What do you do for scanning from withing Filepro
Brian K. White
brian at aljex.com
Thu Mar 30 10:05:24 PDT 2017
Another possibility is the scanner must have a TWAIN driver installed.
The scanning util doesn't support WIA or ISIS.
--
bkw
On 3/29/2017 9:48 PM, Bob Rasmussen wrote:
> 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
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Filepro-list mailing list
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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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