populate listview with printers

CodeCruiser can you ellaborate ( post full code as confused what your explaining - sorry ! )

<<-- Newbie to vb 2008 so what you said here

Change the function to use a List(of String) instead of stringcollection. Change the return type of the function as well as the type of the printerNameCollection variable.

Means nothing to me

Thanks to both of you for your examples but I was trying to keep my code the same and in this instance wanted to know how to take what I had and add the output into the listview which codecruiser achieved

I have got it working took me a while to figure out what you explained

Hi CodeCruiser

Would you be willing to help me a bit more with this printer app I am doing - email address is on my profile or carry on here

That or I can ask a new question just not sure if I have enough points or not - need to check

Hi,
Is the problem sorted now? What else you need help with?

This will most likely be messy in terms of coding as am a total newbie as aformentioned but I was originally using below code to enumerate one  list view with device name and port type ie ip address, usb etc

In effect I basically want the printers listview with numerous columns ie

Device Name  |    Connection Type |    Number of Jobs |   Status  |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Printer 1              IP_192.168.1.24                   0                 Online - Ready
Printer 2                      USB                              1                 Online - Printing

etc

When I click on one of the printers in the list view I want a 2nd listview where it will populate the 2nd listview with pending print jobs with relevant info mentioned below

Document Name  |   Owner    |  Submitted   |   Connection Type |    Number of Jobs |   Status     |     Size
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Print Job One           User 1       Date & Time    IP_192.168.1.24              0       Online - Ready            N/A
Print 2                      User 1       Date & Time           USB                          1       Online - Printing          10Mb

etc

Wanting to be able to cancel print jobs, pause and resume and cancel ALL print jobs as well and this util will have the option to connect to a print server or run locally on client machines so hence why I have the code below with the select case to either use wmi for local connection and remote connection with authentication etc

   Public Sub GetPrinters(ByVal strMachine, ByVal strUsername, ByVal strPassword)
        Dim myConnectionOptions As New System.Management.ConnectionOptions
 
        ' strMachine = "."
        Select Case strMachine
            Case "."
 
                With myConnectionOptions
                    ' myConnectionOptions.Username = "administrator"
                    ' myConnectionOptions.Password = ""
                    .Impersonation = System.Management.ImpersonationLevel.Impersonate
                    '* Use next line for XP
                    .Authentication = System.Management.AuthenticationLevel.Packet
                    '* Use next line for Win prior XP
                    '*.Authentication = System.Management.AuthenticationLevel.Connect
                End With
                'wmi connection code for localhost type machine
            Case Else
 
                With myConnectionOptions
                    myConnectionOptions.Username = "administrator"
                    myConnectionOptions.Password = ""
                    .Impersonation = System.Management.ImpersonationLevel.Impersonate
                    '* Use next line for XP
                    .Authentication = System.Management.AuthenticationLevel.Packet
                    '* Use next line for Win prior XP
                    '*.Authentication = System.Management.AuthenticationLevel.Connect
                End With
                'wmi code for connecting to a remote host
        End Select
 
        Dim myManagementScope As System.Management.ManagementScope
        '* Replace the "." with an actual servername for remote connection
        Dim myServerName As String = "."
        myManagementScope = New System.Management.ManagementScope("\\" & myServerName & "\root\cimv2", myConnectionOptions)
        '* connect to WMI namespace
        myManagementScope.Connect()
        If myManagementScope.IsConnected = False Then
            MsgBox("Could not connect to WMI namespace")
        End If
 
        Dim myObjectSearcher As System.Management.ManagementObjectSearcher
        Dim myCollection As System.Management.ManagementObjectCollection
        Dim myObject As System.Management.ManagementObject
        myObjectSearcher = New System.Management.ManagementObjectSearcher( _
          myManagementScope.Path.ToString, "Select * From Win32_Printer")
        '* execute query
        myCollection = myObjectSearcher.Get()
        '* list packages installed
        For Each myObject In myCollection
 
 
 
