HighWater PCI Plugins README


HighWater Multi Plugin Installer July 2005


Platforms: Macintosh OS X 10.2 up to but not including 10.4.

Contents

Supported Devices
Limitations and Known Problems
Installation
Revision History (Plugins)
Revision History (Personality libraries)
Revision History (Low-level Driver)
Revision History (Configuration files)
RBF files - Version Information

Supported Devices

  • ECRM (HW770/HW970)
  • Linotronic/Scangraphic LI2/LI5 (not Lino630) (HW772/HW972)
  • Ultre/Exxtra (HW774)
  • Agfa(not Phoenix) (HW776/HW976)
  • Agfa (Phoenix) (HW777)
  • Scitex Dolev (not V2,V3 or V4 variants) (HW778)

Limitations and Known Problems

Limitations

  • The plugin currently supports film punching control for ECRM, Agfa and Scitex type 2 imagesetters, where appropriate, if serial comms is enabled. For other imagesetters the User must configure the imagesetter directly to perform this operation when required, if the option is available.
  • Scangraphic engines must have the LI2/LI5 interface available on the engine in order that for them to be driven via the HW772 hardware and software. It is HighWater's understanding that this interface is optional on the Scangraphic Largo/Othello/Tempo/Apollo engines.
  • There is currently no support for provided for punch or exposure control, feed or cut features of Scangraphic engines through the LI2/LI5 interface. This is a limitation of the LI5 interface and not HighWater software or hardware.
  • Paper feed around page is only available for devices which support host serial control over feed and feed length. For devices such as non-serial ECRMs this feature will have no effect.
  • The plugin provides no support for custom resolutions or colour separation mode features of the Ultre imagesetters.
  • On some imagesetters the advance amounts are not accurate. In some cases this can be caused by other devices connected to the imagesetters, such as Online Processors or media buffering devices.
  • The plugin has no control over Scitex Dolev Type 1 devices punching automatically if a punch is fitted to the engine.
  • Support for the control of job position relative to punch position is limited to 'Center on punch' and image to punch gap for Dolev4Press/Dolev4PressV but has been tested on 4PressV engines only.
  • There is no support for media feed and cut for Scitex Dolev Type 1 or Type 2 devices.

Known Problems

Canon BX printers

  • When imaging to a Canon BX the Media Width & Media Length in the RIP Page Setup dialog must match the paper size loaded in the selected tray in the printer otherwise image positioning problems may occur. Users should always specify Centre on Media Width for all Page Setups. Output which is not centred may be cropped on the top and left edges.
  • When switching between the trays on the Canon BX engine(s), you must have media in the tray you are switching from, otherwise the plugin will report hat there is no media in the tray you are switching to, even though there may be media available.
  • Currently, when using the Multi-purpose tray, the engine assumes Universal paper size which is 297mm x 431.8mm.

ECRM imagesetters

  • On some ECRM devices the MediaManager support intermittently causes an issue. If you experience this problem, edit the appropriate .4x0 configuration file and set the usemediamanager preference to 0. We are currently researching this issue.
  • The plugins will not function in serial mode with ECRM VR36/VR45/Knockout 4550 engines with firmware revisions of 2.1.1 or earlier. This is due to a bug in the imagesetter firmware. Users should upgrade their ECRM firmware to 2.2.1 or later.

Linotronic imagesetters

  • Linotronic/Scangraphic imagesetters do not support host control over feed amount, hence any feeds performed by the RIP will amount to a fixed length feed as defined on the imagesetter.
  • Error reporting (such as no takeup cassette/no input cassette/image too big) is unreliable since the engine does not always report the current status correctly.

Agfa imagesetters

  • Some of the older Agfa imagesetters do not correctly report error conditions such as no output cassette or no media until they start imaging. This can cause jobs which should fail immediately to take a few minutes to fail and to fail with an error which does not reflect the true cause of the problem.

