JP3275955B2 - Printer sharing network - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer sharing network having a plurality of user terminals commonly connected to a single printer, and more particularly to a printer sharing network shared by a plurality of user terminals on a network. Regarding queuing.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-292854 discloses an information processing apparatus capable of interrupting and printing another print job during printing of a print job.

[0003] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 6-168086 discloses a print control apparatus in which the waiting time until printing of a document with a high priority is started is reduced.

Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-64742 discloses a technique for reducing energy consumption by reducing the number of printing apparatuses in which the power of the entire apparatus is always ON in a network.

Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-262717 discloses a print server control system in which print servers are notified of a print output waiting state, and a print request is processed by another group of print servers, thereby reducing print time. A scheme is disclosed.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 3-8010 discloses an improvement in the processing efficiency of an application program by providing a stacker in a program and registering a print request when there is no space in a print queue and continuing processing. An enabled spool print control system is disclosed.

Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 3-157716 discloses printing a document by queuing a received document at the head or end of a queue according to the number of documents queued in a queuing buffer. At the same time, a print processing method for a network system has been disclosed, which can respond to a user's desired print time as much as possible.

[0008] Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 5-16320 discloses a page printer which improves the throughput by promptly processing an urgent print request and distinguishing the urgent print request from other print requests. A control scheme is disclosed.

FIG. 3 shows a network to which the present invention is applied.

As shown in the figure, in this network, a plurality of user terminals (in FIG. 3, simply referred to as users) A and B
, A server, and one network printer (hereinafter simply referred to as a printer) are commonly connected to a bus.

This network comprises a plurality of user terminals A
And B share a single printer.

[0012]

In the conventional print queue processing of a printer shared on a network as shown in FIG. 3, if the priorities for the user terminals A and B are the same, the user terminals A and B are used. The printing processes registered in the queue of the printer are performed in the order registered in the queue. The change of the priority can only be performed by manually operating the queue by the administrator of the network having the right to change, and the work is complicated and not always possible.

That is, the problem with this conventional technique is that the priorities for the user terminals A and B are generally fixed.

The reason is that the network administrator manually performs the work of temporarily improving the priority of the user terminals A and B or restoring it to the original state.

An object of the present invention is to provide a printer sharing network having a function of allowing a user terminal itself to temporarily change the priority of the user terminal itself without the work of a network administrator or the like. It is in.

Another object of the present invention is to achieve a function of allowing a user terminal itself to temporarily change the priority of the user terminal itself without the work of a network administrator or the like, and to perform printing. Another object of the present invention is to provide a printer sharing network that also has a function of reducing the waiting time of a printer.

[0017]

According to the present invention, in a printer sharing network including a printer and a plurality of user terminals commonly connected to the printer, each of the plurality of user terminals includes: A storage device (11) in which a priority (a0) unique to each user terminal is stored in advance as a fixed point, and a predetermined value which is connected to the storage device and is the maximum value of points that can be added to the priority. In response to the addition score (a) to be added to the priority, which is selected by the user of each user terminal and input to the user terminal together with the printing process, and The added value is output as a notification priority (a3), and the notification priority is stored in an area different from the area where the priority unique to each user terminal is stored in the storage device. As priority And a notifying device (13) for notifying the printer of the print processing input to each user terminal by the user of each user terminal together with the stored notification priority. And a queue storage unit (21) for storing the print processing notified from each user terminal together with the notification priority as a queue, a print processing device (22), and the queue storage unit. And connected to the print processing device, each time the print processing is stored in the queue storage unit as a queue with the notification priority, the order of the print processing in the queue storage unit, the notification priority of those Sorting device (23) which determines the print processing in the queue storage unit in accordance with the determined order, sends the print processing to the print processing apparatus, and causes the print processing apparatus to perform the print processing. Printer sharing network, characterized in that it comprises and.

[0018]

Next, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown a management device 1 and a print control device 2 used in a printer sharing network according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As described above with reference to FIG. 3, the printer sharing network according to one embodiment of the present invention includes a plurality of user terminals (in FIG. 3, simply referred to as users) A and B.
, A server, and one network printer (hereinafter, simply referred to as a printer) are commonly connected to a bus, and a plurality of user terminals A and B share a single printer. ing.

In FIG. 1, a management device 1 is provided for each of a plurality of user terminals A and B, and manages the priority of each user terminal. And performs a printing process according to the notification priority notified from each user terminal.

The configuration and operation of the management device 1 of the user terminal A will be described below. The management device 1 of the user terminal B has the same configuration and operation as the management device 1 of the user terminal A.

In the management device 1 of the user terminal A, the priority a0 (positive integer value) unique to the user terminal A is stored in the storage device 11 in advance as a fixed point, and The maximum value (positive integer value) of points that can be added to the priority a0 by the user is stored in advance as an initial value a1, and the initial value a1 is stored in advance as a current value a2 of the points held by the user terminal A. Have been.

A user who intends to perform printing using the user terminal A inputs a print process to the management device 1 of the user terminal A and adds a score to the arithmetic unit 12 of the management device 1 to the priority. Enter a (positive integer value). At this time, the user selects and inputs the score a to be equal to or less than a predetermined initial value as the maximum value of the points that can be added.

The arithmetic unit 12 receives the score a,
The value (a0 + a) obtained by adding the score a to the priority a0 unique to the user terminal A is given as the notification priority a3 (that is, a3 =
a0 + a) is stored in the storage device 11, and the user terminal A
Is subtracted from the current value a2 of the holding points of
2-a) with the new current value a2 (ie, a2 = a2-
Stored in the storage device 11 as a).

