NAME¶
efax-gtk - GUI front end for efax program
SYNOPSIS¶
efax-gtk [options
] [
file ]
- Options: [-rs]
- -r Start the program in receive standby mode
-s Start the program hidden in the system tray
COPYRIGHT¶
Efax-gtk is Copyright (C) Chris Vine, 2001 - 2008. It is released under the
General Public License, version 2.
DESCRIPTION¶
efax-gtk is a GTK+ front end for the efax program. It can be used to send
and receive faxes with a fax modem, and to view, print and manage faxes
received. It also provides a socket interface to provide a "virtual
printer" for sending faxes from word processors and similar programs, and
can automatically e-mail a received fax to a designated user.
The efax-gtk distribution compiles and installs a patched version of
efax-0.9a-001114, so you do not need to separately build and install efax. In
particular, the version of efax supplied with efax-gtk provides
internationalization support, and resolves certain difficulties with locales
in the standard distribution.
To avoid name conflicts the patched versions of efax and efix are installed as
efax-0.9a and efix-0.9a. If you want to use the standard distributions of
efax, delete efax-0.9a and efix-0.9a, and then make a symbolic link from efax
to efax-0.9a and from efix to efix-0.9a so that efax-gtk can find them.
efax-0.9 or higher is recommended, although the program will work with older
versions of efax - with older versions, some automatic configuration options
will not be available and the different lock file semantics means that a
binary and not UUCP lock file will be created, which may confuse some other
programs trying to access the same serial port.
Any files to be faxed must be in postscript format, which is the generic printer
format for Unix/Linux systems. The program will use ghostscript to convert
these into the Group 3 fax format which the fax modem will understand.
ARGUMENTS¶
A file may be passed as an argument to the program, in which case that file will
automatically appear in the "File to send" box when the program
starts.
USE¶
The first time you use the program, you will be asked if you accept the terms of
the General Public Licence, version 2.
Sending faxes¶
Before sending a fax, the name of the file to be sent must be specified in the
"File to fax" box. The file specified must be in postscript format,
and will be converted by the program into the correct tiffg3 fax format. It
can be entered manually in the "Fax to send" box, or entered by
means of the file selection dialog. If the file comprises a single postscript
file, then you can find it by pressing the "Single File" button. It
can be more easily found with this dialog if it is placed in the $HOME/faxout
directory.
Where more than one file is specified in the "Fax to send" box, they
will be sent as a single fax appended in the order in which they are entered
in the box. Such multiple files can be more easily selected using the file
list brought up by pressing the "Multiple Files" button. Pressing
the "Multiple Files" button enables files to be found and added to
the file list, and they can be reordered by using the Up or Down arrow
buttons, or by dragging and dropping with the mouse. (If entering multiple
files manually rather than by means of the "Multiple Files" dialog,
use a `,´ or a `;´ as the file name separator.)
The telephone number to which the fax is to be sent is entered into the
"Tel number" box. This can be entered directly into the box, or by
using the built-in addressbook. The addressbook can be invoked by pressing the
"Tel number" button, or from the `File/Address book´
pull-down menu item. See "Using the address book" further below.
However, if a telephone connection has already been established with the
remote fax receiver, then the fax can be sent without dialing by leaving the
"Tel number" box blank (a dialog will come up asking if you would
like to send the fax without dialing - this does the same thing as `fax send
-m ...´ using the efax `fax´ script from the command line).
When a fax is received from the print system via the socket server, the program
settings can be configured to bring up a dialog automatically. If the program
is inactive or is standing-by to receive faxes the fax can be sent directly
from this dialog without the need to invoke the list of queued faxes received
from the socket.
Successfully sent faxes are copied to a directory in the $HOME/faxsent
directory, which has a name derived from the year, month, day, hour and
seconds when the sending of the fax was completed, and will appear in the
faxes sent list. They are only included in that list if they have been sent
without error. The efax message display box will report on the progress of a
fax being sent. The fax list can be brought up from the `File/List sent
faxes´ pull down menu item. See "Using the fax lists" further
below.
The program can send a fax when it is in receive standby mode. If sending a fax
from receive standby mode, when the fax has been sent (or there is an error in
sending the fax), the program will return to receive standby mode.
