Enviroment: ASP.NET Framework 2.0
Is it possible to accomplish something like this:
I have this link <a href='printBarcode.aspx?code=HF54A'>Print Bar-code</a> and I want to print the response that the server sends for that link. Is that even possible? The response is text but it's not HTML, is some text that a special printer recognizes for printing bar-codes.
The idea is this: the user clicks on the link then the browser receives the response for that link and prompts to print it's content.
I'm happy to receive all suggestions and comments if you think you know of a better way to do this.
No, a browser has no functions for printing anything other than the content of a window. You can't take a response that is returned and send directly to a printer, the closest possible is to display the response in an iframe and ask for a printout of the iframe content. If the browser doesn't know how to visualize and print the response, you can't use the printing capability in the browser to print it.
If you want to send the response directly to a printer, you would have to run a component (flash/silverlight/Java) in the browser that could access the printer directly.
You could put the text from the response into a [div id="textToPrint"] and call a javascript print(). If you can use a popup to open the link [a href='printBarcode.aspx?code=HF54A'] you can have a poopup page like:
[html]
[body onLoad="print();"]
[div id="textToPrint"] YOUR TEXT FROM RESPONSE [/div]
[/body]
[/html]
in this case the printer will print only your text...
You could return a page that is just the barcode text and auto popup the print dialog.
<script type="text/javascript">
window.print();
</script>
But I don't think this will work. I assume the browser will not send it to the printer in the correct format.
The problem is ASP.NET can't access a local printer in the server side code. To do some custom printing you would probably have to rely on Flash or Silverlight, if a plain print of the page doesn't work.
Related
Is there any possibility or any builtin function on iTextsharp that while click on print button on pdf generated file the function call from server side? Basically I want to change the status for this file that it is printed or not.
I don't have the reputation to add a comment but:
basically printing is organized from your pdf-browser. So If you hit the print button, itextsharp is not able to detect. A possible Workaround is to trigger the printing process with a button from your document. Combined with a JavaScript you could write a global variable that marked the printing process for this document.
If you want to keep your document sate, you have to safe it after executing the js-script.
Hope it helps.
Since the screenshot you attached is the pdf viewer of the browser, which runs on the client, you have no interaction any more with the server. So, at this point, you can't control what's happening with the pdf. What you can do, it to tell the browser not to open the pdf file, but to print it.
Here are some tutorials: https://www.google.com/search?q=asp.net+print+directly+to+default+printer
So I would like to be able to have a print button for entries in our database so users can print an entry via a print friendly "form".
My thought was to create a separate page, add labels and have those labels pull the relevant information.
I know I can add the open widget information via this code:
app.datasources.ModelName.selectKey(widget.datasource.item._key);
app.showPage(app.pages.TestPrint);
But I'm running into a few problems:
I can't get the page to open in a new window. Is this possible?
window.open(app.pages.TestPrint);
Just gives me a blank page. Does the browser lose the widget source once the new window opens?
I can't get the print option (either onClick or onDataLoad) to print JUST the image (or widget). I run
window.print();
And it includes headers + scroll bars. Do I need to be running a client side script instead?
Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!
To get exactly what you'd want you'd have to do a lot of work.
Here is my suggested, simpler answer:
Don't open up a new tab. If you use showPage like you mention, and provide a "back" button on the page to go back to where you were, you'll get pretty much everything you need. If you don't want the back to show up when you print, then you can setVisibility(false) on the button before you print, then print, then setVisibility(true).
I'll give a quick summary of how you could do this with a new tab, but it's pretty involved so I can't go into details without trying it myself. The basic idea, is you want to open the page with a full URL, just like a user was navigating to it.
You can use #TestPrint to indicate which page you want to load. You also need the URL of your application, which as far as I can remember is only available in a server-side script using the Apps Script method: ScriptApp.getService().getUrl(). On top of this, you'll probably need to pass in the key so that your page knows what data to load.
