Re: flexfax: Design for a portable Java hylafax clients: i want your opinions, please!

[Dmitry Bely <dbely@mail.ru>]

> Parsing the list data is an
> easy task --  you can set comma (or tab) separated format via
> JOBFMT/RECVFMT commands:
> 
> "%-3j,%3i,%1a,%6.6o,%-12.12e,%5P,%5D,%7z,%.25s,%k"

Even simpler -- width specifiers are redundant because they cut some fields 
and pad others with spaces. So use something like

JOBFMT "%j\t%i\t%a\t%o\t%e\t%P\t%D\t%z\t%s\t%k"

Tab is preferable because no field can contain it (that may not be true
for comma).

You can also let the user to select necessary fields for the report and then
construct JOBFMT/RECVFMT string yourself.

> and then split the fields by strtok() or similar function on the client's
> side. Once you've parsed the data, sort/display them as user needs --
> he/she might want to change sorting interactively just by selecting an
> appropriate column. The WHFC's approach, displaying data from the server
> without any processing is *wrong* (IMHO).

One more idea (WHFC specific): it would be fine if Send/Recv/Done queue
windows had horizontal scroll bar and/or resizeable columns. Look on
Outlook Express to see what I mean. Note that the messages there can be
sorted just pressing the appropriate field header.

And the last question again specifically for you Ulrich: I remeber you told
that you could not open WHFC sources because they contained proprietary
code. Unfortunately you seem no to have enough time to continue futher
active development. Then maybe you can isolate proprietary code in the
single dll and open other parts? I don't mean any offense, your work
is excellent. But I think some enhancements to WHFC (like queue display
format, TOCOMPANY job parameter etc.) should be done...

Hope to hear from you soon,
Dmitry