To make sending faxes from word processors easy, a socket server is provided
interfacing directly with the print system. See below for further details.
Ordinary ascii text files can be converted into postscript if required using a
number of programs, of which probably the easiest to use are nenscript or GNU
enscript (`man enscript´).
Receiving faxes¶
Three ways of receiving faxes are provided for.
First, the program can be set to answer a fax call which is ringing but has not
been answered, by pressing the "Answer call" button.
Secondly, the program can take over a call which has already been answered (say,
by a telephone hand set) by pressing the "Take over call" button.
Thirdly, the program can be placed in standby mode by pressing the
"Standby" button. This will automatically answer any call after the
number of rings specified in the efax-gtkrc file, and receive the fax. The
program will keep on receiving faxes until the "Stop" button is
pressed. A fax can also be sent when the program is in receive standby mode.
Received faxes in tiffg3 format (one file for each page) are placed in a
directory in the $HOME/faxin directory, which has a name derived from the
year, month, day, hour and seconds when the relevant "Answer call",
"Take over call" or "Standby" button was pressed. (Where
in standby mode after a fax has been received, any further fax will derive its
name from the time when receipt of the last received fax has been completed
and the program goes back into standby mode.)
Received faxes can be printed, viewed, described and managed using the built in
fax list facility. This can be brought up from the `File/List received
faxes´ pull down menu item. See "Using the fax lists" further
below.
When a fax is received, a pop-up dialog can also be set to appear (go to the
Settings dialog to do this).
In the settings dialog you can also specify a program to be executed whenever a
fax is received. The fax ID number is passed as the first (and only) argument
to the program, which enables the program to find the fax in $HOME/faxin. The
distribution contains two executable scripts, mail_fax and print_fax, which
can be used to e-mail a fax to a user or print a fax automatically when it is
received. (These scripts are not installed by `make install´ - if you
want to use them, make them executable with `chmod +x´ and copy them to
a directory which is in the system path, such as /usr/local/bin, and then
specify the script name in the settings dialog).
Using the address book¶
To pick a telephone number from the address book, highlight the relevant address
by pressing the left mouse button over it, and then press the "OK"
button.
Addresses can be added to the address book by pressing the add button, and then
completing the relevant dialog which will appear. To delete an address from
the address book, highlight the relevant address and press the delete
(trashcan) button. The addressbook can be sorted by using the up and down
arrow buttons on a highlighted address.
Addresses are stored in file `$HOME/.efax-gtk_addressbook´.
Using the fax lists¶
To bring up the fax lists, go to the the `File´ menu and pick the `List
received faxes´ or `List sent faxes´ menu item. Highlight the
fax to printed or viewed by pressing the left mouse button. The programs to be
used to print and view the fax are specifed in the efax-gtkrc configuration
file, or if none are specified, the program will print using lpr (which will
work for most Unix systems) and view with gv.
To print faxes, a PRINT_SHRINK parameter can be specifed in efax-gtkrc to enable
the fax page to fit within the printer margins. A parameter of 98 will work
with most printers. This can be changed while the program is running by
bringing up the `Settings´ dialog and entering it into the `Print/Print
Shrink´ box.
A fax can be deleted from a fax list by pressing the delete (trashcan) button.
This will place the deleted fax in the `Trash´ folder. If the delete
(trashcan) button is pressed in relation to a fax in the `Trash´
folder, it will be deleted from the file system.
A description can be added to a received fax when appearing in a fax list (or
subsequently amended) by pressing the relevant button -- this will enable
faxes to be more easily identified.
The received faxes list will show, at the far right of the tool bar, the number
of faxes received since the program was last started. If efax-gtk is in
receive standby mode, the "tooltips" for the program's icon in the
system tray will also indicate this number. The count can be reset to 0
without restarting the program by pressing the reset button in the received
faxes list.
Settings¶
The program settings can be changed by manually editing the efax-gtk
configuration file comprising $HOME/.efax-gtkrc, $sysconfdir/efax-gtkrc or
/etc/efax-gtkrc. The file is searched for in that order, so $HOME/.efax-gtkrc
takes precedence over the other two.
