On Sat, Jun 16, 2012 at 6:27 PM, Todd And Margo Chester <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> On 06/16/2012 07:24 AM, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
>
>> It really sounds like you want a better fax *client*.
>>
>
> Exactly.  If you missed that in my original question, I am going
> to have to seriously work on my technical writing.  :'(
>
>
It was unclear. Replacing the back end with a CUPS based fax service buys
you nothing in terms of a better client, unless it just happens to have one
built in.



>  Hop over to the HylaFAX mailing list for help with that.
>>
>
> That would be
>
> http://www.hylafax.org/**content/Desktop_Client_**Software<http://www.hylafax.org/content/Desktop_Client_Software>
>
> Have it bookmarked.  "fax4CUPS" is over there and it is
> useless.  "Print to fax" is a dead link.  "VMFP" seems
> interesting, but there web site does not have a manual
> posted.  (Or one I can find.  That practice is so, so annoying!)
>
>

Well, Sam Leffler wasn't writing GUI's back then. He was writing a good
back end service. The command line client "sendfax" works well, and you can
wrap that with procedures, GUI's, webforms, etc.

>
>
Yeah, there's a lot of quick and dirty one-off toosl out there. I handed
off "WHFC" to my Windows users, a web form for UNIX users, and a shell
script to ask for necessary information for UNIX users. That was enough
when I worked with it.

 And if you think replacing it with CUPS would make it better...
>>
> At this point, as long as it works.  I want to print to
> fax.  Not, print to PDF (what Hylafax now supports PDF?
> and when did it actually start working?), import to evince,
> export to post script, import to fax client, yada, yada,
> yada...
>
>
>
The PDF support became available (not necessarily enabled by
default)....... 10 years ago now? It has to be compiled into the
ghostscript back end, which didn't used to be standard but has been for
some time.

>
>  Look up Eric Raymond's essay, "The Luxury of Ignorance".
>>
>
> At the moment I am so butt faced busy I can not see straight.
> If you would be of a mind, would you make a quick few lines
> as to what you wanted me to see?
>
> Thank you for the input,
> -T
>

The first two lines convey its essence well:

> I've just gone through the experience of trying to configure CUPS, the
Common Unix Printing System. It has proved a textbook lesson in why
nontechnical people run screaming from Unix.

Eric wrote some guidelines at the end for open source GUI's, and added some
as a postscript that I'd sent him.