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Internet Explorer provides two events that are very useful
for web applications involving dynamic html when it comes to
printing. These are onbeforeprint and onafterprint.
onbeforeprint
Use this event to temporarily reconfigure the web page
to provide a printable version prior to the browser
submiting the page to the printer queue
onafterprint
Use this event to restore the web page to its state
when onbeforeprint was raised. This event is raised
immediately after the page has been submitted to the
printer queue, and before the printer gets going.
As an example, consider HTML Slidy
http://www.w3.org/Talks/Tools/Slidy
This is a web application that presents a sequence of slides in
a similar manner to Microsoft PowerPoint. The difference is that
all slides are held in a single XHTML (or HTML) file that can be
viewed across a wide range of browsers and operating systems.
Slidy uses CSS for layout and a linked script to present div
elements as slides, one slide at time. The other slides are
hidden by setting the div element's display property to none and
visibility to hidden.
This looks great for presentation purposes, but if the user tries
to print the page then the browser will only print the currently
visible slide. Most of the time, that isn't what people expect.
Instead they want to have all of the slides printed.
Slidy's help page instructs people to switch to a mode where all
slides are shown before printing. On Internet Explorer, however,
that isn't necessary since the onbeforeprint and onafterprint
events can be made to apply the desired behavior automatically.
A work around is to provide a printer button as part of the page's
user interface. This can invoke a script that makes the necessary
rearrangements, invokes window.print() and then tidies up
afterwards. The problem with this approach is that users are
familiar with the browser's print menu item and the Ctrl-P shortcut,
and as such many people will try that even if a print button is
provided as part of the Web app. The same applies to the technique
of offering a link to a printable version of the page.
Printing continues to be important for end users, and should be
easy and reliable for web applications involving dynamic html.
I therefore would like to see the W3C DOM expanded to include
the before and after printing events that Internet Explorer
has supported for many years.
Dave Raggett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> W3C lead for multimodal interaction
http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett +44 1225 866240 (or 867351)
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