Disclosure of Invention
In view of the above, the embodiments of the present invention provide a printing method and apparatus, which can implement interaction between a browser and a printing device and other peripheral devices through a proxy unit, thereby improving operation efficiency and user experience, and saving network overhead.
In order to achieve the above object, according to one aspect of the embodiments of the present invention, there is provided a printing method including a proxy unit receiving print contents transmitted from a browser, the proxy unit populating the print contents to a preset template to form print data, and the proxy unit outputting the print data to a printer to print the print data.
Optionally, the method further comprises the step that the agent unit acquires the preset template from a server and stores the preset template.
Optionally, the print content includes an identification of a preset template.
Optionally, the browser sends the print content to the proxy unit in an AJAX manner.
Optionally, the print data is in a picture format.
Optionally, the method further comprises the step that the proxy unit receives a printing result returned by the printer, and the proxy unit returns the printing result to the browser.
Optionally, the method further comprises the steps that the proxy unit is written in C# and receives data associated with the printing content through a hardware interface and returns the associated data to the browser, and the browser forms the printing content according to the received associated data.
In order to achieve the above object, according to another aspect of the embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a printing apparatus including a browser module, a proxy module, and a printing module, wherein the browser module is configured to send print content to the proxy module, the proxy module receives the print content and fills the print content into a preset template to form print data, the proxy module outputs the print data to the printing module, and the printing module is configured to print the print data.
Optionally, the agent module is further configured to obtain the preset template from a server, and store the preset template.
Optionally, the printing module is further used for returning the printing result to the proxy module, and the proxy module is further used for returning the printing result to the browser module.
Optionally, the proxy module is written in c# and is configured to receive data associated with the print content through a hardware interface and return the associated data to the browser module, and the browser module is further configured to form the print content according to the received associated data.
In order to achieve the above object, according to still another aspect of the embodiments of the present invention, there is provided an electronic device including one or more processors, and storage means for storing one or more programs which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to implement a method of any one of the printing methods.
To achieve the above object, according to still another aspect of the embodiments of the present invention, there is provided a computer-readable medium having stored thereon a computer program which, when executed by one or more processors, implements a method as described in any one of printing methods.
The embodiment of the invention has the following advantages or beneficial effects that the technical means of interaction between the browser and the printer through the proxy unit is adopted, so that the technical problems of low interaction efficiency and poor user experience of the traditional method between the browser and the printer are solved, and the technical effects of improving the user experience and the operation efficiency are further achieved.
Further effects of the above-described non-conventional alternatives are described below in connection with the embodiments.
Detailed Description
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which various details of the embodiments of the present invention are included to facilitate understanding, and are to be considered merely exemplary. Accordingly, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that various changes and modifications of the embodiments described herein can be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. Also, descriptions of well-known functions and constructions are omitted in the following description for clarity and conciseness.
Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of main steps of a printing method according to an embodiment of the present invention, as shown in fig. 1:
Step S101 represents that the proxy unit receives the print content sent by the browser, where the print content refers to the print content that needs to be filled, for example, when the express waybill is printed, the print content includes the waybill number, the recipient information, the sender information, and the like, and these contents may be manually input by the user on the browser. The proxy unit may be code written in the c# language.
Further, the browser may call a web service interface (a hardware interface for web service) of the proxy unit, and the browser may send the print content to the proxy unit in AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML, asynchronous JavaScript and XML, javaScript is an interpreted script language that may add dynamic functions to a web page, and XML is an extensible markup language that refers to a web page development technology that creates an interactive web page application). XML is a style character string, and matching of objects into XML placeholders is achieved by means of cyclic traversal (such as a string. Format method), so that final style and data combination is completed. The proxy unit includes a web service (webservice) interface that can be called by the browser, and the browser calls the interface to send the print content to the proxy unit in an AJAX mode, that is, update the print content and send the print content to the proxy unit without updating the whole web page of the browser.
Step S102 represents that the agent unit fills the print content into a preset template to form print data, wherein the preset template refers to a pattern of filling the print content, i.e. after the print content is filled into the preset template, the complete print data can be formed for printing. For example, the express delivery bill has a pre-fixed style template, and the agent unit fills the express delivery information to form a complete and effective express delivery bill. The proxy unit analyzes the print content according to the preset template, and each different print data has a corresponding value, for example, a user.name in the print data corresponds to a name in the preset template, and a user.age=12 in the print content corresponds to an age in the preset template and is correspondingly filled.
