Use buzzer when order prints & variations

Hi, I think that you have already been talking with our UK technical support is that right? I just need to check that it belongs to the same support ticket.

It’s good to know that the plugin is working ok for you. I think that it is possible to adapt as you need, we will verify the tweaks and let you know today.

Could you just confirm which printer model you are using? Currently the plugin does not include buzzer support – it’s definitely a feature we should consider adding as standard. But even so, we can help you get it working, the easiest way to enable it may depend a little on the printer model that you have. Also, would you prefer it to buzz before printing starts or when printing is completed?

Hi,

Thanks for confirming, your question about the buzzer support had also arrived to me yesterday via support, so I just wanted to make sure that I can keep them updated too. Thanks for confirming the product details.

Frustratingly, I have to admit that I’ve managed to get myselt working from home on Covid-19 lockdown without a buzzer. So I’m not able to verify the code changes here, although out printer buzzer support is quite simple, it should be fine.

To trigger the buzzer at the start of a print job, please add the line:
$printer->add_hex("07");
to the star_cloudprnt_print_order_summary() function in order-handler.php.

Ideally, this needs to be placed immediately before the line that calls $printer->set_codepage() (around like 207).

This is a simple printer instruction that sounds the buzzer for 200ms, followed by a delay of 200ms. You can sound it multiple times just by adding the same line a few times or in a small loop. If it all works and you’d like a little more creativity then let me know and I’ll explain the command sequence for controlling the pulse/delay timing.

I’ve had other requests for multi-copy printing so this is a feature that I’m likely to add soon. If you can accept a simple solution, without variations then I can help you to modify the current plugin quite easily.

I’ll update you when I have a sample showing how to adjust the layout as you wanted.

Hi, great to know that the buzzer is working!

I’ve been looking into your other issue, and I have to admit I’m not a WooCommerce/Wordpress expert, so there maybe a more complete answer. However, the Star plugin doesn’t format this way intentionally, it seems that this product naming is created automatically by WooCommerce when implementing product variations. On my test installation, these product names are shown on the final order confirmation page to the customer too.

So, the simplest fix is just to parse the product name string, taking the part before ” – “. This seems to be safe as long as none of your product names contain ” – “.

I suggest modifying the star_cloudprnt_create_receipt_items() function as:

function star_cloudprnt_create_receipt_items($order, &$printer, $max_chars)
{
    $order_items = $order->get_items();
    foreach ($order_items as $item_id => $item_data)
    {
        $product_name = $item_data['name'];
        $product_id = $item_data['product_id'];
        $variation_id = $item_data['variation_id'];
        
        $item_qty = $order->get_item_meta($item_id, "_qty", true);
        $item_total_price = floatval($order->get_item_meta($item_id, "_line_total", true))
                        +floatval($order->get_item_meta($item_id, "_line_tax", true));
        $item_price = floatval($item_total_price) / intval($item_qty);
        $currencyHex = star_cloudprnt_get_codepage_currency_symbol();
        $formatted_item_price = number_format($item_price, 2, '.', '');
        $formatted_total_price = number_format($item_total_price, 2, '.', '');
        
        $short_name = explode(" - ", $product_name)[0];
        
        $printer->set_text_emphasized();
        $printer->add_text_line(str_replace('–', '-', $short_name)." - ID: ".$product_id."");
        $printer->cancel_text_emphasized();
        
        if ($variation_id != 0)
        {
            $product_variation = new WC_Product_Variation( $variation_id );
            $variation_data = $product_variation->get_variation_attributes();
            $variation_detail = star_cloudprnt_get_formatted_variation($variation_data, $order, $item_id); 
            $exploded = explode("||", $variation_detail);
            foreach($exploded as $exploded_variation)
            {
                $printer->add_text_line(" ".ucwords($exploded_variation));
            }
        }
        $printer->add_text_line(star_cloudprnt_get_column_separated_data(array(" Qty: ".
                    $item_qty." x Cost: ".$currencyHex.$formatted_item_price,
                    $currencyHex.$formatted_total_price), $max_chars));
    }
}

Note the $short_name = explode(" - ", $product_name)[0]; part.

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by lawrenceowen.
• This reply was modified 6 years ago by lawrenceowen.

Hi, hopefully we can resolve this as quickly as possible.

I can immediately imagine three possibilities.

First possibility, is an issue that we have encountered with some web server TLS (https security) implementations. Most servers will negotiate a Session Ticket with the printer, which speeds up later communication between the server and printer. But when that ticket expires (depends on the server configuration, but usually after around a day) then it fails to re-negotiate and so effectively blocks communication. You can test this by switching the printer off and back on to force a renegotiation, if that resolves the issue then it almost certainly the cause. Later versions of the printer interface firmware work around this by detecting the issue and forcing a re-negotiation from the printer side. If you update your interface firmware (from memory, I think 1.5 or later should include this fix) then it should be resolved.

The second possibility is harder to resolve. If your hosting is sitting behind a traffic filter (such as Cloudflare) then those filters can misinterpret the regular printer connection to your server as something malicious (it is unusual looking traffic, compared with typical web browsing) and may block the connection. This can also a hard issue to fully diagnose, depending on your traffic filter, but if cycling the printer power does not resolve the issue then it is a strong possibility. If this is the issue, then you need to find a way to whitelist either the printer, or the CloudPRNT URL with your traffic filter.

Thirdly, since you mentioned that the “selected printer” dropdown is empty, I am concerned that something may be interfering with the settings of your plugin. The dropdown list is populated from some local files which are stored when a printer connects to your server. These are stored (including print jobs) in your web sites “wp-content/star-cloudprnt” folder on your server. Please make sure that your web server has full read/write access to this folder, and that there is no other service that may delete or modify it (perhaps a security plugin that is removing unknown folders?). In particular, deleting this folder or the files that it contains would cause the dropdown list to become empty and no jobs to be created.

Yes, of course. unfortunately this forum doesn’t seem to offer a direct message option, so please email [email protected] directly and ask for the mail for be forwarded to Lawrence Owen.
I will respond to you directly, and can provide a secure private upload area if needed.