Using AcuBenchPrint.dll to Display and Print Reports

When you invoke the Acu-report-Preview and Acu-report-DO-PRINT routines, AcuBench uses a library called AcuBenchPrint.dll to call the Internet Explorer functions needed to preview or print the report. This means that if you want to use AcuBench functions to preview or print a report in a thin client environment, you need to first copy the report and DLL to the report host, then perform a preview or print routine.

The general steps involved are as follows:

  1. Place AcuBenchPrint.dll on the display host (either as part of your thin client installation or using C$COPY with @[DISPLAY] notation).

    This DLL should be placed in the same directory as the thin client executable (acuthin.exe).

  2. Use the CODE_MAPPING configuration variable to expose the function calls in the DLL.
  3. Use the C$COPY library routine with @[DISPLAY:] notation to copy the HTML file from the application host to a location on the display host.
  4. Add a line of code to reset the PRT-FULLFILENAME variable, which AcuBenchPrint.dll uses to locate the HTML file.

The following example demonstrates the code used to perform steps 3 and 4. In the sample program, the user pushes a button to create the report, which is then displayed with the preview function: 

ReportPB-Link.
        IF IS-REMOTE
              PERFORM ACU-REPORT1-THINPREVIEW
            ELSE
              PERFORM ACU-REPORT1-PREVIEW
            END-IF.
    *
     ACU-REPORT1-THINPREVIEW.
         PERFORM Acu-Report1-PRINT-TOFILE
    *
         CALL "C$COPY" USING
                "/home/data/Report1.html",
                "@[DISPLAY]:C:\Localdata\Report1.html".
    *
         PERFORM Acu-Report1-PRINT-PARA
    *
         STRING
          "C:\Localdata\Report1.html", delimited by size,
          X"00", delimited by size,
          into PRT-FULLFILENAME.
    *
         SET ENVIRONMENT "DLL_CONVENTION" to "1"
         CALL "AcuBenchPrintDummy"
           ON EXCEPTION CALL "AcuBenchPrint.dll" END-CALL
         END-CALL
         CALL "AcuBenchPrintExecWBPreview" USING
            BY CONTENT PRT-FULLFILENAME,
            BY CONTENT PRINT-BROWSER-PARA,
            BY CONTENT ACU-PAPER-HEADER,
            BY CONTENT ACU-PAPER-FOOTER,
            BY CONTENT ACU-PAPER-SIZE,
            BY VALUE ACU-PAPER-ORIENTATIONINT,
            BY CONTENT ACU-PRINTER-NAME
         END-CALL
         .

The push button code uses the IS-REMOTE flag in the TERMINAL-ABILITIES structure to test whether the program is running locally or on a remote server. If it is running remotely, a paragraph called Acu-Report1-ThinPreview is executed.

The code in the Acu-Report1-ThinPreview paragraph starts by executing the AcuBench-generated PRINT-TOFILE paragraph. It then calls C$COPY to transfer the HTML file to the local machine. Next, it uses a STRING statement to reset the PRT-FULLFILENAME parameter to the location of the HTML file on the client machine. (Note that the PRT-FULLFILENAME string is terminated by low-values.) Finally, with code copied from the AcuBench-generated Acu-Report1-Preview paragraph (found in the .rpt COPY file), it calls the DLL and invokes the preview function.

With CODE_MAPPING set to on, the configuration file can contain instructions for mapping these calls to AcuBenchPrint.dll, which, in our sample, is located in the C:\Localdata directory on the client machine, as shown: 

CODE_MAPPING ON
DLL_CONVENTION 1

ACUBENCHPRINT.DLL
@[DISPLAY]:C:\Localdata\AcubenchPrint.DLL
ACUBENCHPRINTDUMMY @[DISPLAY]:AcuBenchPrintDummy
ACUBENCHPRINTEXECWBPREVIEW
@[DISPLAY]:AcuBenchPrintExecWBPreview

The complete sample code for this example can be found in the Support section of the Micro Focus Web site. For detailed information about the @[DISPLAY]: notation and other thin client functions, refer to the AcuConnect User's Guide.

Parent topic: Deploying in a Thin Client Environment