So given this, you need to assemble a url by calling a server script, then appending the key property to it. In the end you want a url something like:
https://www.script.google.com/yourappaddress#TestPage?key=keyOfYourModel.
Then on TestPage you need to read the key, and load data for that key. (You can read the key using google.script.url).
Alternatively, I think there are some tricks you can play by opening a blank window and then writing directly to its DOM, but I've never tried that, and since Apps Script runs inside an iframe I'm not sure if it's possible. If I get a chance I'll play with it and update this answer, but for your own reference you could look here: create html page and print to new tab in javascript
I'm imagining something like that, except that your page an write it's html content. Something like:
var winPrint = window.open('', '_blank', 'left=0,top=0,width=800,height=600,toolbar=0,scrollbars=0,status=0');
winPrint.document.write(app.pages.TestPage.getElement().innerHTML);
winPrint.document.close();
winPrint.focus();
winPrint.print();
winPrint.close();
Hope one of those three options helps :)
So here is what I ended up doing. It isn't elegant, but it works.
I added a Print Button to a Page Fragment that pops up when a user edits a database entry.
Database Edit Button code:
app.datasources.ModelName.selectKey(widget.datasource.item._key);
app.showDialog(app.pageFragments.FragmentName);
That Print Button goes to a different (full) Page and closes the Fragment.
Print Button Code:
app.datasources.ModelName.selectKey(widget.datasource.item._key);
app.showPage(app.pages.ModelName_Print);
app.closeDialog();
I made sure to make the new Print Page was small enough so that Chrome fits it properly into a 8.5 x 11" page (728x975).
I then created a Panel that fills the page and populated the page with Labels
#datasource.item.FieldName
I then put the following into the onDataLoad for the Panel
window.print();
So now when the user presses the Print Button in the Fragment they are taken to this new page and after the data loads they automatically get a print dialog.
The only downside is that after printing the user has to use a back button I added to return to the database page.
1.
As far as I know, you cannot combine window.open with app.pages.*, because
window.open would require url parameter at least, while app.pages.* is essentially an internal routing mechanism provided by App Maker, and it returns page object back, suitable for for switching between pages, or opening dialogs.
2.
You would probably need to style your page first, so like it includes things you would like to have printed out. To do so please use #media print
ex: We have a button on the page and would like to hide it from print page
#media print {
.app-NewPage-Button1 {
display : none;
}
}
Hope it helps.
1. Here is how it is done, in a pop up window, without messing up the current page (client script):
function print(widget, title){
var content=widget.getElement().innerHTML;
var win = window.open('', 'printWindow', 'height=600,width=800');
win.document.write('<head><title>'+title+'/title></head>');
win.document.write('<body>'+content+'</body>');
win.document.close();
win.focus();
win.print();
win.close();
}
and the onclick handler for the button is:
print(widget.root.descendants.PageFragment1, 'test');
In this example, PageFragment1 is a page fragment on the current page, hidden by adding a style with namehidden with definition .hidden{display:none;} (this is different than visible which in App Maker seems to remove the item from the DOM). Works perfectly...
2. You cannot open pages from the app in another tab. In principle something like this would do it:
var w=window.parent.parent;
w.open(w.location.protocol+'//'+w.location.host+w.location.pathname+'#PrintPage', '_blank');
But since the app is running in frame nested two deep from the launching page, and with a different origin, you will not be able to access the url that you need (the above code results in a cross origin frame access error). So you would have to hard code the URL, which changes at deployment, so it gets ugly very fast. Not that you want to anyway, the load time of an app should discourage you from wanting to do that anyway.
Is there a way to close a pop up window after the page writes binary data (PDF) to the browswer?
Here are the details:
Whenever my web appilcation needs to print, it will pass some parameters over to a pop up window, which will display the print options. When the user clicks on the Print button, it will set the src of a iframe that will call the page that does the printing.
