11 comments

  • Spunkie 1 hour ago
    I've not much to say on the thermal printer part of this but the extensions they did to markdown are great. They had me double taking for a few seconds thinking they might be real markdown because they make so much sense.

        [align=center]    Center-align the following text (also left, right)
        [qr=https://...]  Generate and print a QR code
    
    Deprecating align in html was a mistake.
    • xp84 17 minutes ago
      It’s funny, after all the work that was done to decouple content from presentation, 90% of the markup I’ve seen in every codebase this decade is using Styled Components anyway, which commingles them in the source code anyway.
  • bigbuppo 3 hours ago
    I actually use my printers thank you very much. Even bought one of those bank teller slip printer things and a few boxes check-sized slips. I use them for time tracking and todo list.

    I didn't go totally crazy, though, and stopped before getting too deep into "...and then OCR them using the check scanner" because I remembered I was already keeping track of start/stop times in a database when printing the slips.

  • plussed_reader 45 minutes ago
    I troubleshoot thermal printers for work and the error is rarely in the hardware. I have no issue with this work request; TPs are deterministic and predictable.
  • owobeid 1 hour ago
    I had started working on something similar a few months back but as a collection of CLI utilities.

    The first was a todo list printer where the todos are written in a YAML file. It includes fields for the name of the list and the date.

    I also started working on a Sudoku printer (which I think is only possible on 80mm paper). But I completely forgot about the entire thing after coming back from vacation.

    You've inspired be to get back to working on it :D

    As an aside, are there any good recommendations for a wifi/bluetooth printer using 80mm paper that doesn't break the bank? I initially bought the Munbyn ITPP098P but it being USB only is a bit unergonomic.

  • dematz 2 hours ago
    these things seem like too much fun, someone made a gleam printer library (https://hexdocs.pm/escpos/) and suddenly everyone on the discord is buying a printer...
  • speakbits 3 hours ago
    Called me out with that first sentence
  • thomascountz 4 hours ago
    Obligatory "be careful with that poison paper" warning![1]

    [1]: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

    • fy20 4 hours ago
      An alternative to consider are dot matrix / impact printers.

      They are used in kitchens, as heat sensitive paper doesn't work well there. It's just plain paper and an ink ribbon.

      Same underlying protocol as thermal printers, so the code is mostly plug and play.

      They often can print in two colours (red and black). And sound like the 1980s.

    • samlinnfer 3 hours ago
  • anthonySs 2 hours ago
    would be cool if it supported basic html/css
    • JellyBeanThief 16 minutes ago
      I can print webpages straight to my Epson TM-T20IV. My web browser just sends it to CUPS.
  • atonse 3 hours ago
    Can we not print full pdf type stuff with thermal printers?

    I just bought one a couple weeks ago actually.

  • frizzle-chan 45 minutes ago
    [dead]
  • featwanz 2 hours ago
    [dead]