Fax program

[ttleser]

I'm looking to create a fax notification program that'll monitor when faxes are received and send notifications to all users. Currently we are using Microsoft's fax program on a server to receive faxes. Once a fax comes in, it's not printed automatically, but it stores the fax to a folder on the server. About 6-7 people around the company will normally be the people to get faxes. They'll check the folder for any new faxes. If there is, they'll move it to a folder to who it would belong to and then call the person to let them know the fax is in.

I was thinking of creating a program that would monitor the fax server, let's call it the server program. If a fax comes in, it would store some info in a file, like:

1. Date/time received.

2. File name of fax.

I'd like a "client" program running (at all times) on all the user's computers and have it flash some text when a fax is being received, and maybe display some information like:

1. Date/time received.

2. File name of fax.

3. Display Folder it was moved to (using the client program).

4. Display person who moved it.

5. If it was printed, who printed it (using the client program).

6. Small preview of the fax.

I'd have the all the client programs be updated when something happens, someone moves a fax using their program, prints it, etc..

My thought about the preview is I'll probably have to have the first page of the fax (.TIF) file copy/converted to a .JPG format since there doesn't appear to be an way to read a TIF in AutoIT.

So, my first set of questions would be:

1. How would I have an AutoIT script monitor a program and note when a certain text comes up on the screen? IE "(time here): Ringing"

2. How often would it check for a file being received?

3. How CPU intensive would this be?

4. How could the client script be notified when the server script receives a fax/is doing something?

I'm not looking for anyone to write it obviously, but instead give me some suggested functions for my questions above.

[Zedna]

My thought about the preview is I'll probably have to have the first page of the fax (.TIF) file copy/converted to a .JPG format since there doesn't appear to be an way to read a TIF in AutoIT.

So, my first set of questions would be:

1. How would I have an AutoIT script monitor a program and note when a certain text comes up on the screen? IE "(time here): Ringing"

2. How often would it check for a file being received?

3. How CPU intensive would this be?

4. How could the client script be notified when the server script receives a fax/is doing something?

I'm not looking for anyone to write it obviously, but instead give me some suggested functions for my questions above.

For display TIFF images you can use Autou3Lib and it's GDI+ functions

1. If Microsoft's fax program supports COM then ObjEvent

2. Sleep(500) or Sleep(1000) should be OK.

3. very low CPU usage

4. ObjEvent fires your AutoIt function

Edited August 21, 2007 by Zedna