No need for drivers, devices, or cables, this new printer interface is actually software inside the printer.
You "email" your file to your printer's email, or to your user at FlowingPrinter.com where you can see a preview of it.
HERES THE POINT: The printer (or website) breaks the job down into page after page, printing them one by one. Instead of printing the whole file at once, it manages the printing page by page.
No new hardware is needed and perhaps a small slowdown will be felt, but you never will be stuck with the old uncancelable print queues and week old jobs that you don't even know about stopping you from printing. The software can quickly cancel and even "restart the internal computer", and there's always only ONE PAGE being printed.
It manages the real printer interface itself, internally, never having a "stuck queue". It quickly tells you how much time is expected, and where things are at, why you are waiting if you are waiting, suggests fixes to the situation, allows you to prioritize which page or job you want first, to pause jobs and resume them later after another document has been printed and allows you to change internal settings and even the actual content of individual pages on the fly.
No need for a screen on the printer, you can access it via a Bluetooth app (if security is high - paired to a single device), or if security is less of an issue for you, through a secure website.
No more haggard and beleaguered looks on your face, when you approach the printer or need to print something.
The printer (or printer-add-on) makes it a bit more expensive because it has licenses for common applications in order to print them. At worst, until you update your software to the next generation, you can print to file, and send the printed file. Still better than trying to understand what is stuck and getting aggravated over the current OS's printer interface or the printer company's helper apps.-- pashute, Feb 20 2020 Paper Jam Paper_20JamShameless elf-promotion [8th of 7, Feb 24 2020] No, because in the current mode, each job is actually 1 long print job, you can't restart a single page or replace that page.
I'm using the old interface internally, but printing each page one at a time, easily and quickly changing the order, aborting, resuming, and even swapping single pages.
I edited the idea to emphasize that point.-- pashute, Feb 20 2020 Sounds like you're hankering after an old-school mainframe environment, [pash].
That technology does exist. It was needed in the days of multi user mainframe timeshare systems where users were charged for CPU and core usage, disk store, and pages printed; and those charges added up to lots of money, so it was worthwhile to account for every page.
Now, not so much. Just a matter of convenience.
This idea is not an innovation and is redundant.-- 8th of 7, Feb 20 2020 I don't usually use the printer. The reason being the hassle. It almost always has problems.
But then I have times (like recently) when I do need the printer, and I can't have page 416 reprinted, because that means opening the file again (after going for my cuppa and coming back and finding out the paper ripped just there.) I have to run to class, and really need 416 (and on till 1212) quickly.
With the old interface I now have a stuck print job, which after I pressed cancel is still there, or maybe its not, who knows - you just stand there staring at the printer hoping that maybe its in the wire or on the way. You really never know.
So I leave and come back home later needing a page printed. I turn the printer on, and it still shows the 1212 page print job in the queue. Now what. C'mon don't tell me you never had this.
With the flowprint add-on I don't have to check that the printer is connected in ANY way to my computer. The minute its on and with WIFI it shows up in the printer website with my user. The print job preview shows me which PAGES were recently printed - I can go back and reprint them. I can put them aside. I can erase them. There's never more than ONE page in the queue, and that page is always easily stopped / cancelled / resumed / changed. d-- pashute, Feb 20 2020 Sounds good to me, but a bit sensible to be described as halfbaked don't you think? Nevertheless, I'm flicking it this crumb: [+]-- xenzag, Feb 20 2020 // With the old interface I now have a stuck print job //
That's because you suffer from windoze, and therefore deserve no mercy.
As previously pointed out, this exists in real operating systems. If you used something other than a jumped-up video game with delusions of adequacy, you wouldn't have any of these problems.
That you do indicates that your suffering is entirely self-inflicted, and therefore a source of vicarious pleasure to us.-- 8th of 7, Feb 20 2020 Is pleasure from other's self inflicted suffering a culturally encouraged act?-- pashute, Feb 24 2020 Always.-- 8th of 7, Feb 24 2020 I agree with [Chairborne] - this seems a solution to a problem which hardly exists. I too have no printers 'connected' to my computer at work. I just hit print, then swipe my ID card on any printer to pick up the print job at that printer. If the printer jams, then I would just cancel the job at the printer if I wanted to.-- hippo, Feb 24 2020 // If the printer jams //
.. you can enjoy a tasty snack.
<link>-- 8th of 7, Feb 24 2020 Sounds like they turn out IT amateurs... graduate, collect diploma, walk across the road and work at mcroshyte...
... applying the gold leaf to the dog turds.-- 8th of 7, Feb 24 2020 For a customer-facing rôle like that, you need a postgraduate degree at the very least ...-- 8th of 7, Feb 25 2020 random, halfbakery