Re: flexfax: HylaFAX with Macs, CGI or MacFlex?

[Yan Seiner <yan@cardinalengineering.com>]

There was mention on this list of a web-based interface for hylafax.  It
was posted maybe 4 weeks ago.  That and a good generic PS driver should
go a long way towards solving your problem.


--Yan

Aristedes Maniatis wrote:
> 
> I too have Hylafax running with Mac clients. I have spoken several times to
> the author of MacFlex - he seems very busy and unlikely to make significant
> improvements in the immediate future, but he is still committed to updates.
> 
> The key advantage of faxing from the desktop should be the ease of use.
> MacFlex doesn't support heirachical address books (LDAP would be great!),
> but it is simple to use.
> 
> Unfortunately you may has discovered that it doesn't work from Illustrator,
> Quark and Photoshop. This really kills it for us.
> 
> We had thought about an alternative: postscript. Simply use the Laserwriter
> 8 driver and 'print' the pages to a lpr queue on the server. That part is
> easy. Then we would need to write some scripts (possibly web based) that
> would allow a user to enter the fax number and cover page so that the fax
> can be sent.
> 
> It all seems reasonable, but a lot of work. The advantage here over your pdf
> method is that you don't need Acrobat print drivers and there is one less
> step in uploading the files. But I don't know what other problems it might
> cause.
> 
> Then I had another thought - the MacOS uses PPD files to give particular
> printers specific options (paper size, colour enhancement, etc.). I wonder
> whether such a field can be generated which allows a text input (ie. a fax
> number). A popup for choice of cover page should not be difficult. This
> eliminates any post-processing of the fax - it all happens in one postscript
> print dialog.
> 
> Does anyone here have experience with writing Mac printer drivers? Or even
> some pointers as to where we might find more docs?
> 
> David, please keep us informed about any progress you make. I for one am
> very interested.
> 
> Cheers
> Ari
> 
> on 10/12/99 1:30 am, David Rouse at drouse@arlington.newsargus.com wrote:
> 
> > I've been investigating using HylaFAX in a Macintosh-based newspaper
> > environment. We do a lot of ad design work that has to be faxed out for
> > approvals and I think that HF would make things easier on the staff. I'm
> > working with 4.1b2 now -- and it does work, thanks for the encouragement
> > to keep at it.
> >
> > However I seem to be having some problems with MacFlex and HylaFAX. The
> > spooled TIFF permissions are set in such a way that they can't be
> > converted to faxes (the 'Could not reopen converted document to verify
> > format' error). Plus the old protocol seems to have problems of its own.
> >
> > I haven't started downloading all the CGIs, but I think that a CGI that
> > allowed file uploads would work very well for us. I guess what I want is
> > to allow a staff member to fill in the telephone number and cover sheet
> > notes on an HTML form, then from the same form select a gif or jpg of an
> > ad to be faxed (does HF do PDFs?). Do any of the current gateways do
> > this?
> >
> > Otherwise, if anyone is using HylaFAX in a Mac environment and has any
> > helpful tips, please send them my way. And if anyone needs help getting
> > HF running on Solaris 2.5.1, I think I've hit every pothole and gotten
> > through it.
> 
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