Re: flexfax: Can Faxmail start the message on the cover page?

[Phil Watkinson <pkw@elgro.co.uk>]

At 10:33 02/07/99 +0100, "Andy Corteen" <andy@telecam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>[snip]
>However, what I *really* want to do is to add a
>text/graphics header to the first page of the message,
>rather than have a cover sheet which wastes paper and
>transmission time. Most emails are short, and would easily
>fit on the lower half of a 'cover' page.
>
>Experiments with modifying faxmail.ps have shown that it is
>in principal possible - but the details are difficult to get
>right. I am not a postscript guru.
>
>Can anyone shed any light on this?
>[snip]

Hi,

I had a play around with this a couple of years ago, but never managed
to complete the work. But what I did was :-

1.  Create banner in a vector drawing program and output to postscript.

2.  Insert into the faxmail prologue file.

    The file I used for testing was (borrowed freely from faxcover.ps):

    %       $Id: faxmail.c++,v 1.56 1996/07/02 19:49:58 sam Exp sam
    %
    % faxmail prologue.
    %
    /inch {72 mul} def
    /userheader {
    gsave
      4.4 inch 10.2 inch moveto
      /Helvetica-BoldOblique findfont 23 scalefont setfont
      (Elgro Limited) show
      4.42 inch 9.95 inch moveto
      /Helvetica-Bold findfont 14 scalefont setfont
      (Boston, UK) show
    grestore
    } def

    which creates a macro called 'userheader'.

3.  Patch faxmail so that the userheader macro is called at the appropriate
    place.

    Change line 631 of util/TextFmt.c++ from :
             fputs("save $printdict begin\n", tf);
    to something like:
             fputs("userheader\nsave $printdict begin\n", tf);

    (This is as per the latest beta - hylafax-v4.0pl2-rjc11.tar.gz, BTW)

4.  Assuming you already have configured sources and an installed system you
    can simply do a make and a make install from within the faxmail directory
    to update your faxmail binary.

5.  Test! And because the faxmail prologue file is a text file read at runtime
    it is easy to change the banner code and get it looking as you want it.

6.  Now this is where I got stuck because the banner is *superimposed* on the
    fax page rather than inserted with the headers and message below. I failed
    to find a way to move the body down the page (but then again I didn't try
    very hard). Perhaps if you look at the way the TextFmt code compensates
for
    gaudy headers may give you a hint how to do it in your own code.

Good Luck,
Phil Watkinson,
Boston, UK.