Further, the print content comprises an identification of a preset template. When the preset templates are more than one, it means that different print contents correspond to different preset templates, so that the identification of the preset templates, such as the file name, the number, the version number, etc., of the preset templates is added to the print contents to match the correct preset templates.
The method further comprises the steps that the agent unit obtains the preset template from a server and stores the preset template. The purpose of this step is to update the local preset template according to the server, reducing network overhead. One embodiment of the invention is that the agent unit periodically polls the preset template to the server, and when the preset template of the server is updated, the updated preset template is obtained and stored locally.
Step S103 represents that the proxy unit outputs the print data to the printer. And the proxy unit calls an interface of the printer to send the data in the printing to the printer for printing, for example, the proxy unit sends the filled express delivery bill to the printer for printing.
One embodiment of the present invention is that the agent unit outputs the filled print data to the printer in a picture format. For example, graphics2D (a basic class for rendering two-dimensional shapes, text and images on a Java platform) class is used for drawing, using a gdi+ (GRAPHICS DEVICE INTERFACE plus, a system in Windows responsible for outputting related information on a display screen and a printing device), the source of the picture material being print data.
Further, the printer returns the printing result to the proxy unit, for example, after the printer finishes printing, the printed message is returned to the proxy unit.
Further, the proxy unit returns the print result to the browser. And after receiving the printing result returned by the printer, the proxy unit returns the returned result to the browser to complete the printing flow.
The proxy unit is written in C# and receives data associated with the printing content through a hardware interface and returns the associated data to the browser, and the browser forms the printing content according to the received associated data. The agent unit can communicate with various peripheral devices through a hardware interface to receive data collected by the peripheral devices, and send the collected data to a browser through a network service interface or the browser requests to obtain the collected data. As shown in fig. 2, for example, the weight data collected by the electronic scale or the volume data collected by the measuring device is received, the browser directly sends a print request, and the c# proxy unit sends the data to the browser through the web service interface, so that the browser can obtain the collected data from the peripheral devices in a non-artificial manner, and then form print content, and the proxy unit further makes the printer execute printing.
Fig. 3 shows a preferred implementation according to an embodiment of the invention, as shown in fig. 3:
The C# proxy unit can comprise a template processing unit, an object analysis unit, a template combination unit and a GDI+ processing unit, wherein the template processing unit is used for taking charge of timing polling of templates, acquiring a preset template for printing labels from a server, storing the template into a local application memory after acquiring the template, and pulling an XML style in the server through an HTTP request;
A user sends a printing request through a Web browser, and the printing content comprising the file name of a preset template is sent to a C# proxy unit in an AJAX mode;
The C# proxy unit receives the printing content, and uses an object analysis unit (such as an annotator and the like) to match the printing content into an object which can be identified by the C# proxy unit, for example, a json character string is converted into an object which can be identified by the C# by a json attribute by utilizing a JsonToObject method;
The C# agent unit uses the template combination unit to fuse the preset template and the object attribute of the printing content, and completes filling to form printing data;
the C# proxy unit uses a GDI+ processing unit to draw by using Graphics2D class, and converts the print data into a picture format;
The C# proxy unit outputs the printed pictures to a printer port (USB port or serial port and the like) by using a Microsoft original printer output method to finish printing.
Example code for the C# proxy element is as follows:
fig. 4 is a schematic diagram showing a main part of a printing apparatus 400 according to an embodiment of the present invention, as shown in fig. 4:
the apparatus 400 includes a browser module 401, a proxy module 402, and a print module 403;
The browser module 401 is configured to send print content to the proxy module 402, where the print content refers to print content that needs to be filled, for example, when an express delivery bill is printed, the print content includes contents such as a bill number, recipient information, and sender information, and the contents may be manually input on the browser module 401 by a user. The agent module 402 may be code written in the c# language.
Further, the browser module 401 may call a web service interface (a hardware interface for web services) of the proxy module 402, and the browser module 401 transmits the print content to the proxy module 402 in an AJAX manner. XML is a style character string, and matching of objects into XML placeholders is achieved by means of cyclic traversal (such as a string. Format method), so that final style and data combination is completed. The proxy module 402 includes a web service (webservice) interface that can be called by the browser module 401, and the browser module 401 calls the interface to send the print content to the proxy module 402 in an AJAX mode, that is, update the print content and send the print content to the proxy module 402 without updating the whole web page.
