also splashed out on a couple of new G5 macs (dual processors) running Mac 10.2.....

Plotting drawings from ArchiCAD or Plotmaker to a HP450C works OK via Plotflow.

However, printing is proving to be a pain. On our Ethernet network we have a HP Laserjet 4000 (supported by 10.2), and Epson 5000 StylusPro (not directly supported by 10.2, but working, albeit painfully slowly, via Gimp-Print), and the HP 450C Design Jet (via HP JetDirect box), which can now operate both as a plotter and now printer, courtesy of Gimp-print.

However, we can't print from either of our G5 computers from ArchiCAD directly, to any printer (other programmes print fine). We just get a 'no page to print' message (or something like that) in the print centre. The only way we've found we can print is to save the document as a PDF file from the print dialogue box, then print the PDF file from the standard Mac 'Preview' utility - which works, but is a bit of a pain.

Any suggestions?...are we missing something ridiculously obvious?

Other niggles...one of the Mac.s is plagued with a error message box which vanishes again almost instantly (normally too quick to read) but which we now realise is a 'can't detect protection key' message. Have tried the dongle in different USB sockets, and have swopped dongles with other computers, but the same computer is still affected...is this most likely to be a fault with the computer's USB, or is there a known problem?

The drap a copy feature seems to self cancel if you adjust the zoom/pan mid-command?...mildly irritating. I personally still keep trying command-i for drag a copy, and am distraught that it doesn't seem to be possible to jiggle the keyboard shortcuts to revert to the old one. Any why on earth are shortcuts different in Plotmaker....

The scroll bars also seem a bit unhelpful at times.

But, obviously, there's a lot of good improvements too..specially with the links to Plotmaker...just a pity we can't print anything.

Any suggestions or tips regarding any of the above will be gratefully received...

Cheers

Pete

[__archiben]

peter wrote:
The drap a copy feature seems to self cancel if you adjust the zoom/pan mid-command?...mildly irritating. I personally still keep trying command-i for drag a copy, and am distraught that it doesn't seem to be possible to jiggle the keyboard shortcuts to revert to the old one. Any why on earth are shortcuts different in Plotmaker...

peter, i can't help with the OSX printing problem, (are your G5's on 10.2 or 10.3?), however, the drag-a-copy issue i can:

if you go to "Preferences" and the last tab ("Miscelleaneous") there is a check box to "Show Element Copy Transformation Commands in Edit Menu"

this will bring back the old methods for dragging, rotating and mirroring copies. you can obviously apply your keyboard shortcuts to these as you please.

HOWEVER: the new methods are extremely useful when you get used to them, especially being able to drag/rotate/mirror multiple copies when using "Cmd"+"Alt" together.

your cancel problem has almost been solved in 8.1: graphisoft have changed the "Cmd" key toggle to the "Alt" key - the operation does get cancelled if (like me) you tend to use "Alt"+"Shift" to drop the user origin a lot. this isn't quite as sensitive as before though, and it only happens about 50% of the time depending on how and when you place the origin...

~/archiben

[Anonymous]

Other niggles...one of the Mac.s is plagued with a error message box which vanishes again almost instantly (normally too quick to read) but which we now realise is a 'can't detect protection key' message. Have tried the dongle in different USB sockets, and have swopped dongles with other computers, but the same computer is still affected...is this most likely to be a fault with the computer's USB, or is there a known problem?

Try downloading the latest WIBU drivers from http://www.wibu.com/.
Also, is the affected machine running Classic when this happens? I hardly ever run Classic anymore, but it used to cause problems with the WIBU key when I first upgraded to OSX.

[Anonymous]

Pete; We had a similar problem printing in OS X 10.3. Our solution was to take one of the computers that did print properly, then go into system prefs, select print & fax, click on printer sharing. Now the new computers will be able to print through the one printer that does work. Some speed gains may be made if you can hook the printer to the old computer direct, fire wire, usb, etc. This way you "may" be able to bypass gimp print, it all depends on the printer.

[Anonymous]

javascript:emoticon(':arrow:') Correction ....Pete........ Now the new computers will be able to print through the one "Computer" that does work. Some speed gains may be made if you can hook the printer to the old computer direct, fire wire, usb, etc. This way you "may" be able to bypass gimp print, it all depends on the printer.javascript:emoticon(':wink:')

[Anonymous]

Ben/Symm/Dave

Many thanks for your replies - gives us a few things to try.

Cheers

Pete

[__archiben]

peter/all

see also the thread:
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=274

which discusses some printing issues with 10.3/gimp print and repairing permissions . . .

(are your G5's on 10.2 or 10.3???)

~/archiben

[Anonymous]

Ben

our G5s came with 10.2, as Panther was only realised the week after we got'em. I think we're allowed to claim a free copy of Panther, but I think we'll hold off installing it until others have used it, and amy major bugs come to light...

...after 10 years or so of happy and largely bug-free Mac and ArchiCAD use, we've been having a bit of a bug-fest these last couple of weeks, and confidence it at a bit of a low eb.

Heigh-ho

thanks again

Pete

[__archiben]

pete

i have only been using panther for 2 days now (in full-steam-ahead-archicad mode) and the only problem i've encountered was the lack of printing after i repaired my disc permissions.

a quick look at the apple support forums sorted this out, and i can say that (touch wood) panther feels much quicker and more responsive all around.

networking seems to have been approved, although i've not quite finished experimenting yet. it seems that AFS now can 'connect' to a server without mounting the server sharepoint volumes - closer to windows. this means no more spinning beachball . . .

worth the upgrade. especially in your case as it's free.

~/archiben

[Thomas Holm]

Ben wrote:

i have only been using panther for 2 days now (in full-steam-ahead-archicad mode) and the only problem i've encountered was the lack of printing after i repaired my disc permissions.

a quick look at the apple support forums sorted this out

Could you elaborate on this a little, please? Is it just the required restart you mentioned, or something more?

I think they always recommend a restart after repairing permissions. If you want to automate the process including the restart, along with running the Unix maintenance scripts that tend to never be run on a machine that's shut down at night, cleaning out old logs and caches and such, there are a couple of good utilities on http://www.versiontracker.com :
Cocktail (shareware) and Onyx (freeware). They are a little different, check them out. They both essentially act as GUIs to Terminal commands already in place in the system, and thus should do nothing incompatible with it. But as always act with care, and do regular backups.