TreeHugger is a GS/OS Printer Port driver which supports the AppSocket/JetDirect protocol. Essentially, this means you can print to any networked printer that supports the JetDirect (AppSocket) Protocol, that a native mode IIgs Printer Driver exists for. With Harmonie and Independence that means an awful lot of printers out there have the potential to work as PCL is the de-facto standard among the major printer manufactures. Like Postscript®, that was Apple’s choice for raster image printing starting with the Apple LaserWriter, and natively supported by the Apple IIgs, PCL was HP’s answer to PostScript®. With the introduction of the Harmonie and Independence printer support packages, PCL support and a lot more choices for printers were suddenly available to Apple IIgs users. But network printing was still mostly out of reach unless you used LocalTalk and an Apple LaserWriter or compatible printer. Until now, that is.
Announced with a surprise comment in A2Central’s IRC channel this evening, krüe says, “Please test. Remember that I have no idea what I’m doing…” and almost instantly met with enthusiasm and praise, this is the first release, and as such it is set with a version # of ‘0.0′. I can’t say I’ve seen that before. ?
TreeHugger requires Marinetti to work, and while the 2.0.1 features were used, testing was done with 3.0b3 and an Uthernet card, using the Harmonie LaserJet III 300×300 dpi driver with a LaserJet 6p connected via a software based print server, p910nd. Currently other aspect ratios do not work and there are various issues with the page setup dialog and crashes that are being worked out. as krüe says, “..it probably doesn’t work for anyone else but me..” he does expect to be working on it more, but for now input on what works and what does not would probably go a long way.
TreeHugger is available at http://krue.net/treehugger/.