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

["Keith G. Murphy" <keithmur@mindspring.com>]

Bernd Proissl wrote:
> 
> ....
> > >
> > My comments come from the point of view of someone who only worries
> > about Win95 clients...
> >
> > I prefer b. currently, but it's probably just because there's something
> > with Delphi source (respond) out there that I can modify (and am
> > currently doing so).  No print drivers to have to write.
> In fact you can replace respond very easily with something else.

That's the beauty of it.  Anything involving another print driver,
and/or the hylafax protocol, cannot be as simple.  The thing I like
least about b?  No possibility of a (timely) print preview.  The delay
between printing the document and respond or whatever prompting the user
for the fax number is not that bad.
> 
> > Not sure what a2. would do.
> direct communication with hylafax server goes over eMail as transport layer
> and
> not over native hylafax protocoll.

Hmmm.  That sounds kind of slow and unreliable...
> 
> > I can see a lot of advantage to an open-source a1.-type client.
> >
> > But:
> >
> > (1) Can you do a print monitor or driver in pure Java?
> no. on win9x/NT there is redmon to do this.
> redmon is freely available, captures printing output from apps and then
> starts
> an application to process the output.

I can see that I need to give redmon another look.  Why did I reject it
before?  :-/
> 
> 
> > (3) Java's pretty bulky, relatively inefficient (correct me if I'm
> > wrong)
> yes and no. compared to compiled delphi code: i think yes.
> if you have less then 64MB RAM yes, less than P200 maybe also.
> In particular the startup of the VM is slow on these machines.
> But on a PIII 450 there is no problem with the startup time any more.
> 
> One reason for me doing it in java is that i want to learn the language
> better.
> it is *really* nice OO language and bulkyness will not be a problem in one
> year
> onemore. if you PC can run W2K then it can run Java also.
>

Everything you said above seems true.  Of course, we are running Win95
on Celeron 333's with 32MB!  Have to get the most bang for the buck. 
And I do mean "buck".  Singular.  :-(

> 
> > Another idea for you:  I'd see added utility in interfacing with or
> > easily adding the option to interface with Outlook's address book.
> > That's one thing I'm tacking on to Respond.  Sorry if this goes against
> > the grain, but people like to run it.  At least until "ILOVEYOU" hits
> > it.  :-)
> i apologise for it: i use outlook! it's really nice!
> yes, there will be a Phonebook service provider interface that everybody can
> implement another fax number source. (jdbc, textfile, xml, ldap, outlook...)
> 
> one thing with outlook ist that MS does not have to use open standards.
> AFAIK you cannot use ODBC to get your contacts, correct me if i am wrong!
> If you could you just would have to use the jdbc-odbc bridge and your fax
> numbers
> where available.
> 
> from within delphi you should be able to use ole automation with outlook to
> get
> the data and then pass them to whfc for faxing.

You are absolutely correct.  OLE is the only real way of getting the
contact information.  It does seem to work rather well, and is easy to
do from Delphi.

> 
> another pure windows and not open source way would be to take winfax and dig
> into the
> hardware abstraction layer it uses. there is a development kit on the web an
> (i think)
> on every CD.

Yes, I have looked into that route, to the extent of buying WinFax and
looking at the kit.  Perhaps it's just me, but it looks rather, um,
daunting.  I don't think I want to invest the time and money (buy VC++)
required, if there's another route.
> 
> > Good luck.
> Thanks, also to you
> 
Thanks for your detailed reply.  Off to look at redmon again, then
Delphi coding.  :-)