What do you do for scanning from withing Filepro
Bob Rasmussen
ras at anzio.com
Wed Mar 29 18:48:03 PDT 2017
Brian, thanks for all the details. I'm learning a lot about options in
webpages, with an eye toward new ways to use Print Wizard in web-fronted
environments.
Is your solution known to work in Microsoft Edge (browser) in Windows 10?
It fails for me.
On Wed, 29 Mar 2017, Brian K. White via Filepro-list wrote:
> Here is a demo anyone can poke at, minus the filepro side, since you can only
> access this cgi, not log in to the server.
>
> Install whichever one of these applies to you:
> http://install.aljex.com/AljexClient/
>
> Then load this:
> http://oh7.aljex.com/cgi-bin/tsu?AKcZCKL96ENuIZhj7i6TB9UA5LYYNbeWx8VyPBSjNtqWj-dJ-aY.
>
> It's a demo system, feel free to upload images and delete them.
>
> See where it says "(invoice_public 73356)" ?
>
> I generated this url by going into the app, into the invoice file, to invoice
> number 73356, and hit an @key which ran the gosub to assemble and fire off
> this url.
>
> If you view source, you'll see that the scan button launches:
> as:,oh7.aljex.com,AKcZCKL96ENuIZhj7i6TB9UA5LYYNbeWx8VyKQO7c5iPkO5L
> which the browser hands off to the registered handler for that url, which is
> the batch or shell script.
> And at the same time it reloads the same current cgi with a new query string.
> The new query string loads the very same page, but with an option that also
> tells the cgi to wait for the expected file to appear behind the scenes
> before completing the redraw, this way when the user scans, the web page
> updates to include the new scan as soon as it's done.
>
> I think there is probably some slicker ajaxy way to get the web page to
> update and display the new scan after the user does a scan, but I'm not that
> sophisticated.
>
> If you don't have a scanner, the client-side will use a built-in single-page
> pdf. It actually uploads the file the same way it would have if it were a
> real scan. So you can go through all the same motions with or without a
> scanner. It's useful for debugging to show if the user has a local firewall
> preventing the upload vs an actual scanner problem or some server-side
> problem.
>
> --
> bkw
>
> On 3/29/2017 2:08 PM, Bob Rasmussen wrote:
>> Brian, thanks for the explanation. How do the server and the client-side
>> piece communicate, when no terminal emulator is involved? A socket?
>>
>> And how does the server know what the client's IP address is? Will this
>> all fail if Network Address Translation sits between client and server?
>>
>> On Wed, 29 Mar 2017, Brian K. White via Filepro-list wrote:
>>
>>> On 3/23/2017 5:13 PM, Boaz Bezborodko via Filepro-list wrote:
>>>> I'm looking to scan in files linked to specific Filepro records. This
>>>> is the first time I'm doing any kind of work like this.
>>>>
>>>> What methods do you folks use to accomplish this?
>>>> What software/hardware combinations make it easier?
>>>>
>>>> I was thinking of creating separate documents, saved to specific
>>>> directories, and storing the file names and locations in the record.
>>>> But I don't know what software to use that could trigger the scan and
>>>> specify the file name, directory, etc.
>>>>
>>>> I'm working with Filepro 5.6.10R9 running on Windows7 machines.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Boaz
>>>>
>>>
>>> I feel bad, I think we have a pretty neat scanning system we've been
>>> using for 15 years by now, but I just have not had *any* time the last
>>> couple weeks to show it to you. We just instituted all developers
>>> using git and not working as root. Not exactly a smooth and painless
>>> transition ;)
>>>
>>> Anyway our scanning process is mostly a cgi that runs in the web
>>> server on the same server with filepro, and a small client package (we
>>> have windows and osx versions) that has a commandline scanning util,
>>> which is run by os registry entries to recognize a custom url, and/or
>>> a terminal emulator that has a "run-program" escape sequence feature.
>>> You don't have to use the bundled terminal emulator, several other
>>> terminal emulators have a similar feature, but the included one is
>>> free and open source so no serial numbers or anything to worry about.
>>> Just click-n-go.
