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Dear IRAF gurus,
one of my IRAF installations can't send
plots to the printer or even create plots using
the colon command
:.snap epsf
(this creates and empty file like sgi80923.eps)I can use lp or lpr to send files to the printer
from the UNIX command line, so the printing
works outside of IRAF.Where do I need to fix this device problem?thanks,
Jason Pinkney--
Dr. Jason Pinkney
Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Ohio Northern University
419-772-2740 http://www2.onu.edu/~j-pinkney/

Be sure to type 'gflush' at the CL prompt or ":.gflush" following the ":.snap". If you get something in the generated sgiXXX.eps file use lp/lpr to be sure it is printable, if not then check that there is an 'sgidispatch' link in the same directory as your cl/mkiraf commands. Do other devices such as 'psdump' or the generic 'lp' work (foillowing a gflush)?-Mike

Thanks much Mike!your suggestion to check for sgidispatch was
the problem solver. I must have done a
non-kosher install or something.
Now it works!Jason :

Hi Mike,I have sort of the same problem as Jason did, except that printing does work from the ds9 window and the ecl window - the only problem is the graph window (implot,splot. etc). I have an HP laser printer, but it always worked fine before my recent IRAF Macintel install. (I never needed to type :.gflush" - just ":.snap" would work). Now, when I type :.snap, it says ":.snap - done" as it always did, but nothing comes out on my printer. I tried typing :.gflush and it only responds with a dash on the screen - not "done." When I type ":.snap epsf" I get an empty sgi...eps file. Following your suggestion, I linked to /unix/bin.macintel/sgidispatch.e from /unix/hlib where mkiraf.sch and ecl.csh are located, but it didn't fix the problem. I tried specifically adding my printer name to my login.cl (instead of lw or lp) and then :.snap gives an error that thete's no entry in the dev cap file for this printer (name=HP_LaserJet_2100_Series) - how can I edit the graphcap (or termcap) file to include it?Thanks so much!
Karen

Hi Karen,Try doing a "cl> !which sgidispatch" to see if you can find the command. The dispose command in the graphcap is done using a spawned shell and so if your .cshrc file doesn't define a path to the sgidispatch command it might not produce the final file. This usually means that your path is defined in your .login file instead, just add the extra directory to the .cshrc (or .bashrc) as well. -MikeP.S. Still haven't look at the FITCOORDS thing, I'm hoping Frank gets to it first....

MIke,The sgidispatch command wasn't in the path, so I put the explicit path in my .bashrc, and still no joy.In ecl> when I type "!which sgidispatch" I get no results, but when I add .e, it's there. If this isn't the issue, what else might it be?
Many thanks,
Karen

Karen,The graphcap uses 'sgidispatch' as the command, not the .e binary. This should be in the same directory as 'cl', 'mkiraf', etc If a "cl> !which cl" also shows no results then this is still a path problem in your .cshrc/.bashrc file, however if it can find the cl command but not sgidispatch, then check that the link is indeed installed, points to a valid .e file, and that you can run the 'sgidispatch' command at the unix prompt (it should just return the prompt, but no error messages).Re-running the install script should fix any issues with links. BTW, is this a SciSoft installation?-Mike

Yay! We mistakenly named the link with a .e at the end - so this is fixed! Yes, it is a scisoft install - only because 3 years ago when we first created our computer lab, our admin found it much easier to install on many machines. Please don't be mad...