electron-print-server

A simple HTTP printing server. Accepts commands via HTTP (or HTTPS) and prints documents that are loaded from provided URLs.

Main purpose is to allow faster (compared to Google Cloud Print, for example) and simple printing from any device in local network

Server API

• GET /printers - get list of available printers. Returns JSON array of PrinterInfo objects

• POST /print - print specified URLS. Request body should have following format:

  {
    "jobs": [{
      "url": "https://example.test/some/document.html",
      "printer": "Some PDF Printer",
      "settings": {
        "duplex": "short", // "long" | "simplex" 
        "copies": 2,
        "orientation": "portrait" // "landscape"
      }
    }]
  }

  Printer is identified by name field (see PrinterInfo). Returns array of booleans indicating printing result (success or fail).

Development

electron-builder is used, so refer to its docs for more details about building

Setting up:

# clone repository
git clone https://github.com/downace/electron-print-server.git
# or
git clone git@github.com:downace/electron-print-server.git

cd electron-print-server

# install dependencies
yarn

Developing:

# run application in development mode
yarn dev

# compile source code and create webpack output
yarn compile

# build application for production
# (any electron-builder arguments can be passed, see electron-builder docs for details)
yarn dist

# create unpacked build with electron-builder
yarn dist:dir

It's recommended to use a Docker image to build application for production. You can use ./bin/docker to run docker container and use yarn dist inside of it

If you encounter this error when using yarn inside Docker container:

error upath@1.0.4: The engine "node" is incompatible with this module. Expected version ">=4 <=9"

run yarn with --ignore-engines key:

yarn --ignore-engines add -D some-package

Road map

Important:

• Test with real printer (currently tested only on PDF output)
• Test different paper sizes (e.g. with label printer)
• Server control (currently application is still running after closing window)
• Settings GUI (settings may appear after testing)
• Additional printing settings (e.g. Sumatra PDF -print-settings)

Other:

• Better server API (maybe JSON)
• Error handling (including 4xx)
• Tray icon (with server/printing status), window minimization
• GUI for testing (better than current)

Needs discussion:

• Authentication
• Using another HTTP-method for /print (POST? PUT?)
• More debugging options
• Disallow multiple running instances

Not important:

• Web GUI (control server from any device in local network, not only local)
• Refactoring and tests (not needed while app is dead simple and manual testing is easier)
• Branding (application/package name, icons, etc.)
• Normal versioning (instead of 0.0.0)
• Automatic updates
• Maybe better README