I have PDFConverter to convert URL / HTML to a pdf file. At the end of the converting, it will write the binary to the browser. Here are some code:
response.AddHeader("Content-Type", "binary/octet-stream");
response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition",
"inline; filename=" + fileName + ".pdf; size=" + pdfBytes.Length.ToString());
response.Flush();
response.BinaryWrite(pdfBytes);
response.Flush();
After this is done, i will need to close the pop up window. However it seems like you can't do anything after the response is flushed. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance!
Angela
Instead of creating the iframe in the popup window, you could create it in the parent window. This way once the user clicks the print button, you could safely close the popup without interupting the printing process. But instead of going through all the pain of creating new popups windows which might be blocked by some browsers, I would simply create some placeholder in the main page so that the user could choose printing options and then print the document.
Just in case anyone else is having the same problem. This is the solution that seems to work for me.
I use the jQuery Simple Modal to show my option list page. On this page, I have a window timer running every 1 second to check against the server if the print job is done. I use ajax for that. Once the job is done, I update the session variable, and the ajax call to the server will pick up the session value and close the pop up window.
I've got an ASP.NET ashx class that retrieves data from a database, creates a PDF file using iTextSharp, and streams the PDF to the browser. The browser (IE and Firefox at least) is launching Acrobat Reader as a separate window to open the file. I'd like for it to display inline within the browser.
Is that something I can completely control from the server side? I'm already setting the Content-Type header to application/pdf, and I've tried setting Content-Disposition and Content-Length. Nothing so far has worked.
Is there another header I'm missing? Is there something in the PDF itself that tells the browser how to display it? Any other ideas?
Setting the content-disposition and content-type headers should do it, but you might also need to call Response.ClearHeaders() to clear other headers that have been set.
Also, try using Fiddler to see the actual headers and content from the response and compare them to those from a site that works like you want.
If you are using an ashx (web handler) try this:-
context.Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "inline; filename=Something.pdf")
OK, turns out it was a stupid question, but I'm glad I asked it because I had never heard of Fiddler (which led me to the answer, which is why I'm accepting tspauld's answer). The PDF is generated by a web service that serves the file to a couple of different front-end sites. I was setting the content disposition to inline in the service, but that didn't matter, because the browser never got that header; it got the header from the front-end site (which was attachment). I changed it in the front-end site and that fixed it.
So the answer is that you have to have Content-Type=application/pdf and Content-Disposition=inline; filename=Something.pdf, as others have said.
Try generating them into your page using html OBJECT.
<OBJECT WIDTH=640 HEIGHT=480>
<PARAM NAME="SRC" VALUE="<%=filePath%>">
<EMBED SRC=<%=filename.pdf%> WIDTH=1000 HEIGHT=680>
<NOEMBED> PDF should have displayed here!</NOEMBED>
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>
If you need to stream the response with an ashx instead of being able to return an aspx, I think you may be out of luck.
Otherwise, I believe the settings to show in browser or not, is completely client driven and out of your hands.
So, I have a sample in one of my works that is what you need:
<cc1:ShowPdf ID="ShowPdf1" runat="server" BorderStyle="None" BorderWidth="0px"
Height="750px" Style="z-index: 103; "
Width="750px"/>
and in server side :
ShowPdf1.FilePath = String.Format("~/Handlers/Pdf.ashx?id={0}#view=FitH&page=1&pagemode=none&navpanes=1", myPublicationId);
I place here also some code from my PDF Handler :
Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";
byte[] bytes = YourBinaryContent;
using (BinaryWriter writer = new BinaryWriter(context.Response.OutputStream))
{
writer.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
}
Anyway If my post doesn't seem clear to you, have a look at this sample How to Display PDF documents with ASP.NET
I think this header will do what you want
Content-type: application/pdf
Since you say that is not working, then I suspect it is a configuration setting on the client side.
Check your installed version of Adobe Acrobat. There is a setting in preferences for "Internet" and a checkbox that says "Display PDF in Browser".