            Dim lSingleItem As ListViewItem    'The variable will hold the ListItem information so that you can add values to the column you want to change
 
            lSingleItem = lstPrinters.Items.Add(myObject.GetPropertyValue("Caption"))        'Create a new line, and assign the ListItem into the variable so we can add sub items
            lSingleItem.SubItems.Add(myObject.GetPropertyValue("PortName"))     'The first sub item for the first line
            ' lSingleItem.SubItems.Add("Subitem ZZY")     'The second sub item for the first line
 
            'lSingleItem = lstPrinters.Items.Add(myObject.GetPropertyValue("PortName"))       'Create another line. Same as previous new line code, but with different icon number and caption
            ' lSingleItem.SubItems.Add("Subitem CCA")     'The first sub item for the second line
            ' lSingleItem.SubItems.Add("Subitem DDA")
 
        Next
 
 
 
 
    End Sub

                                              

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Forgot to mention with the method above you provided that enumerates and inserts the printers names but then cant insert the other info into the relevant columns etc so come unstuck with it

Also I appreicate that the above is a full program and a lot of code but just a bit stuck on how to collate the information in the querries to be able to populate the information into the listview so if we could focus on the printers one and see how thats done I could most likely transfer similiar code to the print jobs one but may still need help porting a few bits and pieces from C# to vb .net 2008 as per the link on the code project website which I linked to in the question

I will respond to your question later today. Please bear with me.

no problem and thank you very much !!!

Just a reminder as not heard nothing back from yourself - can appreicate you are a busy person etc

Anyway thanks again

Thanks for accepting the answer and sorry for not getting back (long meetings with payroll manager yesterday!). If you want to post new questions then i would be happy to answer or if you want to use this space for any more help i would still be happy to assist you.

If we can use this space - need to earn at least 3000 points to be able to ask a new question as out of points

Ok. What are you struggling with now?

I explained it above but basically If I enumerate the printers as per above example that you posted then I have issues with getting the other columns populated with the other info from the WMI querries ie ip address, username, size of print job etc etc as per the above post here

13/08/09 01:48 PM, ID: 25087541

If we can sort out the printers ListView in terms of enumerting all the correct info in a function with neat code etc then I can duplicate that across to the print job listview obviously using the different WMI Classes ie win32_PrintJob etc

when using the code below it only adds the printers in the first column and if i use the other wmi querries to find out job size, username, time and date submitted etc I am a bit confused on how to combine the 2 to get it to add the relevant data into the relevant columns etc

Dim mylist as List(of String) = GetPrintersCollection()
For Each s as string in mylist
      ListView1.Items.Add(s)
Next

                                              

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I have tried to retrieve the list of all the properties of a printer. You can get the ConnectionType using the PortName property which returns the IP address (i could not test USB as no usb printer on my laptop). The Status property has an integer value so needs to be mapped to a string. You can use a DataTable to store all this data and keep updating it. I could not see current job count but there is a property JobsSinceLastReset. Once you have the list of printers in datatable, you can update other columns using other WMI classes.

thats beyond me - not done a data table before any examples ?

If we can get the data table setup and going and show me how to add data to the 2nd column - adding data to the other columns I can do.

Here is an example

        Dim dTable As New DataTable
        dTable.Columns.Add("PrinterID", GetType(Integer))
        dTable.Columns.Add("PrinterName", GetType(String))
        dTable.Columns.Add("PrinterPort", GetType(String))
        dTable.Columns.Add("Queued Jobs", GetType(Integer))
        Dim searchQuery As String = "SELECT * FROM Win32_Printer"
        Dim searchPrinters As New ManagementObjectSearcher(searchQuery)
        Dim printerCollection As ManagementObjectCollection = searchPrinters.[Get]()
        For Each printer As ManagementObject In printerCollection
            Dim drow As DataRow = dTable.NewRow
            drow(0) = dTable.Rows.Count + 1
            drow(1) = printer.Properties("Name").Value.ToString
            drow(2) = printer.Properties("PortName").Value.ToString
            dTable.Rows.Add(drow)
        Next
 
Then later
for i as integer = 0 to dtable.rows.count - 1
    dtable.rows(i).items("Queued Jobs") = queuedjobs
next

                                              

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The function you posted above how does that tie in with this code

