Hiding the Balance Window of the User Client Tool

The PaperCut user client tool will, by default, pop up a dialog with the user’s balance when it starts.

The exception to this case is when the user cannot charge to their personal account. For example, if the user’s Account Selection setting has been set to Show the standard account selection popup, and the option Allow user to charge to their personal account has been disabled. In this case the user’s personal balance has no relevance, so the user client tool does not display the balance window.

Hiding the balance window on startup

The user client tool can be configured to “start minimized”. That is, the balance window will not be displayed when the client tool starts, but the user can still bring it up by clicking on the icon in the system tray/dock.

To configure a client tool to start minimized, use the minimized option. See the user manual section User Client Options (PaperCut NG) for more details.

Some examples of how to use the option include:

• If workstations run the client tool from a network share, set the minimized option to Y in the config file on the share to affect all clients.
• If client tools are started via a login script, pass the —minimized command line option to affect all clients.
• To affect a single user client when installed locally, enable the minimized=Y option in the local config file.

Hiding the balance window permanently

To ensure that the balance window will never be displayed for any user, perform the following:

1. Log into the PaperCut administration interface.
2. Navigate to Options → Config editor (advanced).
3. Search for the key client.config.show-balance.
4. Change the Value to N.
5. Press Update.

Next time a user client tool is started, the balance window will not be shown (regardless of the minimized option described above).

Note: make sure that you do not set disabletasktrayicon=Y in the client’s config.properties file, for this to work. The PaperCut client will show ‘something’ when it’s running - so that there is a visual cue of some kind that the client is running. If you disable the tray icon and disable the balance window as above, then you’ll find that the balance window appears minimized, but shows dashes instead of the actual balance. The most ‘invisible’ option is to allow the tray icon, and then completely hide the balance window using the above.

Note: on some platforms (for technical reasons) the balance window will still be present but it will not contain the balance text. As of version 14.2 (Build 27858), the Mac client is now able to be hidden, as the Mac User Client icon now resides in the menu bar as a “menulet” and no longer lives in the Dock.