Label tape support

[hfiguiere]

It would be great to support automatic label length for label tape.

I use a Dymo LabelManager, and I can use glabels-3 to print on it, but I have to create a template with a fixed dimension, which mean that either I have to create a template each time or waste tape by having an over sized label length. So I tried glabels-qt and it has the same limitation. With "Roll" page size, It has a "Roll width" property but I'm not sure how it works and setting the height to 0 seems to be valid, but...

Supporting tape label would involve the following:

• Allow template that define only "Width" for the tape width - with here because the Dymo CUPS driver use the Width attribute (see https://github.com/matthiasbock/dymo-cups-drivers/blob/master/samples/custom_paper_tape/CustomPaperTape.cpp#L130 ). The height will be determined by the content.
• Have the canvas dynamically resize. Automatically or through user interaction. And when generating the output, make sure to have the smallest area for the tape length.

Note: I don't know how it works with Brother label printers, which could makes things more complicated.

[hfiguiere]

Just to add: the template could define a maximum length of tape. For example the Dymo 45013 comes in 1/2" x 23' (12mm x 7m). So the width would be 1/2" and the height would be 23'.

This is a detail as that makes it a virtually unlimited size.

[einarjh]

This is a feature that I'm missing as well.

[GralfR]

I also like to use gLabels with my Dymo Labelwriter 450 Duo (or any other Dymo or Brother tapewriters). gLabels is much more powerfull than any DYMO-software. The only problem with gLabels is, the missing support for endless tape printing.

It might look from a users perspective that way (like the original DYMO/Brother software does):

1. select a tape width as template
2. select tape and text colors, but that's only for the GUI to have a more realistic WYSIWYG
3. while editing the label, the tape length should have an option to autoadjust the length depending on the position of the last object on the label, or the length might be userdefined. Both options are needed.
4. like gLabel does: all objects could be placed anywhere in the editor - no matter if the object is within or outside the frames of the selected tape width and length.
5. printing a tape-label will print the objects on the label and might cut objects at the edge of the tape.
6. the printer should autocut the tape at the given length of the editor.

This is, how tape printing should work and Brother does with its p-touch Editor. If gLabels would support tape-printing that way (auto-length instead of predefining a tape-length first without beeing able to adjust the length while editing the label) that would open up the world of tape-printers to the linux-world and offer an alternative to the proprietary bulky manufacturer software. By the way: i've talked to DYMO several times, but they don't want to improve their software. They even remove features and focus on the labelprinting, which is great for adress labels but useless for tape printing.

I'd appreciate such a feature very much! Thanks

[GralfR]

Okay, strange to answer my own post, but here are some results: I found a support for continuous labels thanks to the template manual. This type of label is not yet supported by the label designer, so You have to code the template-files with a text-editor. This is my first template for a DYMO D1 19mm tape:

<!DOCTYPE Glabels-templates>
<Glabels-templates>
  <Template brand="DYMO" part="D1 19mm" size="roll" width="19mm" height="19mm" description="D1 Tape different colors (458xx)"> 
    <Label-continuous id="0" width="19mm" min_height="0mm" max_height="7000mm" default_height="20mm">
      <Markup-margin y_size="-11mm" x_size="1mm"/>
      <Layout nx="1" ny="1" x0="0mm" y0="0mm" dx="19mm" dy="19mm"/>
    </Label-continuous>
  </Template>
</Glabels-templates>

This is printing well with gLabels 3.99-master564 on Linux Mint 20.2 with my DYMO LabelWriter 450 DUO. The main advantage to the DYMO software I used on Windows before is, gLabel does not waste tape by feeding and cutting before each print. If You print only one label a few month that seams to be nessesary to revive the edge of the label, but if You print several short labels at a run, that just wastes a lot of tape. One thing I worked around with the negative markup-margin is the preroll and afterroll. The printer adds 12mm in front of and 9mm behind the printable area. If this is important, one can get an idea of the size of the label by measuring the margins onscreen. If there is any parameter to get this margin into the preview in relation to the user defined length, that would be nice. I tried an offset inside the layout (y0), but that did not help.

Fazit: looking to my feature-requests:

1. implemented, if the right templates have been written by text-editor, not possible with the layout designer (yet)
2. no colors yet, but that's just nice to have
3. no autolength, but user might set the desired length within the given min/max from the template at the properties-tab while editing the label. A handle for dragging the length inside the graphical editor would be great, but for now, the length is adjustable.
4. already a basic feature of gLabels, which DYMO didn't add for decades
5. yes, that's what it does
6. yes, the tape is cut 9mm behind the given length. The resulting label is the given length + 9mm behind + 12mm leading tape (that's the offset between printing head and knife).

Well, only a tiny autolength feature missing, but gLabel already does support continuous labels! Now I can use my DYMO printer with Linux and finally get rid of this useless software DYMO offers.

Thanks for this great tool!

[GralfR]

Okay, my templates for Dymo D1 tape labels as well as generic media covers are tested. I've greated a pullrequest and my own repository to publish until the templates are merged into the release (if they will): https://github.com/GralfR/gLabels-Templates

[TreeBranches]

Commenting to add some weight to this request. Was ready to replace Windows with Linux + GLabels for our "printer PC" but this is a show stopper. I can't ask staff to manually edit a template file depending on how much text they put...

[GralfR]

@TreeBranches, I wonder, if I get You right. Yes, an autolength would be fine, but as soon as an admin has created/coded the template-files, there is no need for any user to edit those xml-files to use. I've coded my templates 2 years ago and never had to touch the xml again after the template layout is done. As a user, You just select the template (e.g. DYMO D1 12mm) and the length can be adjusted right on the property-tab inside gLabels. So, if anybody can "code"/adjust the templates (e.g. frames, markers etc.) to Your needs, users will be happy to use gLabels and never wanna go back tu DYMO. You may try yourself with my linked templates first?