Now sometime ago im sure I saw there was a call of some type to set the ATE "Preview Preferences" to Always, Never etc... and also the OnExit...
But sure cant find it!?
(Well until the usual thing happens I hit the BBS Post button here and it turn up at the top of manual on my next search...)

Maybe I can set this temporary in XCALL SPOOL?
http://www.microsabio.net/dist/doc/conref/00ashref.htm#!initfilecommands.htm
Im guessing the /PREVIEW is the old EZ preview.

I Only have on instant where I like a GDI document previewed before they decide to press print or exit, so its a temporary setting.

What you want is to set the SPSW_APEX and SPSW_PREVIEW switches in XCALL SPOOL .

PREVIEW by itself tries to decide between the old EZ preview and the new APEX preview based on various factors, but adding the SPSW_APEX switch should make sure that it chooses that route.

You can also test this with the PRINT.LIT /PREVIEW switch, which favors APEX if available.

I did add SPSW_APEX to Xcall spool and that made spool decide to no nothing, I will try it again tomorrow, is it all client side or partly server related as we still using that old AIX version in house.
SPSW_Preview did as you said displayed it in the old ez preview.

Hmmm... It's partly server side (the decision whether to use the old EZ preview, which is totally server side, vs. APEX). And partly client-side (the decision whether to override the preferences and force the preview.

Note that in order for the APEX preview to even be an option, you have to be printing to the AUXLOC: device. If you print to some non-existent printer on the server side, you may get no message (but check the OPR:SPOOL.LOG file for evidence).

There have been some changes in this area, so it might help to know exactly the server-side version.

As for logging, I would set the TRACE LP on both sides, and also perhaps the ATE trace on the client side, which together should give us enough clues to track down what is happening.

Thanks for the tips, plenty for me to try...

After a few tweaks the following basic test worked:
(I think the original issue it not pointing to a AUXLOC: printer)

Thanks.

Question: I guess the above does not work and ignored if the user has the Print Preferences -> Preview on Print -> set to NEVER ?

That's correct: the ALWAYS and NEVER options override the application. To allow application control (via the SPOOL switches), the Preview Preferences need to be set to one of the two "Application Control" options:



The application could, however, actually change the Preview Preferences settings using MX_REGISTRY commands (forwarded to ATE via AG_XFUNCS ).

There is a pair of handy SOSLIB utilities, GETATEREG.LILT and SETATEREG.LILT that can make this easy. (The setting in question is "PVlaunchOption") ...

Offhand I don't remember what the 4 option values equate to, but you can easily check this out by just looking at the Settings > Preview Preferences dialog after getting or setting the value.

Note that GETATEREG and SETATEREG require ATEAPX.SBX and ATEREG.SBX (also from the SOSLIB [907,33] directory), although you can download the compiled versions from the 6.2 Release DSK0 update directories .

Ok that explain one issue I had testing, good to know..
I'll check/change the print preview app setting just beforehand, thanks for the example and tips.