--
bmb
Here is an article on using the embed tag to do it:http://blogs.adobe.com/pdfdevjunkie/2007/08/using_the_html_embed_tag_to_di.html
If you have the budget, my company sells a set of products that includes an AJAX based image viewer that will let you view the PDF pages in line without Acrobat at all. In its simplest form, it is just a viewer, but you can layer in interactivity as you need.
I have built a basic data entry application allowing users to browse external content in iframe and enter data quickly from the same page. One of the data variables is the URL.
Ideally I would like to be able to load the iframes current url into a textbox with javascript. I realize now that this is not going to happen due to security issues.
Has anyone done anything on the server side? or know of any .Net browser in browser controls. The ultimate goal is to just give the user an easy method of extracting the url of the page they are viewing in the iframe It doesn't necessarily HAVE to be an iframe, a browser in the browser would be ideal.
Thanks,
Adam
I did some tests in Firefox 3 comparing the value of .src and .documentWindow.location.href in an iframe. (Note: The documentWindow is called contentDocument in Chrome, so instead of .documentWindow.location.href in Chrome it will be .contentDocument.location.href.)
src is always the last URL that was loaded in the iframe without user interaction. I.e., it contains the first value for the URL, or the last value you set up with Javascript from the containing window doing:
document.getElementById("myiframe").src = 'http://www.google.com/';
If the user navigates inside the iframe, you can't anymore access the value of the URL using src. In the previous example, if the user goes away from www.google.com and you do:
alert(document.getElementById("myiframe").src);
You will still get "http://www.google.com".
documentWindow.location.href is only available if the iframe contains a page in the same domain as the containing window, but if it's available it always contains the right value for the URL, even if the user navigates in the iframe.
If you try to access documentWindow.location.href (or anything under documentWindow) and the iframe is in a page that doesn't belong to the domain of the containing window, it will raise an exception:
document.getElementById("myiframe").src = 'http://www.google.com/';
alert(document.getElementById("myiframe").documentWindow.location.href);
Error: Permission denied to get property Location.href
I have not tested any other browser.
Hope it helps!
document.getElementById('iframeID').contentWindow.location.href
You can't access cross-domain iframe location at all.
I use this.
var iframe = parent.document.getElementById("theiframe");
var innerDoc = iframe.contentDocument || iframe.contentWindow.document;
var currentFrame = innerDoc.location.href;
HTA works like a normal windows application.
You write HTML code, and save it as an .hta file.
However, there are, at least, one drawback: The browser can't open an .hta file; it's handled as a normal .exe program. So, if you place a link to an .hta onto your web page, it will open a download dialog, asking of you want to open or save the HTA file. If its not a problem for you, you can click "Open" and it will open a new window (that have no toolbars, so no Back button, neither address bar, neither menubar).
I needed to do something very similar to what you want, but instead of iframes, I used a real frameset.
The main page need to be a .hta file; the other should be a normal .htm page (or .php or whatever).
Here's an example of a HTA page with 2 frames, where the top one have a button and a text field, that contains the second frame URL; the button updates the field:
frameset.hta
<html>
<head>
<title>HTA Example</title>
<HTA:APPLICATION id="frames" border="thin" caption="yes" icon="http://www.google.com/favicon.ico" showintaskbar="yes" singleinstance="no" sysmenu="yes" navigable="yes" contextmenu="no" innerborder="no" scroll="auto" scrollflat="yes" selection="yes" windowstate="normal"></HTA:APPLICATION>
</head>
<frameset rows="60px, *">
<frame src="topo.htm" name="topo" id="topo" application="yes" />
<frame src="http://www.google.com" name="conteudo" id="conteudo" application="yes" />
</frameset>
</html>
There's an HTA:APPLICATION tag that sets some properties to the file; it's good to have, but it isn't a must.
