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Conference iosg::all-in-1_v30

Title:	OLD ALL-IN-1 (tm) Support Conference
Notice:	Closed - See Note 4331.l to move to IOSG::ALL-IN-1
Moderator:	IOSG::PYE

Created:	Thu Jan 30 1992
Last Modified:	Tue Jan 23 1996
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	4343
Total number of notes:	18308

3923.0. "Empty cover letter gives blank page in DECfax" by COPCLU::COPLE4::GLARGAARD (Allan Glargaard, DS @DMO) Mon Feb 28 1994 10:12

  Hi!

  This is an old one, but I haven't found any discussion about it
  earlier, so here goes:

  If I send a WPS-PLUS document without a cover letter to DECfax, an
  empty page will be printed at the receiving end. The same happens if
  I forward a mail message without sending a cover letter.

  The kind DECfax people say that they can't detect the empty cover
  letter that ALL-IN-1 sends, so it must be encoded in some
  not-very-standard way. Forwarding with empty cover letters from DEC
  MAILworks does not produce this empty page, so it must be ALL-IN-1
  that doesn't behave.

  Any comments on this?

  As an aside: since ALL-IN-1 V3.next is more X.400 conformant that
  V3.0A, is there a chance that this problem will be fixed as a side
  effect of this conformance work? (sorry for asking about .next
  version in here, feel free to spank me for it :-))

  Best regards,
  Allan

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
3923.1	Well known difference in fnality between different products.	IOSG::MARSHALL	When you've got a widget, you don't need gimmicks	`Mon Feb 28 1994 11:47`	30
	Hi, It's not that ALL-IN-1 isn't behaving, it just uses a different model of bodypart handling. When you forward a document, it is sent as an attachment. Message Router (and X.400, and everything else) don't allow there not to be a main message for this attachment, so if you don't add a cover note, ALL-IN-1 adds an empty one on your behalf. When you read this normally, you see the mail header (Interoffice Memorandum, a list of TOs, CCs, etc), then there is no text above the "--ATTACHMENT--" line. If it is sent to something that doesn't display the mail header, it will print the empty main message, which comes out as a blank page. The reason this doesn't happen in DECMailworks is that they don't encode documents as attachments, but as multiple bodyparts of the main message. This means they don't need an empty cover note for the main message, as the first attachment effectively becomes the main message. ALL-IN-1 doesn't use multiple bodyparts per header as it would regress existing ALL-IN-1 functionality to do so. They way to send a document in ALL-IN-1 without needing a cover note is instead of using the Send or Forward options to send it, first use the MH option, which automatically converts it to a mail message. Then add addressees, etc, and Send as normal. Scott
3923.2	Any way to tell from vanilla ALL-IN-1 ?	COPCLU::COPLE4::GLARGAARD	Allan Glargaard, DS @DMO	`Mon Feb 28 1994 12:39`	16
	Scott, thanks for your good explanation of why this happens. I knew it had something to do with backward compatibility in ALL-IN-1 :-) The good DECfax engineering people have tried different ways of detecting this empty cover letter, but have not yet found a reliable way. So far we have two workarounds, yours requires user interaction and the other involves a special "Send via FAX" option on the WP menu. If you know of a reliable way to find out if a message from vanilla ALL-IN-1 contains an empty cover letter, please let me know and I'll be happy to relay it to DECfax land. Best regards, Allan
3923.3	One way...	IOSG::MARSHALL	When you've got a widget, you don't need gimmicks	`Mon Feb 28 1994 15:08`	7
	>> If you know of a reliable way to find out if a message from vanilla >> ALL-IN-1 contains an empty cover letter Do some kind of "Print to file" type operation and see if there are any printable characters in the file. Crude but effective... Scott
3923.4	Print to file and test if F$FILE( ,"EOF") = 0?	IOSG::PYE	Graham - ALL-IN-1 Sorcerer's Apprentice	`Tue Mar 15 1994 14:53`	0
3923.5	Well, maybe, but dont I need ...	COPCLU::COPLE4::GLARGAARD	Allan Glargaard, DS @DMO	`Wed Mar 16 1994 09:33`	17
	> -< Print to file and test if F$FILE( ,"EOF") = 0? >- Wouldn't I need a special set of .PRA/.PRC files without any setup strings in them? Else I would get the "printer" setup string in the file. Anyway, our users have been adviced that they should always send a cover letter, or else ... :-) I'll see if the guy who wrote a DOS viewer for .WPL files can make a program that can check if the document only contains ruler information and no text at all. Thanks y'all for your suggestions, best regards, Allan
3923.6		AUSSIE::GARSON	achtentachtig kacheltjes	`Thu May 19 1994 03:09`	7
	re .* A simple way to solve this problem is that if an empty cover letter is to be sent then it should be a TEXT file rather than a WPS-PLUS file. Granted that I don't know the full implications of that but I can't see that the user would see much difference and we (DECfax Mail) could certainly detect an empty text file.