DOS Based Applications
Reform has two ways to capture forms from DOS based application:  

1. To have the application print to a file instead of a printer or some application program producing a temporary print file. 

2. To use a memory residence (TSR) utility program comes with Reform called Capture. This program is designed specifically for Reform. Capture will capture all print jobs directed to the designated LPT port and redirect them to a file that can be processed by Reform. 

Once a form is captured from a DOS Based application it is then detected and processed by Reform. 

Below are the screenshots from the Capture setup program. This setup program will create a batch file in Reform's main directory call Accstart.bat . This file will be used to start capture and execute your DOS-based application. Capture is only 10k and can load high to avoid memory problems. 

To run from Windows:  > Start > Programs > Reform > Install Client Workstations 
To run from DOS:  locate and run the install.exe from the reform\client directory 

 

Follow the questions in most cases take the defaults, this program will verify your answers to minimize on errors.

The first prompt just enter the path to your application start file.
The second prompt enter the start file name.


 
#1 means that each time the user print from his/her DOS-base application, a window will appear listing the available forms to print to. Once the user selects the form, Capture creates a file in the spooler directory with the prefix being the same name as the form selected.  

#2 means that a file will always be created in the spooler directory with the name "output.out". 

after all questions are answered, the following batch file will be created: 

@ECHO OFF 
c:\reform\capture -Fc:\reform\spooler\output.out 
c: 
CD c:\reform\ 
CALL accstart.bat 
c:\reform\capture /u 

Line 2 is to call the capture file and direct the captured print job to c:\reform\spooler\ directory with the file name being output.out (option #2 listed above). For option #1 list above the syntax is capture -P<forms directory>,<spooling directory> 
Lines 4 and 5 are to call your DOS-based application. 
Line 6 is to unload the capture from memory. 

Tips

While the Capture is loaded, you can Disable/Enable Printer Redirection by pressing: 
Ctrl + Shift + S 
 

Additional Setting Flag (Advanced Usage) 

In addition to the parameters described above, you can fine tune capture operation by manually specifying these settings:-W<Clock Ticks> Flushing Buffer Interval.-T<ASCII Code> Flushing Request Character. 

-W<Clock Ticks> 

Example: capture -W36 

Tell capture to wait for specified number of clock ticks (18 clock ticks / second) before flushing the leftover data from buffer to a text file. 

-T<ASCII Code> 

Example: capture -T117 

capture uses this ASCII character as a signal for flushing of the buffer to a text file.