Re: [hylafax-users] Hylafax FSP DLL for Windows 2000/XP

[Dmitry Bely <dbely@mail.ru>]

Pedro Rocadas <procadas@yahoo.com> writes:

> Strange, usually WHFC fits the basic needs and is
> open-source now. You are allowed to improve it.

I did not know that WHFC was open source. But franky speaking, it did not
change anything: I still think that virtual FSP DLL is the best way for
Windows users.

>> - Unacceptable fax image quality due to using
>> Postscript printer driver and
>> Ghostscript rasterizer (the latest Cypheus has TIFF
>> printer driver, but I
>> did not tested it).
>
> Or you use special fax machines or I'm lost here.

Send the same page containing, say, 6pt text in draft mode using WHFC and
any commercial Windows fax software, and you'll see the difference even on
the ideal line (WHFC's page will be unreadable). The problem is that
the quality of Ghostscript rasterizer, that Hylafax uses, cannot even be
compared with Windows one.

The only way around is to use TIFF printing (like last Cypheus
does).

> Faxing always present quality problems. Think noisy
> lines and you are in troubles...

Nope; it has nothing to do with noisy lines.

>> - Deep fax knowledge is required to configure and
>> use them, that average
>> corporate user does not have.
>
> Uh? My users only needed to put the fax number and
> voilá! But, if they needed to configure anything, a
> document with print screens explaining how to do it
> solve the issue. Lusers are lusers but they have a
> brain after all :-)).

When your user sees "No EOP or MPS after 3 tries" message, does he/she
really understand what's going on? :-)

>> - They require a lot of additional libraries,
>> non-standard phonebooks etc.,
>> being themselves multimegabyte monsters.
>
> You really tested WHFC?

Which standard WHFC address book conform to? :-) Is there LDAP support?
Corporate users are very angry, if they have to create the separate
address book for each software package installed...

>> - They cannot be easily distributed in the corporate
>> network. 
>
> Uh? I'm not an windows expert but, you can make a
> script to automate the installation right?

You can make everything by hand :-), but WHFC is not packaged info MSI out
of the box and does not support distribution via Group policy.

>> - They are not reliable enough (those versions that
>> I've tested)
>
> Wich are?

Some (older?) Cypheus version. Last time I tried it, it used to miss some
event and continue to request the status of an unexisting server jobs. Fax
sending then became impossible.

>> - They provide no cover page support.
>
> Do you really tested WHFC?

AFAIK WHFC only supports Hylafax native cover pages that are in fact
unusable because there is not convenient tool to create them. Windows fax
service cover pages are *way* better, and you can fill them right in the
faxing dialog.

>> - They do not show the fax call in progress and
>> generate heavy Hylafax
>> server load due to the constant polling.
>
> Do you really tested WHFC?

WHFC (and Cypheus) *polls* server each predefined time interval, say 60
sec. It means that the status of your job cannot be updated more
frequently. It also means, that if you have 60 clients in your network, and
all of them are idle, the Hylafax server still will be busy processing
their queries. On the contrary, Hylafax triggers implement event driven
model, when Hylafax immediately informs the client that some interesting
event has happened. AFAIK, none of existing Windows cliens can utilize
this feature.

>> - The best existing Windows fax client (Cypheus) is
>> expensive enough: $30
>> pear seat in the medium or large corporate network
>> is probably not the very
>> low price.
>
> Try different comercial software and you will think
> different :-).

Maybe, but I now I have everything I need. And numerous software that is
compatible with Windows fax service is now compatible with Hylafax, which
is used as a transport layer.

[...]

>> Now I am thinking what to do with this work. Is
>> there any interest to such
>> software? Probably I will not release it under open
>> source license (for
>> my TIFF library and some other issues). But closed
>> sources mean a lot of
>> user support, for which I simply does not have
>> enough time. Should this
>> software cost some money?
>
> You are not obligued to release any of your code, but
> think, you are using HylaFAX. Imagine the original
> author of HylaFAx not releasing the code...probably
> you will be using EXPENSIVE commercial fax software,
> unreliable and worse, with the felling that you trough
> away alot of money...As I said, you are free to do
> whatever you want.

Thanks for you opinion.

- Dmitry Bely



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