OS/2 Shareware BBS: 3 Comm/03-Comm.zip/makefax.zip/MAKEFAX.DOC

Text File | 1994-04-03 | 4KB | 81 lines

Thank you for using MakeFax 1.1.  Makefax is a simple program
that I wrote to automatically handle the raw .fax files that
BinkleyTerm generates.

First off, Makefax is free and is therefore supplied as is
with no warranty whatsoever.  All I can say is that it works
for me and will occupy space on your hard disk.  If you like
Makefax please send me a postcard or just a quick netmail so
I can see people are using it which might encourage me to add
new features.

Here is how Makefax works.  When Binkley receives a fax it
seperates every page into a seperate file named pagexxxx.fax.
Makefax combines these files into one Zfax format fax file or
Trio Datafax format file (see bellow for caveats).  The files
are stored in a subdirectory on your hard drive.  For example,
on my system faxes are stored by Binkley in "c:\bt\fax" and the
processed fax files are stored in "c:\bt\fax\receive".  After
the fax is processed the raw .fax files are deleted.  The
new format file is named MMDDYYYY.### where MM is the current
month, DD the day of the month, YYYY is the year, and ### is
the nth fax for the day.

I have included both a 32-bit DOS and 32-bit OS/2 2.x version
of Makefax.  I have also included a sample dofax.cmd and
dofax.bat file that is called from Binkley.  I use makemsg to
send myself a message whenever a fax arrives.  To keep things
simple Makefax assumes that the configuration file is in the
current directory.

To install Makefax copy (unzip?) all of the makefax files into
the directory you have chosen.  Modify the .cmd or .bat file
as appropriate so that the directory containing makefax.cfg
is the current directory when Makefax is run.  Create a
subdirectory to store the processed fax files.  Have Binkley
call makefax or dofax whenever a new fax is received.An
incoming fax is easily detected by testing for an errorlevel
or checking for .fax files in the Binkley incoming fax directory.

You will most likely need to modify the makefax.cfg file.  The
file consists of several lines.  All but the first word on each
line is considered a comment.  If you don't have all of the lines
Makefax expects in your configuration file it will return an
error.  Here are the meanings of the various lines:
  1.  Incoming fax directory (where Binkley store them)
  2.  Processed fax file directory (where they useful ones are)
  3.  Fax file format either ZFAX or DATAFAX at present
  4.  Logfile path (not yet implemented)
  5.  Logfile name (not yet implemented)

I intend to add log file generation, and more fax file formats
if anyone else would care to send me the file format for their
favorite fax program.

Caveats of Trio Datafax format:

Unfortunately, Binkley throws away some information that the Trio
Datafax software needs.  The Trio fax files store the number of
lines on each page.  Since this information is not available
from the pagexxxx.fax files I have set each page to 0x8ff lines.
What this means is that if you scroll too far on the page the
display will suddenly split as it begins to read the next page.
I have printed out several faxes and they all look fine so it
appears to be only a problem with displaying and not printing.
You may also need to rename the files to <whatever>.fax in order
for Trio Datafax to read them.

If you find any bugs please contact me at the address bellow.
Also, if you have formats for other fax programs beside Zfax, or
Trio Datafax send them to me and I might just add them into a
future version of Makefax.

Philip Polstra
Sysop the Hangar/2 BBS Fido 1:201/100 FlyNet 196:7050/2
BBS and FAX [phone]
Internet: [e-mail]
Snail Mail: PO Box 2, Otterbein, IN 47970-0002

You may FREQ Makefax using magic name "MAKEFAX" from 1:201/100 or
you may ftp it from lowtemp.physics.purdue.edu.