The configuration file can also be set by using the Settings dialog launched
from the `File/Settings´ pull down menu item. The settings entered
using this dialog are always stored as $HOME/.efax-gtkrc. Accordingly, if the
Settings dialog has been used, and you want to revert to the global settings,
this can be done either by deleting the $HOME/.efax-gtkrc file, or by pressing
the `Reset´ button in the Settings dialog, which will reload the
Settings dialog from the global configuration file ($sysconfdir/efax-gtkrc or
/etc/efax-gtkrc).
Help can be obtained when filling out the Settings dialog by holding the mouse
over the relevant help (?) button, which will bring up a "Tips"
display, or by pressing the button, which will bring up an information
display.
LOGGING¶
Errors and warnings from efax are displayed in red in the application text
window, and information messages and reports on the progress of negotiations
and on fax status are displayed in black in the window. In addition, these
messages are sent to stderr and stdout respectively. Accordingly, fax status
can be logged by redirecting stderr and stdout to a log file.
As an alternative, a log file can also be maintained by setting the LOG_FILE
parameter in the efax-gtkrc configuration file, or by entering a log file name
via the Settings dialog. If no log file is specified, no log file will be
maintained. If a log file is specified, then it can be viewed from the
"Log" pull-down menu, and if efax-gtk is compiled against GTK+-2.10
or greater, the log file can also be printed from the pull-down menu.
USING WITH A WORD PROCESSOR¶
Printing to file from the program itself¶
Probably the simplest way of using the program with a word processor is to print
to file from the print dialog of the word processor program concerned, and
choosing a file name in the $HOME/faxout directory which can then be selected
with the file selector dialog in efax-gtk. All Unix/Linux word and document
processing programs will print to file in Postscript format, ready to be faxed
by efax-gtk. (At least, if there is one which does not, I do not know of it).
Printing via CUPS¶
Efax-gtk can run a socket server, which CUPS can connect to. When the socket
server is running, fax files received from CUPS will automatically be
displayed in a "Queued faxes from socket" list maintained by
efax-gtk. From this list, a fax can be selected for sending by efax-gtk, so
there is no need to print to file from the word processor and then select the
file with the file selection dialog in efax-gtk.
When a fax is received in this way from the print system via the socket, the
program settings can also be configured to bring up a dialog automatically. If
the program is inactive or is standing-by to receive faxes, the fax can be
sent directly from this dialog without the need to invoke the list of queued
faxes received from the socket.
If you are using CUPS and you want to connect it directly to efax-gtk as
mentioned above, you can do so by bringing up the fax administration page for
CUPS in a web browser, installing a new printer with a name of "fax"
(or whatever other name you want), choose the IPP protocol, pick a URI of
"socket://[hostname]:[port]", and choose the "Raw" CUPS
printer driver.
The port number can be any port number less than 65536 and more than 1023 which
is not used by any other service on your machine/network (this can be checked
out by using nmap, but it is best to avoid any listed in /etc/services). For
example, as you will usually be printing from a local computer, if you choose
a port number of 9900 (which would be quite reasonable) the URI would be:
socket://localhost:9900
As an alternative, rather easier than the web interface is adding a new CUPS
virtual printer for efax-gtk by using lpadmin. To do this, log in as whatever
user has appropriate permissions (usually root) and do it from the command
line with:
/usr/sbin/lpadmin -p FaxPrinter -E -v
socket://localhost:9900
That will create a printer name for efax-gtk called FaxPrinter for a case where
efax-gtk is listening on port 9900.
You should then start efax-gtk, go to the Socket tab in the settings dialog,
check the "Run socket server" box, and enter 9900 in the "Port
to which faxes to be sent" box.
To send a fax from the "Queued faxes from socket" dialog, highlight
the one to be sent, press the "Enter selected fax to send" button in
the dialog (the one with an icon representing a fax machine) which will enter
the fax in the "File to fax" box in efax-gtk, and then choose a
telephone number to send it to and press the "Send fax" button in
the ordinary way.
If efax-gtk isn't running when you attempt to send a file via CUPS to efax-gtk
don't worry. CUPS will queue the fax until it detects that the efax-gtk socket
server is running, and then send it to efax-gtk.
Where a fax is queued for sending in the socket list, a small red circle will
appear in the main program window on the right hand side of the "Fax to
send" box.
