1.1. Welcome
1.2. About CSS
1.3. Changes in this Release
1.4. Migration to this Release
1.5. Conventions Used in this Manual
1.6. Syntax of Command Lines
1.7. Support, Feedback

 1.1. Welcome

This manual is the reference for the Unitec Commercial Spooling System CSS. It provides complete description of all CSS utilities, functions and configuration tables. The information provided explains in detail, what the system capabilities are, but it does not explain how to make use of them. If you are unfamiliar with the use of spooling systems, you may want to study additional computer literature on this subject.

The manual is organized as follows:

 1.2. About CSS

The CSS package consists of a collection of programs and utilities providing a sophisticated control of all print activity on UNIX systems. Functionality and operation of CSS are specially designed to cover the needs of commercial applications. The user interface is an easy to operate dialog program allowing the administration of multiple printers, forms and report queues. All CSS programs are written in the C language and thus portable to all UNIX system with minimal effort.

The major benefits of CSS are:

• Support for multiple virtual print server environments, allowing service centers to set up a distinct print server for each client or user group
• Device independent programming
• Database for printer and forms definitions
• Form definition utility / laser printer macro administration
• Easy to operate dialog program for complete user control and report preview
• Embedded lpr options within the report files
• Administration of multiple report queues
• Report-Preview (preview of spool files, search capabilities)
• Print test (paper adjust)
• Report management with keep-date
• Device routing
• Automatic backup printer activation
• Translation tables for characters and strings
• Real multi-user capabilities
• Compression of the spool files
• Remote print support for lpd, rtel, pros and raw protocols
• Graphical interface for Windows workstations

1.3. Changes in this Release

This release of CSS incorporates all enhancements already described in the READ.ME file of the previous release and the manual has been extended accordingly. All other changes are shown in the following list:

• Configuration of multiple virtual CSS print servers has been implemented. See the Configuration section for details.
• Designed for existing software with hard coded printer control sequences, special devices for the report preview in css(U) and WinCss(U) can be defined. See the VIEW_DEVICE and WINCSS_VIEW_DEVICE parameters in css.default(C) and the vd-capability in css.devices(C) for details.
• The CssNT product line has been dropped. In environments with one or several Windows NT/2000 application servers, we recommend a Linux system with CSS and Samba installed. This will provide the most economic, flexible, reliable and fastest print server. 
• As with each new release, many "minor" changes, corrections and improvements have been implemented and all known bugs have been eliminated.

1.3.1. Changes in Release 4.0

Changes in release 4.0 are shown in the following list:

• The WinCss release number has been changed to be in sync with CSS.
• The TCP/IP server cssws(U) for the WinCss graphical interface has been extended to support new functionality. The degree of enhancements made it necessary to implement a new communication protocol. In order to provide backward compatibility, the current program version also supports the protocol used in the previous release. Support for old protocols will be dropped in the next release.
• Due to the long version history of CSS, attempts of the setup(I) program to recover statistical report information from the queue control file have been dropped. Queue recovery form the spool directory works as usual.

1.3.2. Changes in Release 3.4

Changes in release 3.4 are shown in the following list:

• The TCP/IP server cssws(U) for the WinCss graphical interface has been extended to support new functionality.
• The csu(U) program has new options to show report keep dates.
• Device routing has been implemented. For details see css(U), the o-option of csu(U) and the wft and wfc capabilities in css.devices(C).
• The syntax of the box and eox capabilities in css.devices(C) have been extended to include new conditions to restrict output to particular report copies and ordering variable contents. For details see css.devices(C) in section Basic Capabilities.
• The size of the CSS error log file can now be defined in the css.default(C) configuration table.
• The navigation default to wrap screens in the css(U) dialog from last to first (pre 3.3x behavior) can now be defined in the css.default(C) configuration table.

1.4. Migration to this Release

The notes in the following sections are intended help you to avoid incompatibilities, they do however not cover new features that may be used without affecting current installations.

1.4.1. Migration from Release 2.7

This section is of importance to users only who are currently using CSS Release 2.7 or earlier.

• Since the tr-parameters in css.devices(C) in this release may also define a file name, control strings beginning with the symbol '/' (slash) must be redefined to start with '\/', '\057' or '\x2f':
  
  

  old:	tr=abc=/xy/z
  new:	tr=abc=\/xy/z

   

• The bor-, eor- and tr-parameters in css.devices(C) may now include control variable. A single '%' symbol must therefore be defined as '\%', '\045' or '\x25':
  

  old:	bor=\E%5x
  new:	bor=\E\%5x
  old:	tr=abc=mn%p
  new:	tr=abc=mn\%p

   

• The functionality of the if1-, if2-, tf1- and tf2-parameters in css.devices(C) is now covered by the possibility of multiple bor- and eor-parameters and has thus become redundant. For compatibility reasons they remain supported. They may however be removed in a future release and we recommend to replace them as in:
  

  old:	if1=/usr/css/if1
  new:	bor=/usr/css/if1

  
  The order of the definitions determines the output order.
  

