electron-zebra

electron-zebra is a small utility program that can handle print requests via a rest api.

It serves the API Endpoint at the port 65533

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Build
  • Scripts
• Configuration
  • Publishing
• Usage

Installation

Get the latest stable release from here and install.

Build

In order to build on Windows systems, you have to install windows-build-tools

$ npm install -g --production windows-build-tools

$ git clone https://github.com/PlatinMarket/electron-zebra.git

$ yarn

OR

$ npm install

Scripts

Build and execute the electron app in development mode.

$ yarn dev

Use to rebuild modules for electron. This command is automatically called in postinstall.

$ yarn dev:rebuild

Build the installer without publishing to github.

$ yarn dist:build

Build the installer and release it through github. For this option you need to configurate the package.json

$ yarn dist:publish

Configuration

Configurate package.json for auto update releases.

{
  "name": "<APP_NAME>",
  ...
  "repository": {
    "type": "git",
    "url": "<REPO_URL>"
  },
  ...
  "build": {
    "appId": "com.electron.<APP_NAME>",
    "productName": "<APP_DISPLAY_NAME>",
    ...
    "publish": {
      "provider": "github",
    }
  }
}

Publishing

Automated Publishing using dist:publish

1. Create a public GitHub repo for your project. And change the repository.url in the package.json with your repo URL.
2. Create a new personal access token with the repo scope from here.
3. Set GH_TOKEN environment variable with the token you've generated.
4. You're ready to publish.

$ yarn dist:publish

Alternatively you can also define the GH_TOKEN just for the current shell session like the example below.

$ export GH_TOKEN='########################################'
$ yarn dist:publish

Manual Publishing

You can also publish the generated files through github release manually.

1. Build your app with yarn dist:build.
2. Go to GitHub Releases in your repo.
3. Draft a new release.
   1. Enter Tag Name. ex. v1.0.x (1.0.x builded app version)
   2. Enter Release Title.
   3. Enter Description.
   4. Upload the generated files in the ./distribution
      1. Upload latest.yml.
      2. Upload APPNAME-setup.exe.
      3. Upload APPNAME-setup.exe.blockmap.
4. Publish Release.

Usage

Get the default device's index and all the supported devices attached to the server system.

REQUEST
METHOD: GET
URL: <ip>:65533

RESPONSE
BODY: {
  selected: <index> | -1,   // Default handler's index or -1 if not present.
  devices: <Device>[ ... ]  // Device list
}

cURL Example

$ curl -i -H "Accept: application/json" <ip>:65533

> HTTP/1.1 200 OK
> X-Powered-By: Express
> Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
> Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
> Content-Length: 180
> ETag: W/"b4-NbSK2aHRpR5gJagyYDFOO681tRY"
> Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 10:09:27 GMT
> Connection: keep-alive

> {
  "selected": -1,
  "devices": [
    {
      "locationId": 0,
      "vendorId": 2655,
      "productId": 211,
      "deviceName": "ZTC GC420t (EPL)",
      "manufacturer": "Zebra",
      "serialNumber": "54J154102172",
      "deviceAddress": 14
    }
  ]
}

Set the default device to handle print requests that sent without a target device.

REQUEST
METHOD: POST
URL: <ip>:65533
HEADERS:
  Content-type: "x-application/zpl"
  x-default-printer: <index>

RESPONSE
200 OK | 500 Internal Error | 400 Bad Request

cURL Example

curl -i -H "Content-Type: x-application/zpl" -H "x-default-printer: 0" -X POST <ip>:65533

> HTTP/1.1 200 OK
> X-Powered-By: Express
> Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
> Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
> Content-Length: 32
> ETag: W/"20-ruIGTBxF9UD8IqO8YTC8bpDmrQo"
> Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 10:30:12 GMT
> Connection: keep-alive

> "Default printer succesfully set."

Send print request to the default device.

REQUEST
METHOD: POST
URL: <ip>:65533
HEADERS:
  Content-type: "x-application/zpl"
BODY:
  <zpl code>

RESPONSE
200 OK | 500 Internal Error | 400 Bad Request

cURL Example

$ curl -i -H "Content-Type: x-application/zpl" --data "^XA^CF0,30^FO220,115^FD PRINT REQUEST ^FS^XZ" -X POST <ip>:65533

> HTTP/1.1 200 OK
> X-Powered-By: Express
> Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
> Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 10:31:06 GMT
> Connection: keep-alive
> Content-Length: 0

Send print request to targeted device.

REQUEST
METHOD: POST
URL: <ip>:65533
HEADERS:
  Content-type: "x-application/zpl"
  x-printer: <index>
BODY:
  <zpl code>

RESPONSE
200 OK | 500 Internal Error | 400 Bad Request

cURL Example

$ curl -i -H "Content-Type: x-application/zpl" -H "x-printer: 0" --data "^XA^CF0,30^FO220,115^FD PRINT REQUEST ^FS^XZ" -X POST <ip>:65533

> HTTP/1.1 200 OK
> X-Powered-By: Express
> Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
> Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 10:31:06 GMT
> Connection: keep-alive
> Content-Length: 0

cURL Example: concurrent print request to the default device and a targeted device.

$ curl -i -H "Content-Type: x-application/zpl" -H "x-printer: 0" --data "^XA^CF0,30^FO220,115^FD CONCURRENT PRINT REQUEST 1 ^FS^FO220,155^FD CONCURRENT PRINT REQUEST 1 ^FS^FO220,195^FD CONCURRENT PRINT REQUEST 1 ^FS^XZ" -X POST http://localhost:65533 & curl -i -H "Content-Type: x-application/zpl" --data "^XA^CF0,30^FO220,115^FD CONCURRENT PRINT REQUEST 2 ^FS^FO220,155^FD CONCURRENT PRINT REQUEST 2 ^FS^FO220,195^FD CONCURRENT PRINT REQUEST 2 ^FS^XZ" -X POST http://localhost:65533

> HTTP/1.1 200 OK
> X-Powered-By: Express
> Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
> Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 11:20:31 GMT
> Connection: keep-alive
> Content-Length: 0

> HTTP/1.1 200 OK
> X-Powered-By: Express
> Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
> Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 11:20:31 GMT
> Connection: keep-alive
> Content-Length: 0