Printing via lpd/lprng¶
The socket server can also be used in the same way with lpd/lprng. The files
efax-gtk-faxfilter and efax-gtk-socket-client are installed in /var/spool/fax,
when you run `make install´ (the installation directory can be changed
at the ./configure stage using the "./configure --spooldir=[dir]"
parameter. You should add at the end of /etc/printcap the following -
fax:\
:sd=/var/spool/fax:\
:mx#0:\
:sh:\
:lp=/dev/null:\
:if=/var/spool/fax/efax-gtk-faxfilter:
This will cause a printer by the name of "fax" to be available, which
(if printed to) will send the file to the efax-gtk socket server. If you set
efax-gtk to listen on a port other than port 9900, you will need to amend the
file /var/spool/fax/efax-gtk-faxfilter by hand to specify the correct port
number on which efax-gtk is listening.
Don't forget to restart the lpd printer daemon after amending /etc/printcap. (An
equivalent addition to /etc/printcap can also be made by using the printer
configuration tool with your distribution, choosing a printer name of
"fax" (or whatever other name you want), choosing a printer device
of "/dev/null", a spool directory of "/var/spool/fax" and
an input filter of "/var/spool/fax/efax-gtk-faxfilter".)
SYSTEM TRAY¶
Efax-gtk has been written so that it will sit in the system tray in GNOME and
KDE when the program is running.
From the system tray, the program can be hidden and raised again by
left-clicking with the mouse on the icon, and right-clicking on it will bring
up a menu from which certain program operations can be performed. A
`tips´ display will also indicate the program state if the mouse is
left hovering over the efax-gtk icon.
Clicking on the top right (delete) button of the window frame will not cause the
program to terminate if the program is embedded in the system tray. Instead it
will hide it in the tray. If you want to close the program when it is embedded
in the tray, either select the "Quit" menu item in the system tray
efax-gtk menu, or select the "Quit" menu item in the
"File" pull-down menu in the program toolbar.
Recent versions of GNOME call the system tray a "Notification Area".
If your desktop panel does not have a Notification Area installed, it can be
placed on the panel by right clicking on the panel, and going to Add to Panel
-> Utility -> Notification Area.
WORKING DIRECTORY¶
A working sub-directory for the storage of .efax-gtk_addressbook,
.efax-gtk_mainwin_save and .efax-gtk_queued_server_files and the faxin, faxout,
faxsent and efax-gtk-server directories can be specified in the efax-gtkrc
configuration file with the WORK_SUBDIR: parameter. This working subdirectory
will appear as a subdirectory of $HOME (so if WORK_SUBDIR: is specified as
efax-gtk, $HOME/efax-gtk will be the working directory). If none is specified,
which is the default, then these files/directories will be stored directly in
$HOME (which was what happened before the option was available, so past
efax-gtk installations will not be broken if this option is left unset). The
WORK_SUBDIR: parameter enables these files and folders to be kept together in
a separate directory if wanted. If a WORK_SUBDIR: parameter is specified, only
.efax-gtkrc will appear directly in $HOME.
Note that if you specify a value for WORK_SUBDIR: in the efax-gtkrc
configuration file, you will need to shift old versions of the files and
directories mentioned above into the new working directory or efax-gtk will
not be able to find them, so use this option with caution. In addition, if you
wish to use the "print_fax" or "mail_fax" scripts, you
will need to set the WORK_SUBDIR option in the relevant script.
FILES¶
- efax-gtk
- The efax-gtk executable.
- efax-gtk-faxfilter
- A filter script for lpd/lprng which will send files to the efax-gtk socket
server
- efax-gtk-socket-client
- The companion socket client for efax-gtk-faxfilter
- efax-gtkrc
- The efax-gtk configuration file.
- efax-gtk.po
- Various translation files for different locales.
- efax-gtk.1
- Efax-gtk manual file
- In addition some files from efax itself are installed, as follows:
- efax-0.9a
- The efax executable
- efix-0.9a
- The efix executable
- efax.1 efix.1
- Efax manual files
SEE ALSO¶
efax(1)
AUTHOR¶
Chris Vine
cvine@users.sourceforge.net