Downloading host resources using NJE

BARR/NJE

In the MVS print environment, printing to a 3211 or 3800 type of channel printer requires resources that control the placement of data on the printed page. An FCB is an example of a resource that controls the vertical carriage advancement on a page and specifies the print density and number of print lines. Prior to printing, the resources must be downloaded to the computer running BARR/NJE to emulate a true NJE print node. When using BARR/PRINT AFP with line or mixed-mode data, you must also download the AFP resources from the host. AFP resources are the complement to FCBs in the IPDS printing world and include fonts, page definitions, form definitions, overlay, and page segment libraries.

On an MVS system, resources are stored in the SYS1.IMAGELIB data set. For AFP, you must change SYS1.IMAGELIB to be the name of your AFP resource library. The resource download is accomplished by supplying the user with two files: resource.job and resource.obj. The resource.job file is a JCL file and the resource.obj is a load image that is run on the host to download the resources. The resource.job JCL can be modified and can support wildcards to specify the types of resources to download. After initially downloading the resources, resources can be download at any time to synchronize the resources available at the computer to those at the host.

It's easy to create, edit, and view FCBs with the Make FCB utility, where you can view a graphical representation of channel stop A code (from 1-12) assigned to lines on a form. When a printer encounters a command to advance to a channel stop, the print head moves to the next line identified by the channel stop and gets ready to print. locations and control the vertical format of printed output using lines-per-form and lines-per-inch values.

Complete the following steps to download host resources.

  1. If you have not already done so, define a spool printer for sending jobs to the host.

  2. Open the resource.job file using a text editor such as Windows Notepad. The resource files are located in \\Program Files\Barr\Spooler\NJE Resource Download\MVS, unless an alternate path was specified during installation.

Do not change the //RESOURCE statement in the resource.job JCL. If it is changed to something other than //RESOURCE, Barr Enterprise Print Server does not recognize the file as a resource and sends it to the print spool instead of to the printer.

  1. Within resource.job, search for /*ROUTE PRINT BARRNODE and replace BARRNODE with the BARR/NJE node defined on the host.

  2. Within resource.job, search for ##resource.obj/b80 and insert the path of the resource.obj file after the ## (For example, ##\\Program Files\Barr\Spooler\NJE Resource Download\MVS\resource.obj/b80). Save and close the resource.job file.

  3. For AFP resources, replace the SYS1.IMAGELIB data set with name of your AFP resource libraries. See Phase II – Locating your resources for more information.

    Sample Resource.job File for AFP Resources

  4. Open Print Utility.

  5. Manually add the resource.job file to the spool. When selecting the file type on the Format tab, select the SYSIN data (JCL) option.

  6. Add the Execution Node column to the Spool Window. Select the Job Header General Section and the NJHGXEQN (Exe. node) field.

  7. Once the job is received in the Spool Window, click the Exe. node column and enter the host node name (for example, BAR1JES2). When SYSIN jobs are added to the Spool Window, they appear shaded in a light blue background.

  8. Match the routing criteria of the resource SYSIN file and the appropriate host printer. Set the file and printer to Ready to begin printing.

The resources from SYS1.IMAGELIB will be downloaded to the \\Program Files\Barr\Spooler\Resources\Host1\Sys1.Imagelib folder, unless an alternate path was specified during installation. The Host1 folder will be replaced by the NJHGXEQN (Exe Node) field in the header. The AFP resources will be written to a folder using the data set name. For example, if Barr.Font240 is the data set name for all of the 240 PEL fonts on the host, the AFP resources will be stored in the folder, Program Files\Barr\Spooler\Resources\BAR6JES2\BarrFonts.240.