Wish - KIP America

Hi KIP America - we have a KIP 6000 printer with the KIP 2080 scanner.
Great combination, good software. One wish though, could you add a setting
to the Unattend.exe to force someone to use a CTRL-X or CTRL|File|Exit to
unload the software from the printer? We've had users manage to unload the
software on the print server and then wonder why their plots aren't.

Mercury32 has a nice implementation of this feature, see
http://www.pmail.com/overviews/ovw_mercwin.htm for an overview.
Essentially, the software has a "Hard to quit" setting that forces you to
use special keystrokes to leave the program. That would be much appreciated
in a future version of Unattend.exe

Mark Evinger

 

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your suggestion. Generally, and most of the time, management of the print queue is given to 'someone' who's familiar with the product and know how to work with the Powerprint Unattend. Every user is not expected to even know what we use or run on the kip controller.

As you would know, the printer's controller does not have the monitor/keyboard/mouse connected. You are expecting someone to use VNC, login using VNC viewer (which is password protected) to shut down the Unattend and not know what they did ? Also sending Cntl-X, Cntl-File-exit wouldn't work over VNC.

We understand your concern and would love to have ideas that makes usage of the program easy and productive.

Thanks again

KIP Digital Support /RM

 

How about ditching the embedded controller all together? Whoever decided to
run any flavor of windows on a controller with *NO CONTROLS* (read monitor,
keyboard) was probably never an admin in a production environment. Put the
controller back on a dedicated PC. If people insist on using the dedicated
PC for other purposes then they deserve to suffer the consequences.

 

Well you could force a quit password or a double confirmation saying do you really want to exit as prints will not be processed etc. But people sometimes need to be at the unattended mode trying to figure out why their prints are not coming out. Especially if oyu have set the output paper to be Exactly . We are just tooling around with ours as it has been only a week since we got the Kip6000 to replace our OCE. I just wish they make the Powerprint request a little bit better, with better image display (the UltraV viewer SUCKS as a preview since it is monochromatic only. I switched it to use QV.exe which does a little better job. Though Sorting of files still is very limited. IF you reverse sort your items in explorer and dump it to the dropzone, the sorting is retained, any more files you bring in then the system goes haywire. If you can have reverse list button why cant you have sort by name function?

 

Hello !
Thanks for a great suggestion. We understand your need to be able to sort using name function for files in the 'selected files area' in Powerprint Request. We will review your request internally and let you know how soon it can be incorporated into the program.

If you have other suggestions, please send your e-mail to .

Thank you

KIP Digital Support / RM

 

We have an 8000 with the 2080 scanner and have to have the controller hooked up to a monitor and keyboard as there are a lot of users and the settings need to be changed back and forth (Misc settings, exact or closest).
Also I would like to see Request have the option to save a job definition in the job folder. We have Salesmen, Engineers and Project Managers that print their own sets of drawings and it would be a great help for them if I could save that plot job definition where they can get to it.

 

Hi ecable,

Thanks for another good question. What it sounds like is that you probably need to start using 'Save Current Job' function in Powerprint Request. Once you use that, Salesmen or other folks can certainly save the 'Job definition' so they can get to it later. Why are you having to change paper size between exact/closest between jobs? For a particular job if you use the 'Force Size' feature in Request, all you should need is to set the Unattend-Misc Settings to Closest at all times. Maybe i am not following your question, please post again in detail.

thank you

KIP Digital Support / RM

 

We do use "Save Current Job".
The problem is that if I save the current job it goes to my hard drive. What I need to do is have that job definition saved to the working folder on the server, not have everyone that needs to plot a job create their own job definition.
Force size does not plot to scale! Most jobs need to be plotted to scale and some are not the same size as I have paper available in the Plotter.
If the settings are closest then when my plotter runs out of one size paper it finishes on the next larger size paper.
If I run ten sets of 150 drawings I do not want to have to go and trim all those sheets. I want the plotter to stop and wait for paper to be installed.
By the way we have an 8000 with two rolls of 36" (most often used), one roll of 30" and one roll of 17". This is the most efficient set up for our needs.

 

I think from what I understood from our salesman repro house (yah saleman, KIP may disagree) that KIP is not too particular about how the machine is setup. You can take an off the shelf machine and put the controller on it, you just need a longer cable for the connector from the PCI slot card to the KIP.

in any case I am happy to see that someone from KIP is actually paying attention to the suggestions that people are giving. I will be jumping up and down if they actually implement it.

Here is my laundry list. :

1. We have 5.5.119 PP request and it has a problem reading the Desktop. Click on the all folders on Desktop, nothing says invalid selection.