The agent module 402 receives the print content and fills the print content into a preset template to form print data, wherein the preset template refers to a pattern of filling the print content, that is, after the print content is filled into the preset template, the print data can be completely printed. For example, the express delivery bill has a pre-fixed style template, and the agent module 402 fills the express delivery information to form a complete and effective express delivery bill. The proxy module 402 parses the print content according to the preset template, where each different print data has a corresponding value, for example, a user.name in the print data corresponds to a "name" in the preset template, and a user.age=12 in the print content corresponds to an "age" in the preset template and is correspondingly filled.
The agent module 402 outputs the filled print data to the print module 403, and the print module 403 prints the print data. The agent module 402 invokes an interface of the printing module 403 to send the print data to the printing module 403 for printing, for example, the agent module 402 sends the filled express delivery bill to a printer for printing. One embodiment of the present invention is for the agent module 402 to output the populated print data to the printer in a pictorial format. For example, graphics2D (a basic class for rendering two-dimensional shapes, text and images on a Java platform) class is used for drawing, using a gdi+ (GRAPHICS DEVICE INTERFACE plus, a system in Windows responsible for outputting related information on a display screen and a printing device), the source of the picture material being print data.
The printing module 403 is further configured to return the printing result to the proxy module 402. For example, after the printer finishes printing, a message after the printing is returned to the proxy module 402.
The proxy module 402 is also configured to return the print result to the browser module 401. After receiving the printing result returned by the printer, the proxy module 402 returns the returned result to the browser module 401, and the printing flow is completed.
The proxy module 402 is further configured to obtain the preset template from a server, and store the preset template. The method aims at updating a local preset template according to a server and reducing network overhead. One embodiment of the present invention is that the agent module 402 periodically polls the server for a preset template, and when the preset template of the server is updated, the updated preset template is obtained and stored locally.
The print content comprises an identification of a preset template. When the preset templates are more than one, it means that different print contents correspond to different preset templates, so that the identification of the preset templates, such as the file name, the number, the version number, etc., of the preset templates is added to the print contents to match the correct preset templates.
The proxy module 402 is written in c# and is configured to receive data associated with the print content through a hardware interface and return the associated data to the browser module 401, and the browser module 401 is further configured to form the print content according to the received associated data. The proxy module 402 may communicate with various peripheral devices through a hardware interface to receive data collected by the peripheral devices, send the collected data to the browser module 401 through a web service interface, or the browser module 401 requests to obtain the collected data. As shown in fig. 2, for example, the browser module 401 receives weight data collected by the electronic scale or receives volume data collected by the measuring device, and the c# proxy module directly sends a print request to the browser module 401 through the web service interface, so that the browser module 401 can receive the collected data from the peripheral devices in a non-artificial manner, and then form print content, and the proxy module further makes the printer execute printing.
Fig. 5 illustrates an exemplary system architecture 500 for a printing method or a printing apparatus to which embodiments of the invention may be applied.
As shown in fig. 5, the system architecture 500 may include terminal devices 501, 502, 503, a network 504, and a server 505. The network 504 is used as a medium to provide communication links between the terminal devices 501, 502, 503 and the server 505. The network 504 may include various connection types, such as wired, wireless communication links, or fiber optic cables, among others.
A user may interact with the server 505 via the network 504 using the terminal devices 501, 502, 503 to receive or send messages or the like. Various communication client applications, such as a print class application, a web browser application, a search class application, an instant messaging tool, a mailbox client, social platform software, etc., may be installed on the terminal devices 501, 502, 503.
The terminal devices 501, 502, 503 may be a variety of electronic devices having a display screen and supporting web browsing, including but not limited to smartphones, tablets, laptop and desktop computers, and the like.
The server 505 may be a server providing various services, such as a background management server providing support for print-type websites browsed by the user using the terminal devices 501, 502, 503. The background management server can analyze and other processing on the received data such as the product information inquiry request and the like, and feed back processing results (such as target push information and product information) to the terminal equipment.
It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present invention, a printing method is generally executed by the server 505, and accordingly, a printing apparatus is generally disposed in the server 505.
