Blackbox printing

In Outputs, the Printer Type of HubCapp is for Blackbox only. For normal printing through a HubCapp Peripheral Agent, the Printer Type should generally be set to Response. See Outputs for more details on printing options.

Blackbox printing uses a HubCapp server to service Blackbox print requests. Its configuration requires:

  1. An installed HubCapp server.
  2. Any number of installed HubCapp Peripheral Agents configured to connect to the HubCapp server, and connected to the print devices.
  3. Logistics Server configured to point to the HubCapp server that will be used. See Logistics Server Data settings.
  4. Outputs with a Printer Type of HubCapp. See The HubCapp Printer Type. Normal output permissions apply.

    5. For HubCapp print requests, the current Logistics Server user name is used as the identifying HubCapp Peripheral Agent machine name, although this can be overridden in the output's configuration, if required. See Machine Name for its importance in HubCapp printing implementations.

  5. Blackbox requests that include HubCapp printing in their Output nodes. See Schema support.

This topic ends with some guidance on testing. See Test Blackbox print requests.

Logistic Server Data settings

In the Administration App, go to Data > All Settings, and set the following:

  • HubCapp Server Uri to the URL of the HubCapp server. When a HubCapp server is created, this is its Host Name setting.
  • HubCapp Server License Key to the license key allocated to the HubCapp server being used. When a HubCapp server is created in Transtream Setup, this is its License Key field. These are the same details that each HubCapp Peripheral Agent will use (in its Settings).
  • HubCapp Server Timeout. This is milliseconds and defaults to 5000 (5 seconds). If remote outputs print, but Blackbox responses show failure, increase this setting.

The HubCapp Printer Type setting

For Blackbox HubCapp printing, you need outputs (documents and labels) configured with a Printer Type of HubCapp. Do this in the Administration App's Outputs page, or manually update the configuration files.

For manual updates, make sure your Peripheral Agent is not running. Once you've amended the files, run the Agent to view the changes.

Machine Name

The Machine Name setting ensures requests are handled by the correct HubCapp Peripheral Agent. It is case sensitive, and must match either:

  • The name of the Logistics Server user making the print request. By default, Logistics Server will send requests using the current user name as the identifying machine name. So, if you utilise this default behavior, you will need HubCapp Peripheral Agent(s) with machine name(s) that correspond exactly with your Logistics Server user name(s).
  • Alternatively, this can be configured via the HubCapp Peripheral Agent Machine Name setting in the Administration App.
  • In Administration App > Outputs, the HubCapp Machine Name override set. If required, outputs can target a specific machine name, and thereby override the user name based default. See Outputs.

At runtime, a generic failed to connect error is generated when the machine name in the Blackbox request does not match the machine name of a connected HubCapp Peripheral Agent.

Schema support

The following schemas include Blackbox printing support:

  • PierbridgeSignatureResponse/Outputs/Output
  • PierbridgeSignatureResponse/Packages/Package/Labels/Output
  • PierbridgeShipRequisitionResponse/Documents/Output
  • PierbridgeShipResponse/Packages/Package/Documents/Output
  • PierbridgeShipResponse/Packages/Package/Labels/Output
  • PierbridgeShipResponse/Documents/Output
  • PierbridgeReturnResponse/Documents/Output
  • PierbridgeReturnResponse/Outputs/Output
  • PierbridgePackItemPrintResponse/PackItems/PackItem/Outputs/Output
  • PierbridgeLabelResponse/Labels/Label
  • PierbridgeInsuranceResponse/Documents/Output
  • PierbridgeDocumentResponse/Documents/Output

The Output nodes in these schemas now include:

Test Blackbox print requests

To test XML requests, use an API development toolchain such as Postman, or if you have a previous (7.x) version of Transtream, you can use the Test XML Client utility from that version. A Transtream API Key must be appended to XML requests. See API Keys for details on API Key generation.

  • Outputs provides general details on using this area of the Administration App.
Article last edited 7 November 2018