From: knapp@cs.purdue.edu (Edgar Knapp)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: FaxSTF questions
Date: 5 Jan 1993 08:36:24 -0500
Organization: Purdue University
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: cabernet.cs.purdue.edu

In article <C0DAow.L7K@well.sf.ca.us> oster@well.sf.ca.us (David Phillip Oster) writes:

>I use it and hate it. My work macintosh is connected to my gateway macintosh
>via AppleShare, but when I make the FaxSpool folder on my work machine be
>an alias for the one on the gateway, FaxSTF refuses to use it. If they
>did this right, then all the machines on the appletalk net could just
>write spool files to the machine tthat actually has the fax connected to it.
>
>The gateway mac also has Appltelk Remote Access. Why can't STF detect that
>an incoming call is a data call, not a fax call, and hand the serial port
>off to Appltelk Remote Access, but receive fax calls as they come in.

Why do lay the blame on FAXsft alone. Why can`t ARA take over an ARA
call, and yield the port for a fax call?

Have you tried LineShare? I never could get it to work for me, but I
heard of other people who used it successfully. 

>Because I use a single phone line for a voice answering machine and for STF.
>I'm always having to turn off the modem to talk to someone who called in on
>that line. Then, when I go to fax, STF puts up an alert to tell me the fax 
>software isn't turned on.  

You get what you pay for. If you are too cheap to get a second phone
line, and consequeently overload your single phone line with phone,
answering machine, fax, ARA, and termininal emulation you cannot
possibly expect this to be convenient. Get a second data only phone
line.

There are also hardware devices (such as Fax Line Manager or ACCO
1-line plus) that switch between various data/voice alternatives
automatically.

>To turn it on I must
>1.) Open the chooser (and wait)
>2.) Select Fax as the output device (and wait)
>3.) Press the setup button
>4.) click on the Fax software icon
>5.) only now do I get a small radio button to turn the sftware ion.
>Often it doesn't work the first time, but does the second time.

RTFM. First of all, there is a shortcut to open the Chooser device
(<option>-click to avoid the delay). Second, the disks include a tiny
application called, surprise!, FaxStatus that toggles the status of
the fax software. Takes about 1 second to do.

>From a user inteface design standpoint, critical, common com manfds like
>enabling the software, and commanding it to answer the phone are buried deep,
>and given interfaces like: one choice of a set of radio buttons, anfd one
>choice of a pop up menu.

See above.

>It is not that the software is bad. (Although it does crash about one
>fax in 8.) It is just that I had assumptions I didn't even know I had about
>how it should have been designed from experience with things like SHIVA
>net modems, mac printers, and mac applications, and STF often seems to do
>things in ways I never expected.

I suggest you get a different fax software package. Try GlobalFax from
Global Village. I use both, FAXsft at home with a Supra, and GlobalFax
at work with a PowerPort/Gold. I have never had a crash. I can send
and receive in the background. I can receive manually and
automatically, schedule faxes for later transmission, etc. 

Edgar