It should be understood that the number of terminal devices, networks and servers in fig. 5 is merely illustrative. There may be any number of terminal devices, networks, and servers, as desired for implementation.
Fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of a computer system 600 suitable for use in implementing the terminal device of the embodiment of the present invention. The terminal device shown in fig. 6 is only an example, and should not impose any limitation on the functions and the scope of use of the embodiment of the present invention.
As shown in fig. 6, the computer system 600 includes a Central Processing Unit (CPU) 601, which can perform various appropriate actions and processes according to a program stored in a Read Only Memory (ROM) 602 or a program loaded from a storage section 608 into a Random Access Memory (RAM) 603. In the RAM603, various programs and data required for the operation of the system 600 are also stored. The CPU601, ROM602, and RAM603 are connected to each other through a bus 604. An input/output (I/O) interface 605 is also connected to bus 604.
Connected to the I/O interface 605 are an input section 606 including a keyboard, a mouse, and the like, an output section 607 including a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT), a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), and the like, a speaker, and the like, a storage section 608 including a hard disk, and the like, and a communication section 609 including a network interface card such as a LAN card, a modem, and the like. The communication section 609 performs communication processing via a network such as the internet. The drive 610 is also connected to the I/O interface 605 as needed. Removable media 611 such as a magnetic disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, a semiconductor memory, or the like is installed as needed on drive 610 so that a computer program read therefrom is installed as needed into storage section 608.
In particular, the processes described in the above step diagrams may be implemented as computer software programs according to the disclosed embodiments of the invention. For example, embodiments of the present disclosure include a computer program product comprising a computer program embodied on a computer readable medium, the computer program comprising program code for performing the method shown in the step diagrams. In such an embodiment, the computer program may be downloaded and installed from a network through the communication portion 609, and/or installed from the removable medium 611. The above-described functions defined in the system of the present invention are performed when the computer program is executed by a Central Processing Unit (CPU) 601.
The computer readable medium shown in the present invention includes a computer readable signal medium or a computer readable storage medium, or any combination of the two. The computer readable storage medium includes, but is not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any combination of the preceding. Computer-readable storage media includes, but is not limited to, an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a Random Access Memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any combination of the foregoing. In the context of this document, a computer-readable storage medium includes any tangible medium that can contain, or store a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device, a computer-readable signal medium including a propagated data signal on a baseband or as part of a carrier wave, with computer-readable program code embodied therein, such propagated data signal may take any form, including but not limited to, an electromagnetic signal, an optical signal, or any combination of the preceding. A computer readable signal medium may also be any computer readable medium that is not a computer readable storage medium and that can communicate, propagate, or transport a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. Program code embodied on a computer readable medium may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF (radio frequency), etc., or any combination of the foregoing.
The steps of the figures or block diagrams, which illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementations of systems, methods and computer program products according to various embodiments of the present invention, may represent a module, segment, or portion of code, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical functions. It should be noted that in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of the block diagrams or step diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams or step diagrams, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based systems that perform the specified functions or operations, or combinations of special purpose hardware and computer instructions.
The modules or units involved in the embodiments of the present invention may be implemented in software or in hardware. The described modules or units may also be provided in a processor, which may be described as, for example, a processor comprising a browser module, a proxy module and a printing module. The names of these modules or units do not constitute a limitation on the module or unit itself in some cases, and for example, a browser module may also be described as "a module for transmitting print content to the proxy module".
In another aspect, embodiments of the present invention also provide a computer readable medium, which may be included in the apparatus described in the above embodiments, or may exist alone without being assembled into the apparatus. The computer readable medium carries one or more programs which, when executed by a device, cause the device to include a proxy unit to receive print content sent by a browser, the proxy unit populating the print content to a preset template to form print data, and the proxy unit outputting the print data to a printer for printing the print data.
According to the technical scheme provided by the embodiment of the invention, interaction between the browser and the printing equipment and interaction between the browser and other peripheral equipment can be realized through the proxy unit, so that the operation efficiency and the user experience are improved, and the network overhead is saved.
The above embodiments do not limit the scope of the present invention. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications, combinations, sub-combinations and alternatives can occur depending upon design requirements and other factors. Any modifications, equivalent substitutions and improvements made within the spirit and principles of the present invention should be included in the scope of the present invention.