viewfax - display fax files in an X11 window


SYNOPSIS

       viewfax  [-fnluirv24]  [-hheight]  [-wwidth]  [-zzoom] [-ddisplay]
       [-gwxh+x+y] [-bbell] [-mmemory] filename...


DESCRIPTION

       viewfax displays one or more fax files in an  X11  window.
       The  input  files  may  be  either  raw, single-page faxes
       received by a fax modem with a program such as  mgetty(1),
       or  tiff  files  such as those used by hylafax.  The first
       (or only) page of "PC-Research"-style (DigiFAX) files pro­
       duced  by  the ghostscript dfaxhigh or dfaxlow drivers can
       also be displayed.

       Input files using any common fax encoding such as group  3
       (1 and 2 dimensional) and group 4 can be displayed.

       The  fax  images  are rendered at full resolution and then
       successively scaled down by a linear factor of 2 prior  to
       display, until they fit on the screen.  The display can be
       controlled interactively using  mouse  and  keyboard  com­
       mands.   The left mouse button expands the image by a fac­
       tor of two and the right button reduces  it  by  the  same
       factor.   If the image is bigger than the available window
       size, the middle mouse button can be used to reposition it
       within  the  window.   Hold  down  the middle button while
       dragging the image to its new position.

       Further interaction is controlled by single-key commands:

       h or Help
              displays a page of help information.  Type  'q'  to
              return to the original document.

       p or Prior or PgUP or - or BackSpace
              displays  the  previous  page from the command-line
              list.

       n or Next or PgDn or + or space
              displays the next page from the command-line  list.

       Shift HOME
              displays the first page from the command-line list.

       Shift END
              displays the last page from the command-line  list.

       z      zoom in (same as right mouse button).

       Shift Z
              zoom out (same as left mouse button).

              fax was originally  fed  the  wrong  way  into  the
              machine.

       Shift U
              turns this and all following pages upside down.

       l      turns  the  image through 90 degrees, to view land­
              scape text.

       Shift L
              turns this and all following pages sideways.

       m      produce a left/right mirror image of the page.

       Shift M
              mirror this and all following pages.

       cursor arrows
              reposition the displayed image if  it  exceeds  the
              window size.

       HOME   repositions so that the top left corner is visible.

       END    makes the bottom right corner visible.

       q      terminates the program.

       Shift Q
              terminates the program with non-zero  exit  status.
              Can  be used to abort a shell script, e.g. when the
              user is previewing an outbound fax and decides  not
              to send it.


OPTIONS

       viewfax  is  designed  to  "do the right thing" when given
       just a filename.  Special cases can be  handled  with  the
       following options.  (Note that tiff-files contain a header
       which overrides the -f, -n, -h, -w, -l, -m, and -u flags.)

       -f     indicates  that raw input files are fine resolution
              (7.7 lines/mm) faxes.  This is the  default  unless
              the  filename  begins  with  "fn".   Tiff  and "PC-
              Research" (DigiFAX) files are self-specifying.

       -n     indicates that raw input files are  normal  resolu­
              tion  (3.85  lines/mm)  faxes.   Each  fax  line is
              duplicated in the displayed image to give  approxi­
              mately equal vertical and horizontal scales.

       -hheight
              specifies  the number of fax lines.  If this option
              is missing, viewfax counts the number of  lines  in
              the input file.

              specifies  the  number of pixels in each scan-line.
              The default value is 1728.

       -l     display in landscape mode.

       -u     turn the image upside down.

       -i     invert pixels (black/white).

       -b     preferred warning style: 'a' for audible bell (con­
              sole  beep),  'v'  for visible bell (flash the win­
              dow), 'n' for neither.  'v' is the default.

       -d or -display
              use specified X server

       -g or -geometry
              the preferred size  and  position  of  the  window,
              specified  as  widthxheight+x+y.   If a position is
              given (x and y values),  viewfax  asks  the  window
              manager  to  place  the  window there.  The initial
              size of the window is constrained  to  be  at  most
              widthxheight.