Dolev imagesetters

  • When imaging to a Dolev 4PressV it is not possible to expose black margins.
Contents


Installation

Installation must be performed under a login with Administrator privileges.
There must be at least one RIP installed on the Mac before running this PCI Plugins installer.
  • Double click on the 'xxx OS X Plugin Installer' item to start the installation process. After starting the installer the 'Authenticate' dialog is displayed. Set the user name (this defaults to the login user name) to a user who has Administrator priviledges and enter the login password for the user on the 'Enter password or passphrase' edit box. Click 'OK'.
  • On the 'Select the Interface card type(s)...' dialog select the interface(s) that you are installing and the number of plugins needed (one plugin is required for each interface card).
  • You can choose to install up to three plugins. The selection should be made on the following basis:
    • If only one interface is being installed, select only the 'hwplugin - First Device' option and deselect the remaining two hwplugin options.
    • If two interfaces are being installed, select 'hwplugin - First Device' and 'hwplugin2 - Second Device' options and deselect the 'hwplugin3 - Third Device' option.
    • If three interfaces are being installed, select all three hwplugin options.
    • Click 'OK'.
  • The installer will begin the installation process. Part way through the installation the installer will search for RIPs installed on the target Mac. If at least one RIP is found a 'Select folder' dialog is displayed showing a list of found 'Devices' folders. Use this dialog to select the required Devices i.e. folder of the RIP that is to be used for output and in which the plugin components are to be installed (typically this is [RIP name]/SW/Devices).
  • Click 'Choose'.
  • Once the Installer has completed quit the Installer application. This will restart the Mac in order to complete installation of the driver software.
Contents


Revision History (Plugins)

Version: 5.0.4
Date: July 2005

Release 5.0.4 July 2005

  • Add support for 97X series of interface cards.
  • Add support for centering image on punch for 4Press/4PressV.

Release 5.0.3 November 2004

  • Add ability to load second personality, HWFILE, to output simultaneously to file and device for debugging image corruption problems.

Release 5.0.2 September 2004

  • Fix to displaying Dolev type 2 punch systems on the Configure device dialog.
  • For Dolev type 1 devices allow user to set spinner speeds (via configuration file).

Release 5.0.1 June 2004

  • Include new hw770_80_0001.rbf, hw778_20_0003.rbf, hw778_30_0003.rbf and hw778_40_0003.rbf files.

Release 5.0.1 December 2003

  • Include new hw778_20_0003.rbf, hw778_30_0003.rbf and hw778_40_0003.rbf files.
  • Improved display dialog under Mac OS X.
  • Improved version reporting.
  • Improved display of OS X error codes.
  • Improved Avantra device Config Dialog.
  • Improved behaviour if driver/personality load fails.
  • Improved Agfa punch determination prior to communicting with device.

Release 5.0 July 2003

  • First release of Mac OS X plugin.
Contents


Revision History (Personality libraries)

HW970 Release 5.1.8 June 2005

  • First release of HW970.

HW770 Release 5.1.8 November 2004

  • Fix data inversion.

HW770 Release 5.1.7 November 2004

  • Fix for crash when reading personality version with two cards installed.

HW770 Release 5.1.6 September 2004

  • Don't log message when no serial input received.

HW770 Release 5.1.5 December 2003

  • Improved version reading/reporting.
  • Improved error reporting.

HW770 Release 5.1.4. July 2003

  • First release of Mac OS X HWx70 interface.

HW972 Release 5.0.7 June 2005

  • First release of HW972 interface.

HW772 Release 5.0.3 November 2004

  • Fix for crash when reading personality version with two cards installed.

HW772 Release 5.0.2 September 2004

  • Don't log message when no serial input received.

HW772 Release 5.0.1 December 2003

  • Added support for Scantext device variant.
  • Improved behaviour when waiting for engine to become ready.
  • Improved version reading/reporting.
  • Improved error reporting.

HW772 Release 5.0 July 2003

  • First release of Mac OS X HWx72 interface.

HW774 Release 5.0.3 November 2004

  • Fix for crash when reading personality version with two cards installed.

HW774 Release 5.0.2 September 2004

  • Don't log message when no serial input received.

HW774 Release 5.0.1 December 2003

  • Improved version reading/reporting.
  • Improved error reporting.

HW774 Release 5.0 July 2003

  • First release of Mac OS X HWx74 interface.

HW775 Release 5.0.3 November 2004

  • Fix for crash when reading personality version with two cards installed.

HW775 Release 5.0.2 September 2004

  • Don't log message when no serial input received.

HW775 Release 5.0.1 December 2003

  • Improved version reading/reporting.
  • Improved error reporting.

HW775 Release 5.0 July 2003

  • First release of Mac OS X HWx75 interface.

HW776 Release 5.1.9 December 2004

  • Fix failure to image second job after first job had failed.