The notifying device 13 in the management device 1 of the user terminal A notifies the printing process to the print control device 2 of the printer together with the notification priority a3.

The adder 14 in the management device 1 of the user terminal A compares the initial value a1 and the current value a2 of the storage device 11 at regular time intervals, independently of the above-described series of processing.
If 1> a2, a value (a2 + 1) obtained by adding 1 to a2 is stored in the storage device 11 as a new current value a2 (that is, a2 = a2 + 1). Storage device 1 stores new current value a2
If the new current value a2 becomes equal to a1 as a result of storing the value in 1, even if a certain period of time has passed thereafter, a1> a2
Is not satisfied, the new current value a2 stored in the storage device 11 is not updated.

When the print control device 2 of the printer receives the print process together with the notification priority a3 from the notification device 13 of the management device 1 of the user terminal A in the queue storage unit 21, the print process is being executed. If the process is not empty and the queue storage unit 21 is empty except for the received print process, the queue storage unit 21 gives the received print process to the print processing device 22 and sends the print process to the print processing device 22. Is performed. Otherwise, the order of the printing processes in the queue storage unit 21 including the received printing processes stored at the end of the queue storage unit 21 by the sorting device 23 is determined in descending order of their notification priorities. The print processing in the queue storage unit 21 is provided to the print processing apparatus 22 in accordance with the determined order, and the print processing apparatus 22 performs the print processing. In other words, the sort device 23 sorts the print processes in the queue storage unit 21 in the order of their notification priorities, and sorts the print processes with the highest notification priority located at the head of the queue storage unit 21. This is given to the print processing device 22.

At this time, if a plurality of printing processes have the same notification priority, the order registered in the queue storage unit 21 is maintained.

The print priority remaining in the queue storage unit 21 is added to the notification priority by the adder 24 one point at a time for each of the above-mentioned fixed time.

FIG. 2 shows the main points of the operation described above.

As described above, the print processing in the queue storage section 21 is added one point at a time at regular intervals, so that the print processing with low priority does not excessively wait for a turn.

The points owned by each user terminal are added one by one at regular intervals with the point determined for each user as an initial value a1 and, if lower, the initial value a1 as an upper limit. .

[0034]

A first effect of the present invention is that a user of a user terminal can perform a printing process with a higher degree of freedom.

The reason is that the user can change the priority within the score held by the user terminal.

A second advantage of the present invention is that there is no excessive print processing in the queue.

The reason is that the priority of the processing in the queue is increased with time.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a management apparatus 1 and a print control apparatus 2 used in a printer sharing network according to an embodiment of the present invention.
It is a block diagram of.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the main points of the operation of the printer sharing network according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a printer sharing network to which the present invention is applied.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 11 Storage device 12 Arithmetic device 13 Notification device 14 Addition device 21 Queue storage part 22 Print processing device 23 Sorting device 24 Addition device

Claims (6)

(57) [Claims] 1. A printer sharing network comprising a printer and a plurality of user terminals connected to the printer in common, wherein each of the plurality of user terminals has a priority ( a0) is stored as a fixed point in advance, and a storage device (11) is connected to this storage device and selected as a maximum value of points that can be added to the priority is set to a predetermined value or less. In response to the added point (a) added to the priority, which is input by the user of the terminal to each user terminal together with the printing process, a value obtained by adding the added point to the priority is a notification priority (a3) And an arithmetic unit (12) for storing the notification priority as the notification priority stored in the storage device in an area different from the area storing the priority unique to each user terminal. And each A notification device (13) for notifying the printer of the print processing input to each user terminal by the user of the user terminal together with the stored notification priority; A queue storage unit (21) that stores the print processing notified from the server together with the notification priority as a queue, a print processing device (22), and the print processing device is connected to the queue storage unit and the print processing device.
Each time the print processing is saved as a queue with the notification priority in the queue storage unit, the order of the print processing in the queue storage unit is determined in descending order of their notification priority, and the determined order And a sort device (23) for causing the print processing device to send the print processing in the queue storage unit to the print processing device in accordance with the above and causing the print processing device to perform the print processing. 2. The printer sharing network according to claim 1, wherein the printer adds the notification priority of the print processing stored in the queue storage unit to a unit point at regular intervals. A printer sharing network, further comprising an adder (24) for converting a value. 3. The printer sharing network according to claim 1, wherein the printer sets the notification priority of the print processing stored in the queue storage unit 21 to a unit point at regular time intervals. A printer sharing network, further comprising an adding device (24) for adding the added value. 4. The printer sharing network according to claim 3, wherein the maximum value of the points that can be added to the priority by the user of each user terminal is an initial value (a1).
And a current value storage area in which the initial value is stored in advance as a current value (a2) of the number of points held by the user terminal. Points to be added to the priority (a)
Printer subtraction, and subtracts the addition point from the current value of the points held by each user terminal, and stores the subtraction result as a new current value in the current value storage area of the storage device 11. network. 5. The printer sharing network according to claim 4, wherein each of the plurality of user terminals compares the initial value and the current value of the storage device at every predetermined time, and The printer sharing network according to claim 1, further comprising an adder (14) for storing a value obtained by adding said unit point to said current value in said current value storage area of said storage device if is smaller than said initial value. 6. The printer sharing network according to claim 2, wherein the priority, the maximum value, and the number of addition points are positive integers, and the unit point is 1. Characteristic printer sharing network.