	As information increasingly becomes our most valuable commodity, we inevitably seek means to automate the transfer and storage of important data. While postal services and specialized couriers fulfil a large proportion of this demand, there are instances when it is critical for documents to be transmitted almost instantly. For those involved in consulting, product promotion or publishing, there are moments when something positively, absolutely has to be there -- now. Available in North America through Expert Services, TrapFax from Austria's TrapDoor Development offers a viable solution to this dilemma.

	As its name suggests, TrapFax ($129.95) is an integrated fax management utility which provides fax transmission, scheduling and phonebook facilities. Requiring revision 2.04 of the operating system, a hard drive and a minimum of 512k of available memory, TrapFax offers support for any Class 2 CCITT TR29.2 modem with fax transfer capabilities. The package consists of a single program disk and a nicely documented, spiral bound manual. I took the opportunity to test the program an A3000 system equipped with 8 MB of RAM, a Picasso II graphics adaptor and revision 3.1 of the operating system.

	

Installation and Setup



	Transferring TrapFax from the installation disk to an internal hard drive is accomplished by means of Commodore's standard Install utility. By simply double-clicking on the TrapFax-Install icon you are able to specify the destination drawer and whether or not to include the sample files and Multiview fax datatype. Once this process has completed you are ready to venture into the world of automated fax transmission and management.

	Adopting an implementation strategy similar to its predecessors on other platforms, TrapFax transparently integrates itself with the rest of the system. Activating TFaxAnswer monitors all incoming calls and stores any received faxes in a user-specified location. On the transmission side, virtually any program which has provisions for printed output instantly becomes capable of transmitting a fax. The program accomplishes this by intercepting and redirecting all printed information from the standard output device to the TrapFax driver. If for example, you would like to send a press release or product announcement which you have generated within Final Writer or Pagestream, you would simply activate the TrapFax driver and then invoke the printing option within either of these applications. Toggling between the standard printer output and fax modes is simply a matter of double-clicking on the TFaxPrinter utility.



Fax Management



	Once you have chosen to print a document from within your current application, TrapFax allows you to direct the resulting fax to an appropriate phone number by means of its queuing module. The TFaxQueue utility provides options for specifying fax recipients and their corresponding numbers, either individually or by means of a phonebook. This approach will prove to be especially helpful to those users that frequently send faxes to a set of clients or contacts. In addition, the TrapFax queue manager allows you to specify the time at which to send a fax and the duration to be used to compensate for busy signals or downtime at the receiving end. Once the specified time limit has expired, you may optionally select to resend the fax the following day at the same time. All fax transmission attempts are conveniently logged in a data file, with records indicating the sequence, times, remote fax identification numbers and other pertinent information.

	The program also makes it possible to add, delete, view a fax or edit the scheduling or phonebook information as desired. Arexx users will especially appreciate the program's ability to automate repetitive tasks and to customize the program for unattended fax transmission and reception. In fact, because TrapFax offers a modular design, it is quite conceivable that you could use it as the basis of a cost-effective 'fax-back' system for on-demand information transfer. When you take into account the program's support for both networked environments and TrapDoor's self-titled Fidonet mailer package, you quickly begin to appreciate its power and sophistication.



Accessories



	Apart from the central TFaxQueue utility, TrapFax offers a bevy of programs for making fax management an even more intuitive process. Perhaps the most important of these is the TFaxView application. This module allows you to load outgoing or incoming faxes saved in the FAXX IFF format, and to either print a hardcopy of the fax or to export it as an ILBM bitmap for use in other programs. A particularly handy element of this program is the selection feature, which allows you to clip select regions of the fax and copy the area to the clipboard or to a file. Among the other useful utilities bundled with TrapFax, the authors have thoughtfully added a TFaxJoin application, which allows you to append fax pages to one another.



Just the Fax



	As a new entry into the realm of Amiga productivity packages, TrapFax offers the versatility and elegance of well-seasoned veterans. The user interface, Arexx support and execution are all first rate and position the program as a standout in its class. Even those relatively unfamiliar with fax transfer technology will find the program to be easy to use, yet capable of supporting even the most demanding environments. And provided that you have carefully configured your page dimensions and transfer settings, you will find that transmissions are flawless.

	This is not to say that TrapFax has reached the apex of its development however. By far the most glaring omission in the current release is the lack of support for Class 1 fax modems. While the industry has gravitated somewhat towards the Class 2 standard, those users with popular modems such as the US Robotics Sportster series will be disappointed that TrapFax will not be of any help to them. Fortunately, the authors have indicated that they are working on support for the Class 1 standard, and this may be incorporated into the program by the time you read this.

	Another minor area in which TrapFax could stand for improvement is in handling outgoing calls. At the present time, the program dials out as a background process. While this is a convenient and efficient approach, it is quite difficult to cancel a call once it is in progress. In future editions, I'd like to see an option available for cancelling or retrying a call as desired. As you can imagine, if you type in an incorrect number and step out for a moment, you could come back and discover that you have a rather irate person on the other end of the line. A related concern is the current duration system which is used to determine the time in which repeated attempts will be made to gain a connection. I'd prefer to see this option specified as an absolute number which would indicate the number of attempts rather than the total calling time.

	Finally, TrapFax would become a virtually unbeatable program if it made provisions for a few extra features. Automatically appending predefined cover sheets to outgoing fax transmissions would be a welcome addition, as would the ability to "drag and drop" ASCII and IFF files for automatic detection and transfer. Those concerns aside, the authors of TrapFax should be heartily commended for their efforts. This program that fills a major void in the area of Amiga productivity software and further attests to the fact that the platform is equally suited to the demands of business and information management.

	But please excuse me, I see that I have an incoming fax...



Contact Information:



Expert Services

7559 Mall Road

Florence, KY 41042-1401

USA

(606) 371-9690

(606) 282-5942 (FAX)



Village Tronic Marketing Gmbh.

Wellweg 95

D-31157 Sarstedt

Germany

+49 (5066) 7013-0

+49 (5066) 7013-49

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