• The syntax or control variables has been changed and extended. See also css.devices(C).
  

• The method of the 'external locks' (el-parameter) may be specified in css.default(C). The default differs from the method used in previous versions but is safer. The previous method used (sema) should only be used to synchronize the use of a device that has to be shared with another software product, but not for multiple logical device definitions of a physical printer.

1.4.2. Migration from Release 3.3

This section is of importance to users only who are currently using CSS Release 3.3 or earlier.

• The use of the report condition flags that have been set with the C-option of the lpr(U) spooler front-end has changed. Starting with release 3.4, these flags are reset to the initial C-option values for each copy printed. To control copy specific behavior, the extended syntax of the box and eox device capabilities can be used. To mimic prerelease 3.4 condition flag processing, the JOB_FLAGS parameter in css.default(C) may be set to true.

1.4.3. Migration from Release 3.4 or higher

No compatibility issues need to be considered.

1.5. Conventions Used in this Manual

This section describes how the various symbols and typefaces are used in this manual.

Symbols

If you have worked with C before, you may already be familiar with many of this manual's symbols.

Typefaces

References

In order to minimize distraction by references to additional information of specific topics, the following conventions apply:

A reference to a section in the same chapter is represented by the section name in bold type.

A reference to a section in a different chapter or in the standard Unix-Manual is represented by the section name in bold type followed by a chapter identification enclosed in parenthesis ().

The reference id's used throughout this manual are:

ID	Reference
(I)	Chapter 2 / Installation
(U)	Chapter 3 / Utility Descriptions
(C)	Chapter 4 / Configuration
(P)	Chapter 5 / Programming, Interface
(1)	UNIX Standard-Commands
(2)	UNIX System-Calls
(3)	UNIX Library Subroutines
(4)	UNIX Special Files
(5)	UNIX File Formats

1.6. Syntax of Command Lines

The general format of CSS command lines is:

command [option...] [file...]

• command

Name of the command

• option

We distinguish between options with and options without arguments (switches).

Options without argument

Switches have to be entered as -s, this is a hyphen '-' immediately followed by a letter. The entry is case sensitive. To override preset switches (e.g. from an environment variable) the form -+s can be used. Multiple switches may be grouped together after one hyphen (e.g. -af).

Options with argument(s)

If the command syntax requites an option argument it has to be supplied. Spaces between the option letter and the option argument are optional. If the argument string contains embedded spaces, it has to be enclosed in single or double quotes (e.g. -t 'Customers 1998'). If the option allows multiple arguments, they have to be separated by commas or colons without intermediate spaces. The first delimiter encountered becomes effective for all of the remaining arguments (example -r 15:LaserJet). Some of the CSS utilities use multi letter option names (e.g. etr(U)). Such options require at least one space between the name and the argument value (e.g. -e20 arg).

Special options

To terminate an option list, the user may enter two hyphens '--'. This allows to include files whose name start with a hyphen.
Some programs have numeric options. In such a situation the option name and the option argument can be viewed as the same entity. These options may occasionally also allow a plus sign as the delimiter character (e.g. cssdate +7).
All of the CSS programs include an option -help which will display a short summary of the command syntax and the possible options.

• file

File arguments are optional. All utilities that expect file name arguments will substitute standard input if no such name has been entered. A single hyphen '' will be interpreted as standard input or standard output depending on context. As an example, the command line etr f2 | lpr f1 - f3 will feed the file f1 followed by the file f2 which has been preprocessed by etr(U) and finally the file f3 into the spooler administration.

Many CSS programs do allow options to be specified remotely. In the following example we will use the lpr(U) program to illustrate the various ways to control execution. The later an option is processed, the higher is its priority. This means that from multiple definitions of the same option, the most recent will be effective.

1.7. Support, Feedback

Most of the problems that might arise with the use of CSS may be solved by careful reading of this manual. The chapter Utility Descriptions contains all the information needed for normal operation. The chapters Installation and Configuration are the primary source of information to set up the CSS environment and the chapter Programming serves the software developer as a reference on how to integrate CSS features into their applications. Additional information will be supplied through Release Notes, Technical Notes or may be found in the READ.ME file.

If however you cannot solve your problem with the documentation supplied, you should consult the support department of your software dealer.

It was our desire to make this document as complete, accurate and useful as possible. However, it is inevitable that errors will exist and improvements can be made. We can only serve you better if you take the time to notify us, preferably in writing, of any errors, suggested improvements, or areas of confusion. Please contact us at the address given in the Unitec license agreement.