Bila Vrana/BILA_VRANA.iso/019A/BGFAX160.ZIP/WHATS.NEW

Text File | 1996-06-22 | 27KB | 528 lines

Changes between BGFAX 1.60 and BGFAX 1.55                   SAT 21 JUNE 96
=========================================                   ==============

This 1.60 release has been in the works since February.  Over 75 changes,
bug fixes and new features have been made since BGFAX 1.55.  Rather than
list every single change as is usually done, I will only list the new
features and significant bug fixes.  For a complete list of changes, check
the "What's New" link on my web page.

We now have a U.K. registration site!  See REGISTER.UK
Compuserve SWREG registrations!  See REGISTER.FRM for more info
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BGFAX general changes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. BGFAX no longer needs an environment variable.  If the "BGFAX"
   environment variable is not found, the BGFAX.CNF file will be looked
   for in the same directory as BGFAX.EXE.  Any use of the "BGFAX"
   environment variable will override this new logic.

2. Have optimized the communications/timeslice routine in the DOS version
   somewhat.  The DOS version should no longer take up 100% of the CPU when
   receiving or transmitting a page under OS/2.  Also, the DOS version
   should run more smoothly with both DesqView and Windows.  (CPUUSE.EXE
   for Windows 3.1 reported 4% usage when BGFAX/DOS is waiting for a call,
   14% during page receive, and 38% spikes during interpage negotation.)
   A major problem with BGFAX 1.55 running in "slow motion" under DesqView
   has also been fixed.

3. Changed OS/2 version so that it now works with IBM's stock COM.SYS driver.
   Previous versions of BGFAX2.EXE would only work with Ray Gwinn's SIO.SYS.
   Now, it can work with both.

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Changes in BGFAX send mode
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. BGFAX /SEND mode can now send TIFF-Class-F files!  This is a very nice
   addition, since it allows much greater flexible in what documents are
   sent.  I tested sending TIFF-Class-F files made from BGFAX, Faxworks/2,
   and Word Perfect 5.1+/DOS, and all the documents faxed correctly.
   (BGFAX has had TIFF-Class-F receive capabilities for nearly a year now,
   and VIEW has had TIFF-Class-F viewing capabilties for several months
   now, but this is the first time /SEND has been able to process them.)

2. Numerous problems with Class 1 mode have been fixed.  Problems including
   not being able to transmit more than one page on some modems, non-stop
   failure to train errors, etc.

3. BGFAX /SEND mode will now create a SEND.DAT file after BGFAX finishes.
   The file will look like this:

FaxFilename 2pages.fax
FaxTelephoneNumber 7138939124
LastPageSuccessfullySent 2
TotalNumberOfPages 2

   This is a regular ASCII file, which contains information about the last
   fax sent, including (most importantly) the last page successfully sent.
   To use this information, you would need to write a program to examine
   and see if "LastPageSuccessfullySent" is equal to "TotalNumberOfPages".
   If not, this indicates a transmission failure, and you will need to
   resend the fax using the /SP:lastpagesuccessfullysent+1 logic, so that
   you need not resend the entire fax.

   This may also be useful on some of the buggier fax modems, where they
   (sometimes) do not return a successfully condition upon sending the
   last page, even though it was really sent.  What you would need to do,
   is see if the LastPageSuccessfullySent is one less than the
   TotalNumberOfPages, if so, you can "assume" (big assumption) that the
   last page might have actually gotten through even though the modem
   reports to BGFAX otherwise.

4. New BGFAX command line switch /NX
   This tells BGFAX that when sending faxes on Class 2 modems to "not
   wait for the initial XON" to be received.  This might be necessary
   on some older Intel(GVC OEM) fax modems.  Do not add this switch
   unless failed attempts in the BGFAX.LOG indicate "initial xon not
   received".

