filePro help needed...

[Brian K. White]

John Esak wrote:
>  
> 
> filePro'ers
> 	
> I got a call from Dale Egan asking if I am truly retired... Did I want some
> work?  :-)  Very hard for the inner "me" to say, "Yes, I'm really retired,
> and No, I don't want (or need?) the work!"  Well, the need part left
> aside... Maybe a year or two from now I'll be begging for something...
> Anything to do... But for now, I am so happy getting my little studio
> together and writing some new fiction as well that I don't want to take on
> new work.  I really just hate responsibility these days. :-)  Also,
> periodically, I am continuing to help 21st Century with some of the projects
> which keep them very busy.
> 
> So... I told Dale I would explain the project he wants help with, and put a
> note out here for those of you who can do it to give him a call.  I don't
> know any of the particulars, but I wrote something very nearly like this for
> Nexus, but never put the finishing touches on it.  Now, because of something
> Bob R. at anzio.com has done to enhance Anziowin, will make the project a
> snap. And, would probably (if done generically enough) be something one
> would sell to lots of filePro users.  Apparently, now Anziowin can be made
> to scan documents and store/transport the image somewhere with an assigned
> name. (Maybe it's done this awhile, and it's not new... don't know.)
> Anyway, what Dale wants to do is scan documents from any filePro record (I'm
> guessing a customer record). The documents scanned would be anything
> invoices, work sheets, who knows.  But, the image file would be "attached"
> to the record by some unique key and naming convention and stored on a share
> or anywhere that the users (and filePro) can get to them.  Anyone going to a
> record could press an @key and pull up a browse of the images and view them.
> Now, of course, this is all dead simple and I would hesitate to say how many
> hours, not even days this would take for me to write.... Heck, once I
> investigated the part that Bob's program does as its function, the actual
> skeleton of the code would probably really only take minutes.  But, I like
> Scotty on the Enterprise would say, "Oh that will take 6 days Captain!"...
> :-)  Seriously, whatever time it would take you, I'm sure Dale and you could
> arrange a project price or maybe even a price per/hr, but I think I heard
> him say he would not want it on an hourly basis... (don't blame him
> really... viz the statement I just made above. :-)  
> 
> But, anyway, this is not a tough deal and could bring in someone a little
> work in these trying times.  Dale is a good guy, reliable help with a
> project and not too shabby a filePro programmer himself, but he has just
> bought the Lee Myles (auto maintenance, transmissions?) company and pretty
> much has his hands full.  So email him if you're interested.
> 
> I had immediately mentioned Sound Idea's version of this function (written
> in C), but Dale told me he had already checked that out a little, and it
> relies on some things that Bob's terminal emulator doesn't need, like a VPN
> maybe and other constraints.  
> 
> Dale's email address is dale at eganauto.com.
> 
> I don't mean to make light of how easy or hard this project is. The devil is
> always in the details, but really this is a simple browse routine looking
> through a header detail file arrangement and nothing more.  It does not even
> require any pig browse capabilities, so if you have a good facility with
> building an @key that doesn't lock the record (which I hope is SOP for
> everyone these days), and an understanding of good file-naming schemes,
> you're there.
> 
> Now, why did I write this instead of Dale?  Simple, he called me because I
> wasn't in the FP Room tonight or last night. I found a new blues bar... Very
> high energy, great players... Thursday nights are open for all.... So now
> there are 3 nights a week I can do some playing and I'd rather do that than
> write code.... But he told me honestly that if he wrote this note... he
> thought he would be assailed with all the kinds of things people used to
> assail the "newbie" with in the past. Happily, it's not too much like that
> anymore.  But, I said I'd lay it out for him. Again, it seems easy... But
> who knows what you'll encounter... Maybe multi-user contention for the
> scanner?  Permissions problems on the files, or worst of all...  creeping
> feature-ism! :-)  
> 
> Good luck to whoever ends up doing this.  If... A year has gone by, and I'm
> tired of having fun, playing drums, writing music and science fiction....
> And maybe for some insane reason am actually bored out of my mind.... AND
> this project still hasn't been written... Well then, maybe.... Possibly....
> Perhaps... I'll write it, but no one should be holding their breath. :-)
> 
> John Esak
> 
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> 
> 

We've been doing that since about 2000 (though the way it works today is 
certainly better than the way it worked then)
I don't have time to actually do work for anyone else, nor I think does 
Aljex in general, but I don't mind sharing the process & the code.
Have him call us and run through a scanning demo with someone from sales 
or support and talk to Tom about getting the code He might not be 
willing to simply give it.

It works just like he's describing though. Use your app, which the users 
already know how to navigate, as the db & index for your document 
imaging. Just go to any place in your app and hit a key to either scan 
things into that record or view things that are already there. Works the 
same in-house or over the internet. It's a natural and users love it way 
better than most dedicated document imaging systems. The way we do it 
isn't tied to any particular terminal emulator. It works with Anzio, or 
with a modified PuTTY (free) included in the client pc installer, or 
with any of several other emulators that have any form of exec() feature 
(Facetwin, AniTA, SecureCRT at least)
Or it also works with no terminal emulator at all. The installer 
registers a special type of url in windows, which you can trigger from 
any terminal emulator that has a run-program escape sequence, or 
directly from a web page with no terminal. The url runs a tiny batch 
file that runs the scanner and uploads a pdf to the server via http-post.
http://install.aljex.com/AljexClient/Install%20Aljex%20Client%207.3.0.8.exe
That's the client part.
Putty is free, and the scanning util is free for us to distribute as 
part of our app, but you would have to get your own unlimited 
distribution license for the scanner library from Dynarithmic to 
redistribute it to your own users as part of your app. But it's a 
one-time thing. That's why I can post a link to it like that with no 
protections or serial numbers.

Once you add this feature to your app (be it with our stuff or Anzio or 
any other way) your customers will find your app indispensable and time 
saving etc.. Partly just because anyone anywhere can refer to the 
documents at will. No filing cabinet, no tracking down who has that 
customers file or the paperwork for that job, no walking to the fax 
machine to fax or email those pages to someone.

It does put a heavy new workload on your servers though. Image 
processing is heavy cpu work compared to anything you normally do in 
filepro, and it quickly fills up hard drives.
At low volumes and low user counts you might not notice at first, 
because you almost can't buy a server today that isn't over-spec for 5 
or 10 users doing just ordinary filepro work, so you can add some more 
work without noticing.
But dealing with scanned images quickly adds up to tax a server once you 
actually start using it a little.

-- 
bkw