              If  the  window  is subsequently resized due to the
              user zooming in or out, the geometry is taken as  a
              constraint  on the screen area which may be used by
              viewfax.

              If you do not supply a geometry  value,  everything
              works  fine  with  ICCCM-compliant  window managers
              like olwm, mwm, twm, and tvtwm.  When fully  zoomed
              out  the  viewfax  window  will  occupy  the entire
              screen.

              Users of fvwm will notice that the  title  bar  and
              left border are moved off screen when viewfax repo­
              sitions the window to (0,0).  A  workaround  is  to
              use  -geometry  +5+23  when using fvwm.  The proper
              fix would be for someone to update the routine Han­
              dleConfigureRequest()  in  fvwm/events.c  to corre­
              spond to the code in twm/events.c.

       -mmemory limit
              each page is kept in memory after being fetched and
              expanded,  which  saves time if the user returns to
              it in the same session.  To  prevent  viewfax  from
              using  all  the  available  swap  space, a limit is
              placed on the total size of  cached  images.   This
              defaults  to  4  MBytes, enough for about 6 typical
              pages.  If the memory limit is exceeded, old images
              are discarded and must be reloaded from disk if the
              user  returns  to  them.   The  operation  of  this

              delays due to reloading.  The  value  specified  on
              the  command  line can be suffixed k or m for kilo-
              or megabytes.

       -r     the bit order of the bytes in  the  input  file  is
              reversed.   The  fax  specification deals only with
              serial data transmission.  Modem manufacturers have
              to  decide whether the first bit received should be
              placed in the most significant or the least signif­
              icant position in a byte.  The consensus is to pack
              most significant first, but the -r flag  is  avail­
              able to deal with the opposite order.

       -v     produce some informative messages (verbose mode).

       -zzoom specifies an initial zoom factor.  A full-scale fax
              will usually not fit on  the  screen.   If  the  -z
              option  is  not specified, viewfax scales the image
              by a power of 2 such that it is fully visible at  a
              reduced size.  The user can then use the mouse but­
              tons (see above) to view expanded portions  of  the
              image.

       -2     Assume  that raw input files use group 3 two dimen­
              sional coding.

       -4     Assume that raw input files  use  group  4  coding.
              The  number of fax lines (-h option) is required in
              this case.


SEE ALSO

       mgetty     (http://alpha.greenie.net/mgetty/)     controls
       data/fax/voice modems.

       hylafax  (ftp://sgi.com/sgi/fax)  is  a  full-function fax
       client/server system.

       g3topbm(1) and xv(1) can be used in  a  pipeline  to  view
       faxes.   This  will  usually be slower than using viewfax,
       but xv has many capabilities for  manipulating  the  image
       and saving it in other formats.

       xli(1)  can  display  a  wide  variety  of  image formats,
       including g3 faxes.  Version 1.15 has difficulty recognis­
       ing damaged fax files.

       faxview.tcl,  (ftp://ftp.leo.org/pub/comp/os/unix/network­
       ing/mgetty/faxview.tcl.gz) a simple dialog for viewing FAX
       messages  by Ralph Schleicher (rs@purple.in-ulm.de).  This
       is a useful tool which provides a  file  menu  from  which
       incoming faxes can be selected for display with viewfax.

       Group 3 Facsimile Apparatus for Document Transmission.

       CCITT  (now  ITU)  Recommendation  T.6,  Facsimile  Coding
       Schemes and Coding Control Functions for Group 4 Facsimile
       Apparatus.


BUGS

       The user interface does not comply with  any  known  style
       guide.
       The  help text looks moth-eaten because it is encoded as a
       fax.  This avoids dealing with X11 fonts.
       The program does not refer to the X resources database.


AUTHOR

       Frank D. Cringle (fdc@cliwe.ping.de).


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