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Changes in BGFAX receive mode
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. BGFAX.EXE now uses a different interrupt with NFAX.COM since the interrupt
   used in the last version caused troulbe when running in OS/2 DOS boxes.
   If you use the /NF switch on BGFAX, be sure to that you replace any old
   version of NFAX.COM with the 1.60 version, and reboot the system.  (NFAX
   is a TSR program that puts the word "FAX" on the screen when any incoming
   faxes are received.)

2. Fixed a major bug relating to saving files in TIFF-F format.  Anybody
   telling BGFAX to save in Faxworks format should immediately upgrade to
   this release.  The problem was that many faxes were getting scrambled
   because the byte-alignment filter in BGFAX was not working very well,
   resulting in faxes containing 50% bad scan lines.
   (Remember Z=ZFAX format, Q=QuickLink II format, F=TIFF-Class-F format)

3. New BGFAX command line switch /NT
   This tells BGFAX that when receiving on Class 1 modems to "not
   check training".  Starting with BGFAX 1.60, the training information
   will be checked, and if more than 25% of the data is "bad", BGFAX
   will force the remote fax machine to step down to a lower speed.
   The /NT will override the retrain.

4. DOBBS.BAT and DOBBS.CMD will now have the PID number appended to them
   when BGFAX is running in /HOST /PID:nnn mode.  i.e., /PID:4 will cause
   BGFAX to make DOBBS4.BAT files and BGFAX4.LOG files to keep things from
   getting "confused".

5. BGFAX will now honor the FaxWorks's FAX.IDX file.  This is a standard
   ASCII text file that will be present in the receive fax directory.  If
   BGFAX finds it, it will find out the last fax number that FaxWorks thinks
   it has received, and use that as the maximum fax number.  BGFAX will
   also update the FAX.IDX file.

6. New TSR program ATOTSR.COM might be required if you are receiving in
   Class 1 mode with some Fido mailers.  See the ATOTSR section in BGFAX.DOC
   to find out if you need to use it.  If you tried to setup BGFAX before
   and noticed the word "DATA" would pop up on the screen with your Fido
   Mailer but you never got a "CONNECT nnnnn" message from the modem, you
   are probably need to use ATOTSR.COM.

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Changes in VIEW.EXE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. VIEW.EXE has a new feature when you are in page-view mode.  Alt-J
   and Alt-G will now allow you to jump ("goto") a specific page number.
   So, if you bring up page 1 and want to go to page 13, just hit Alt-J
   (or Alt-G, same thing since many people told me they prefered "jump"
   and some "goto", so I made everybody happy) and type in "13" at the
   prompt.  Note that if you save faxes in ZFAX format, the first time
   you use the "jump" function, a quick analysis of the fax will be
   performed.  On slow machines (less than 386), this may take a while.
   On files saved in QuickLink of TIFF-Class-F format, the jump should
   be instant.

2. VIEW.EXE now handles /PCX conversions differently.  It seems that NOBODY
   liked my convention of converting multiple page fax files into PCX files.
   (If you had a 3 page fax, it would make HELLO.PCX, HELLO.P02, HELLO.P03
   in the old version of VIEW.)  It has been reported to me that most image
   editing software is brain dead and it will not acknowledge a file is PCX
   format unless it has a "PCX" extension, so here is how things work now:

   "VIEW 2letters.fax /pcx" will create PAGE0001.PCX and PAGE0002.PCX.
   Notice that the filename base is completely missing from the target
   files.  I did this because I just personally HATE fax software that
   does a truncation to the base filename in order to stuff the page
   number at the end.  So, how will the image editing software know about
   these funny PAGE*.PCX files?  Well, know, VIEW will create a DOPCX.BAT
   file that says:

        CALL EXEPCX PAGE0001.PCX PAGE0001
        CALL EXEPCX PAGE0002.PCX PAGE0002

   So, you can now put the name of your image editing or OCR software in
   the EXEPCX.BAT file that you will produce, and pass the filename via
   the %1 variable (o