    Public Shared Function GetPrintersCollection() As List(Of String)
        Dim printerNameCollection As New List(Of String)
        Dim searchQuery As String = "SELECT * FROM Win32_Printer"
        Dim searchPrinters As New ManagementObjectSearcher(searchQuery)
        Dim printerCollection As ManagementObjectCollection = searchPrinters.[Get]()
        For Each printer As ManagementObject In printerCollection
            printerNameCollection.Add(printer.Properties("Name").Value.ToString())
 
        Next
        Return (printerNameCollection)
    End Function

                                              

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With regards to the Return (printerNameCollection)

Getting 2 error messages

Error      1      'items' is not a member of 'System.Data.DataRow'.      C:\vb 2008 current\Printer_Management\Printer_Management\Form1.vb      147      13      Printer_Management


Error      2      Name 'queuedjobs' is not declared.      C:\vb 2008 current\Printer_Management\Printer_Management\Form1.vb      147      51      Printer_Management


I have also imports System.Data.DataRow

Fixed error 1 ( was Item not Items ) but still stuck on error 2

You can replace the code in the original function so that it returns a datatable instead of stringcollection. The queuedjobs is a TEST/DEMO name i included. This would be the value you would retrieve using other WMI code.

Thats where I am getting stuck because I don't know how to intergrate more then one WMI querry into this data table because the queued job names you get from the win32_PrintJob class where as win32_Printer is a totally different wmi class and I don't get how to combine the two together so that I can do the following

where queuedjobs is the result(s) from the win32_PrintJob class with respect to the actual queued Jobs in the selected printers print queue

        For i As Integer = 0 To dTable.Rows.Count - 1
            dTable.Rows(i).Item("Queued Jobs") = queuedjobs
        Next

                                              

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You can retrieve the queued jobs using another WMI query and then update the datatable. For example (again this is just demo code and you may need to tweak it especially the query for retrieving jobs of a specific printer)

        Dim dTable As New DataTable
        dTable.Columns.Add("PrinterID", GetType(Integer))
        dTable.Columns.Add("PrinterName", GetType(String))
        dTable.Columns.Add("PrinterPort", GetType(String))
        dTable.Columns.Add("Queued Jobs", GetType(Integer))
        Dim searchQuery As String = "SELECT * FROM Win32_Printer"
        Dim searchPrinters As New ManagementObjectSearcher(searchQuery)
        Dim printerCollection As ManagementObjectCollection = searchPrinters.[Get]()
        For Each printer As ManagementObject In printerCollection
            Dim drow As DataRow = dTable.NewRow
            drow(0) = dTable.Rows.Count + 1
            drow(1) = printer.Properties("Name").Value.ToString
            drow(2) = printer.Properties("PortName").Value.ToString
            dTable.Rows.Add(drow)
        Next
 
        For i As Integer = 0 To dTable.Rows.Count - 1
            searchQuery = "Select * From Win32_PrintJobs where printername(this could be anything) = '" & dTable.Rows.Item(i).Item("PrinterName") & "'"
            searchPrinters = New ManagementObjectSearcher(searchQuery)
            Dim JobsCollection As ManagementObjectCollection = searchPrinters.[Get]()
            dTable.Rows(i).Item("QueuedJobs") = JobsCollection.count
        Next
                                              

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Put that in a function and it just errored out stating its an invalid querry

Is this meant to be in a function or sub or what exactly ?

Now thats done how do I return the info to the listview ?

dTable.Rows(i).Item("QueuedJobs") = JobsCollection.count

                                              

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I told you you may need to tweak the query. This code can be put in a function and the end statement could be "Return dTable" then you can use that datatable as a datasource to a gridview.

Does not work due to code below and how would I add the results to a data grid ( same way as above where you loop through it using a mylist ( string ) etc

dTable.Rows(i).Item("QueuedJobs") = JobsCollection.count

                                              

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Post complete code. To show in a datagridview, drag and drop a datagridview on form and in code, set its datasource = dTable.

I am getting confused with the code you are posting and am not sure how to use this - do I insert the code into a timer and set the timer to 500 or what exactly

The code fills a datatable with the list of printers. Now its upto you to decide how to use this code. I do not know the architecture of your application so i can not say whether to put this code in a timer or in the button click event.