The press board and your press connector

Studio runs in your browser, and a browser cannot reach a press. A press connector can. It is a small program that runs on a computer beside the press. We set it up with you.

What the connector does

• It reports. It tells your shop's account which presses it can see, and whether each is busy or ready.
• It fetches. It brings down the jobs you put on its presses, reaching outward only, and never the same job twice.
• It writes. It writes each job's print file into the hot folder you named for that press.

A person at the press then starts the job in the RIP. Studio never starts, stops or reorders anything on the RIP, and it tells the RIP nothing beyond that one file.

The connector reads nothing about a job or a customer. What it reports is the press's name and state, and it does not read a press's ink, its roll or its job, so there are no ink bars on the board.

Pairing it

We do this with you. This is what you will see while we do. A supervisor opens Presses and presses Show me a code. The code is six letters and numbers, lasts 15 minutes and works once. The connector trades it for its own permission to report.

After the connector reports, the printers and cutters it found are offered under Presses, and a supervisor ticks the ones that are the shop's presses. A connector fetches only for presses its shop has ticked. A cutter is not a press you can put a job on.

A supervisor can disconnect a connector. That stops its reports and fetches and deletes nothing. If your licence has ended, the connector keeps its permission and simply waits.

The hot folder

For each press you give Studio a hot folder, the folder your RIP watches, and the sheet is written into it. A supervisor names it in Integrations: there is one box for each press, on the ONYX card. It is the only thing Studio ever writes anywhere near a press.

Which RIPs

Studio is built most for ONYX, which is the RIP it works with today. For ONYX, the sheet is handed over through its watched folder. Other RIPs that read a watched folder should work the same way. We have not yet checked each one, and we say so rather than promise.

Studio's own RIP is in development. Until it exists, Studio works with the RIP you already own.

The press board

On Today, under The presses, a tile for each press shows what it is doing, what is loaded and how many jobs are waiting to be fetched. All sites › opens the full board.

Press All sites in the column. Presses on every site shows what each press is doing and changes no press. For each connector it shows its name and when it last reported, Reported just now, and a card for each press:

• Printing, with Busy;
• Idle, with Ready, between runs;
• Stopped, with Needs attention.

If a connector has not reported for five minutes, its card says Not heard from since and the time. Studio never shows old figures as if they were now.

Under a press, a job you put on it that has not been brought down yet shows in bold as Put on it, not fetched yet. Once it is fetched, the note goes from the board and the job's story is in Jobs.

A press is run at the press. The board shows what each connector last reported and the jobs waiting to be fetched, and nothing more. The one control on it is Take it off with the press's name, which takes a job you put on a press off that press's list. If the connector has already fetched it, the file is in the hot folder, in your RIP's hands, and Studio cannot take it back. On a phone the page keeps the computer layout and scrolls sideways.

Under the presses are The day's plan and each waiting roll, drawn whole. A press whose connector is part of a rehearsal is marked Demonstration.

Why it matters for your shop

• Never old figures as if they were now. A connector quiet for five minutes says Not heard from since.
• A job put on a press does not disappear. It shows on the press until it has been fetched.
• It says what it knows and no more. There are no ink bars, because the connector does not read a press's ink, roll or job.
• One page for every site. A shop with more than one site sees each site's connector and presses together.

Where the connector stands

So far we have tried the connector against a stand-in press, not yet beside a shop's own. We set it up with you and watch the first job through.