>>>
>>> Images are displayed to the user via web browser, and uploaded to the
>>> server via http-post, or by the user using a drag-n-drop area in the
>>> browser.
>>>
>>> In filepro you just fire off the right url which pops up the browser
>>> on the client to either display previous scans or allow uploading new
>>> ones. For more streamlined user process, you can also invoke the
>>> scan-and-upload directly from filepro in the terminal without popping
>>> up the browser.
>>>
>>> The files are stored on the filesystem in a directory structure that
>>> simply matches your applications natural filepro file structure. If
>>> you have an invoice file, and one of the records in the invoice file
>>> is invoice 236517, then the files for that invoice end up being stored
>>> in a path like:
>>> /pix/app-or-system-or-customer-name/invoice/23/65/17-###.pdf
>>> where ## is 1 to 100, up to 100 files per customer-doctype-docnumber
>>> triplex. The "docnumber" (invoice number in this case) is split up
>>> into 2-byte chunks just to keep the filesystem fast by not having a
>>> million files in any single directory.
>>>
>>> (in our case, we have multiple companies or customers using their own
>>> datasets (qualifiers) in the same application. So to address a
>>> document uniquely, you need 3 pieces of info, company, doctype (quote,
>>> invoice, check, etc), docnumber (quote#, invoice#, check#, etc).
>>>
>>> The worst part is the cgi ksh script that does all the work is kind of
>>> a big ugly monster by now after 15 years or so! But, it's still
>>> ultimately just a ksh script. There are a few other bits and pieces in
>>> total but it's pretty simple.
>>>
>>> You don't do much extra in filepro at all to add document imaging to
>>> any screen in your app. You mostly just add a gosub to any input table
>>> and edit 2 values at the top of the gosub for doctype and docnumber to
>>> whatever makes sense for that screen in your app.
>>>
>>> I'd say go to aljex.com and sit in on a sales demo, which will cover
>>> the scanning, and you can actually use it in the demo system yourself,
>>> but I don't know how much uninteresting trucking logistics stuff you'd
>>> have to suffer through to get to the scanning.
>>>
>>> The client-side code is not only free but open-source, except the
>>> windows scanning util is a commercial product we purchased. There are
>>> a few different similar utils that can be used for that. I do have a
>>> very crude open source scanning util also, but it it is really really
>>> crude. It only scans one page at a time, and only outputs a .bmp!
>>> There are open source graphics libraries that could be added and used
>>> to make a better scanner util, but I'm not a good enough c or windows
>>> developer to manage it. The client-side code for osx is 100% open
>>> source, including the scanning util, though the osx scanning util is
>>> simple and doesn't work on a lot of scanners. Apparently scanner
>>> drivers on osx are not consistent at all and many scanners come with
>>> their own scanner programs and that is the only thing that works with
>>> the scanner. But other scanners do support a common osx image capture
>>> api, and those work. The server side, I guess you would have to talk
>>> to our owner. I do have a crude proof-of-concept server-side script
>>> that is shareable which takes in a scan and just displays it back. But
>>> from there you can modify however you want. Even the crude script
>>> collects the file and displays it. So just add code to that to do
>>> something else with the file like save it in a directory structure of
>>> your choice.
>>>
>>> --
>>> bkw
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>>
>> Regards,
>> ....Bob Rasmussen, President, Rasmussen Software, Inc.
>>
>> personal e-mail: ras at anzio.com
>> company e-mail: rsi at anzio.com
>> voice: (US) 503-624-0360 (9:00-6:00 Pacific Time)
>> fax: (US) 503-624-0760
>> web: http://www.anzio.com
>> street address: Rasmussen Software, Inc.
>> 10240 SW Nimbus, Suite L9
>> Portland, OR 97223 USA
>>
>
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>
Regards,
....Bob Rasmussen, President, Rasmussen Software, Inc.
personal e-mail: ras at anzio.com
company e-mail: rsi at anzio.com
voice: (US) 503-624-0360 (9:00-6:00 Pacific Time)
fax: (US) 503-624-0760
web: http://www.anzio.com
street address: Rasmussen Software, Inc.
10240 SW Nimbus, Suite L9
Portland, OR 97223 USA
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