HW776 Release 5.1.6 November 2004

  • Fix for crash when reading personality version with two cards installed.

HW776 Release 5.1.5 September 2004

  • Modifiy to support HW9xx cards.

HW776 Release 5.1.3 September 2004

  • Fix failure to correctly initialise serial communications.
  • Don't log message when no serial input received.

HW776 Release 5.1.2 December 2003

  • Retain device identity for life of session to improve decision making.
  • Resolved out-of-sync message/response behaviour.
  • Fixed serial comms buffer problem which caused driver crash.
  • Improved version reading/reporting.
  • Improved error reporting.

HW776 Release 5.0 July 2003

  • First release of Mac OS X HWx76 interface.

HW777 Release 5.1.6 November 2004

  • Fix for crash when reading personality version with two cards installed.

HW777 Release 5.1.5 September 2004

  • Modifiy to support HW9xx cards.

HW777 Release 5.1.3 September 2004

  • Fix failure to correctly initialise serial communications.
  • Don't log message when no serial input received.

HW777 Release 5.1.2 December 2003

  • Retain device identity for life of session to improve decision making.
  • Resolved out-of-sync message/response behaviour.
  • Fixed serial comms buffer problem which caused driver crash.
  • Improved version reading/reporting.
  • Improved error reporting.

HW777 Release 5.1 July 2003

  • First release of Mac OS X HW777 interface.

HW778 Release 5.0.9 June 2005

  • Add support for image to punch positioning for 4Press/4PressV.

HW778 Release 5.0.6 November 2004

  • Fix for crash when reading personality version with two cards installed.
  • Fix for FIFO empty at start of job outputting to Dolev800V.
  • Don't log message when no serial input received.
  • Various fixes to Dolev type 2 punch serial communications causing code to crash, incorrectly set punch selection strings in the configure device dialog and failure to send correct punch selection to engine.
  • Comment out byteorder field in configuration files.
  • Add support for setting spinner speed on a per job basis for type 1 devices.
  • Fix cassette selection for Dolev800/800V.

HW778 Release 5.0.4 August 2004

  • Remove reporting of no characters received which resulted in huge logfiles.

HW778 Release 5.0.3 July 2004

  • Fix crash when debug is set > 0.

HW778 Release 5.0.2 December 2003

  • Improved version reading/reporting.
  • Improved error reporting.

HW778 Release 5.0.1 July 2003

  • First release of Mac OS X HW778 interface.
Contents


Revision History (Low-level Driver)

Release 4.2.3 May 2005

  • Add support for HW97x interface cards.

Release 4.1.1 November 2003

  • Corrected initialisation problem causing intermittent image data output and/or serial communication failures on some interface cards.

Release 4.0.9 July 2003

  • First release of Mac OS X low-level driver.
Contents


Revision History (Configuration files)

June 2005

  • Add Dolev4PressV_WHP.4x8 configuration file.
  • Add ability to control spinner speed for type 1 devices.

December 2003

  • Corrected setterlength value in Avantra30 and Avantra30E files.

July 2003

  • First release of configuration files for Mac OS X.
Contents


RBF files - Version Information

This installer installs the following RBF files

RBF file nameVersion numberChecksum
HW970.rbf1145733
HW970_10_0001.rbf1145733
HW972.rbf1127B35
HW972_10_0003.rbf1127B35
HW976.rbf112AFEE
HW976_20_0003.rbf112AFEE
HW770.rbf9E4D34
HW770_40_0001.rbf9E4D34
HW770_80_0001.rbfA15789A
HW772_20_0001.rbf914A256
HW772_20_0002.rbf914F7F8
HW772_30_0001.rbf914A256
HW772_30_0002.rbf914F7F8
HW772_40_0001.rbf914A256
HW772_40_0002.rbf914F7F8
HW774_20_0003.rbfA171CEF
HW774_30_0003.rbfA171CEF
HW775_10_0001.rbf917EE2F
HW775_20_0001.rbf917EE2F
HW776.rbf4D65DB
HW776_20_0001.rbf4D65DB
HW776_30_0001.rbf4D65DB
HW777_30_0003.rbfA187D7A
HW778.rbfNo verDD398
HW778_20_0001.rbf2D75D1
HW778_20_0003.rbf4D30D6
HW778_30_0003.rbf4D30D6
HW778_40_0003.rbf4D30D6

Contents


This page last updated: 21st July 2005