You NEED to place an application="yes" at the frames' tags. It says they belongs to the program too and should have access to all data (if you don't, the frames will still show the error you had before).
topo.htm
<html>
<head>
<title>Topo</title>
<script type="text/javascript">
function copia_url() {
campo.value = parent.conteudo.location;
}
</script>
</head>
<body style="background: lightBlue;" onload="copia_url()">
<input type="button" value="Copiar URL" onclick="copia_url()" />
<input type="text" size="120" id="campo" />
</body>
</html>
You should notice that I didn't used any getElement function to fetch the field; on HTA file, all elements that have an ID becomes instantly an object
I hope this help you, and others that get to this question. It solved my problem, that looks like to be the same as you have.
You can found more information here: http://www.irt.org/articles/js191/index.htm
Enjoy =]
I like your server side idea, even if my proposed implementation of it sounds a little bit ghetto.
You could set the .innerHTML of the iframe to the HTML contents you grab server side. Depending on how you grab this, you will have to pay attention to relative versus absolute paths.
Plus, depending on how the page you are grabbing interacts with other pages, this could totally not work (cookies being set for the page you are grabbing won't work across domains, maybe state is being tracked in Javascript... Lots of reasons this might not work.)
I don't believe that tracking the current state of the page you are trying to mirror is theoretically possible, but I'm not sure. The site could track all sorts of things server side, you won't have access to this state. Imagine the case where on a page load a variable is set to a random value server-side, how would you capture this state?
Do these ideas help with anything?
-Brian J. Stinar-
Does this help?
http://www.quirksmode.org/js/iframe.html
I only tested this in firefox, but if you have something like this:
<iframe name='myframe' id='myframe' src='http://www.google.com'></iframe>
You can get its address by using:
document.getElementById('myframe').src
Not sure if I understood your question correctly but anyways :)
You can use Ra-Ajax and have an iframe wrapped inside e.g. a Window control. Though in general terms I don't encourage people to use iframes (for anything)
Another alternative is to load the HTML on the server and send it directly into the Window as the content of a Label or something. Check out how this Ajax RSS parser is loading the RSS items in the source which can be downloaded here (Open Source - LGPL)
(Disclaimer; I work with Ra-Ajax...)
Ok, so in this application, there is an iframe in which the user is supplied with links or some capacity that allows that iframe to browse to some external site. You are then looking to capture the URL to which the user has browsed.
Something to keep in mind. Since the URL is to an external source, you will be limited in how much you can interact with this iframe via javascript (or an client side access for that matter), this is known as browser cross-domain security, as apparently you have discovered. There are clever work arounds, as presented here Cross-domain, cross-frame Javascript, although I do not think this work around applies in this case.
About all you can access is the location, as you need.
I would suggest making the code presented more resilitant and less error prone. Try browsing the web sometime with IE or FF configured to show javascript errors. You will be surprised just how many javascript errors are thrown, largely because there is a lot of error prone javascript out there, which just continues to proliferate.
This solution assumes that the iframe in question is the same "window" context where you are running the javascript. (Meaning, it is not embedded within another frame or iframe, in which case, the javascript code gets more involved, and you likely need to recursively search through the window hierarchy.)
<iframe name='frmExternal' id='frmExternal' src='http://www.stackoverflow.com'></frame>
<input type='text' id='txtUrl' />
<input type='button' id='btnGetUrl' value='Get URL' onclick='GetIFrameUrl();' />
<script language='javascript' type='text/javascript'>
function GetIFrameUrl()
{
if (!document.getElementById)
{
return;
}
var frm = document.getElementById("frmExternal");
var txt = document.getElementById("txtUrl");
if (frm == null || txt == null)
{
// not great user feedback but slightly better than obnoxious script errors
alert("There was a problem with this page, please refresh.");
return;
}
txt.value = frm.src;
}
</script>
Hope this helps.
You can access the src property of the iframe but that will only give you the initially loaded URL. If the user is navigating around in the iframe via you'll need to use an HTA to solve the security problem.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms536474(VS.85).aspx
Check out the link, using an HTA and setting the "application" property of an iframe will allow you to access the document.href property and parse out all of the information you want, including DOM elements and their values if you so choose.