2. Allow sort by Name in Selected Files are. The reverse list is a Great option. implement the Name sorting liek windows, i.e. click once sorts it acending, click again sorts it decending.

3. Limited Unattended functionality, i.e run in user mode or admin mode. pwd requeired to switch to admin mode. In user mode people can only delete jobs from queue , respond to the errors, i.e force the job to a certain ROLL in Unattended, Esc to skip, etc. They cannot change Config, or hit the buttons at the bottom, maybe one of them for copy mode (we only have the plotter no copy option) so no idea about this. most of ALL cannot shut down unattended.

4. have one directory for all the stuff, right now you have so many directories used , 2 in the root, one in prog files. keep all in one, or under Pgfiles\KIP\Powerprint request, \Pgroams etc. T being the other one for the temp folder. Use the standard temp. I change it in the ini which is nice.

5. Provide a BETTER drawing PREVIEW . the ultraV sucks (monochrome) and QV shows correct representation, but very LIMITED functionality. reprodesk has a lot better viewer than you provide. (just switching from OCE )

6. Save job option is good, but is limited to the CURRRENT user. The idea of a JOB iis that a TEAM is working on it. allow to specify location when saving and RECALLing a job. Thats the whole idea. We do not use it a whole lot, but I think from the thread it would be a great idea to have. Reprodesk has that function.

7. Allow to EASILY submit jobs to a repro house or plot in house. I can turn on the online feature and FTP over my job to repro house, but I have to unselect the internal KIP printers, then go to ftp . Should have a button when online is turned on saying SUBMIT to FTP (allow multiple FTP sites as there are competitors in the area) when clicking the ftp submit button. (I have not tested this extensively,)

might give you more once I get use to the interface.

 

Hi ! and thanks for posting the reply and sending the email. I will reply to your email shortly. Meanwhile, please send me your contact details and include KIP Dealer name and Rep name also.

Thank you

KIP Digital Support / RM

 

1. We have 5.5.119 PP request and it has a problem reading the Desktop. Click on the all folders on Desktop, nothing says invalid selection.

****What do you mean by ‘has a problem reading the desktop’ and ‘nothing says invalid selection’. Powerprint Request allows you to browse for certain file types, or configured file types, or all file types. Will choosing one of those help?***


2. Allow sort by Name in Selected Files are. The reverse list is a Great option. implement the Name sorting liek windows, i.e. click once sorts it acending, click again sorts it decending.

****This is already noted by us. We will be looking for it’s implementation.******

3. Limited Unattended functionality, i.e run in user mode or admin mode. pwd requeired to switch to admin mode. In user mode people can only delete jobs from queue , respond to the errors, i.e force the job to a certain ROLL in Unattended, Esc to skip, etc. They cannot change Config, or hit the buttons at the bottom, maybe one of them for copy mode (we only have the plotter no copy option) so no idea about this. most of ALL cannot shut down unattended.

*****We already do this in a certain preferred way which has been there for over 3 years. Please review documentation to implement at your site, or contact your dealer to help you set this up.******

4. have one directory for all the stuff, right now you have so many directories used , 2 in the root, one in prog files. keep all in one, or under Pgfiles\KIP\Powerprint request, \Pgroams etc. T being the other one for the temp folder. Use the standard temp. I change it in the ini which is nice.


******The only 2 directories used are:
C:\Program Files\Windows Request and it’s subfolder
C:\Programs and it’s subfolders. Is this a critical feature you need to put everything into one folder?******


5. Provide a BETTER drawing PREVIEW . the ultraV sucks (monochrome) and QV shows correct representation, but very LIMITED functionality. reprodesk has a lot better viewer than you provide. (just switching from OCE )


*****The QV viewer has been made for viewing and zooming purposes and not an image editor. The QV will be made better in the future and we will try to incorporate features the user community feels necessary. There’s no point discussing reprodesk because of cost implications.*******

6. Save job option is good, but is limited to the CURRRENT user. The idea of a JOB iis that a TEAM is working on it. allow to specify location when saving and RECALLing a job. Thats the whole idea. We do not use it a whole lot, but I think from the thread it would be a great idea to have. Reprodesk has that function.

****Please see Network Request install document.*****

7. Allow to EASILY submit jobs to a repro house or plot in house. I can turn on the online feature and FTP over my job to repro house, but I have to unselect the internal KIP printers, then go to ftp . Should have a button when online is turned on saying SUBMIT to FTP (allow multiple FTP sites as there are competitors in the area) when clicking the ftp submit button. (I have not tested this extensively,)

******Are you saying this is too many steps? Or too much work? We can certainly have the option of bringing up FTP based printers when you turn online on. Is that what you want? Or something else.******