Re: emacs interface

[Mohsen Banan <mohsen@rostam.neda.com>]

>>>>> On Mon, 3 Mar 1997 16:55:46 -0800, John Conover <john@johncon.johncon.com> said:

  Mohsen> 
  Mohsen> Linking bbdb, auc-tex and flexfax would be nirvana!
  Mohsen> 
  Mohsen> It is not going to be difficult to do.  It is just a matter of the
  Mohsen> relevant interests lining up and some free time. If we do something on
  Mohsen> that front (a bbdb add on ...), I'll post it to this list.
  Mohsen> 
  Mohsen> In the meantime, if anybody else is thinking along the same lines and
  Mohsen> has started anything, please drop me a note.
  Mohsen> 

  John> Hi Mohsen. There has been some off line discussion, to avoid
  John> cluttering up the bandwidth. Basically, what has been discussed is how
  John> the user interface would be, ie., how do you get the subject, re, to,
  John> number, etc., to sendfax from emacs. If all that is desired is to do
  John> something like write a fax in emacs, a hack on sendmail.cf would do,
  John> ie., you get a shopping list of things to fill in, and a ^--text
  John> follows this line--$ sort of thing, like M-x mail.  This would be
  John> trivial, (famous last words.) To do auc-tex, ...auctex/tex.el can be
  John> modified to include a "fax" option in with the various prints, files,
  John> etc., and other calls to dvips, etc., maybe with a menu for the fax
  John> particulars. This does not look too hard, either. I already have a
  John> fax.sty made that does the coversheet as a LaTeX style, does page
  John> count, includes a postscript signature, etc., a la letter.sty, and in
  John> principle, can have the re, number, to, etc., plumbed out of LaTeX,
  John> and shuffled off as sendfax arguments. I think this will cover most of
  John> what has been discussed, (maybe, maybe not ...  if I have forgotten
  John> anything, maybe someone will speak up,) but bbdb is a curve ball. What
  John> is it?

bbdb is the ultimate (n'est plus ultra ...) rolodex in emacs.

I am attaching a brief description and pointers to bbdb to the tail
end of this message.

A good fax interface needs to be integrated with the user's rolodex so
that he does not have to re-enter the recipient's
phone-number/name/company/... 

A typical usage scenario would be:
  -  you select the rolodex entry for the recipient (in
     bbdb) and M-x bbdb-send-fax,
  - which would then fill up the latex form (for fax.sty)
    automatically and puts you in auc-tex mode.
  - You enter your comments and attachments.
  - You use auc-tex's "send-fax" menu to send it out.

There has already been some work for filling up address info for
letters (a al letter.sty). Same can apply to fax.sty.

To avoid cluttering up the bandwidth, in a separate email, I'll
directly follow up with you with more relevant bbdb pointers.

...Mohsen.


-------- Pointer to current version of bbdb ---------

http://home.netscape.com/people/jwz/bbdb/index.html

------------

------ My out of date intro to bbdb ------------
\subsection{Bbdb}

\subsubsection*{At A Glance}

\begin{cartouche}
\begin{verbatim}
  Package Name: BBDB
  Latest Version: 1.48
  Developer/Author: Jamie Zawinski <jwz@@lucid.com>
  Availability: Through anonymous FTP
    archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:
         /pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/packages/bbdb.tar.Z
  Sources: Openly Available
  Platforms: Every where Emacs Runs
  Support: Mailing list info-bbdb-request@@lucid.com
  Folder Format: 
  Notable Features: BBDB is not a user agent. It is an e-mail integrated 
                    rolodex-like database.
\end{verbatim}
\end{cartouche}

\subsubsection*{Reviews:}
\begin{itemize}
\item
{\bf From: ``BBDB Manual''}

BBDB is a rolodex-like database program for GNU Emacs.  BBDB stands
for {\sl Insidious Big Brother Database}, and is not, repeat, {\em
  not} an obscure reference to the Buck Rogers TV series.

It provides the following features:

\begin{itemize}

\item Tight integration with mail and news readers, with little or no
  interaction by the user.

\item easy (or automatic) display of the record corresponding to the
  sender of the current message.

\item automatic creation of records based on the contents of the
  current message.

\item automatic addition of data to arbitrary fields of the record
  corresponding to the sender of the current message.

\item Listing all records which match a regular expression;

\item
 Listing all records which match a regular expression in a
 particular field ({\tt company} or {\tt notes,} for example).
\end{itemize}


\end{itemize}

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