make.coverpg(1)

💖 make.coverpg — the manual, but make it make sense 💖

okay bestie so this is make.coverpg from the mgetty+sendfax manual, and it's genuinely one of my faves because it's like… a template that does nothing until you make it do something. iconic behaviour honestly. 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

make.coverpg — create a fax coverpg on stdout 🦋

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

make.coverpg [options] <pages> <sender-ID> <sender-NAME> <receiver-ID>
<receiver-NAME> <date> <time>

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so the whole vibe here: make.coverpg gets called by faxspool(1) to generate a cover page for the fax it just finished processing. That's the job. That's the assignment. 🫶

it has to create a proper G3 file (like, e.g. via pbm2g3(1) or hp2hig3(1) or ghostscript(1)) and output that on stdout. that's the whole contract, no cap.

and here's the unhinged part: if the program doesn't exist, or can't be executed, the fax simply won't get a coverpage. literally nothing breaks, it just skips it. so like… if you don't want a fax coverpage? do not install it. that's the whole opt-out. 💀 periodt.

make.coverpg can put anything it wants on the page — it's your canvas, your main character moment — BUT heads up, certain countries have certain legal requirements about what has to be on the cover page. like the fax phone number of the sender and the recepient, the number of pages, or similar things. so read the room (and the law) before you get creative. 😭

make.coverpg gets the informations about the fax to be sent from the command line, in the order listed above. order matters, bestie, do not shuffle. 🎀

if the environment variable normal_res is set to something non-empty, faxspool requests that make.coverpg creates a cover page in normal resolution (98 lpi). default is fine resolution (196 lpi). so yeah, normal_res = "yes queen give me the 98 lpi" 🦋

NO make.coverpg program is installed by default, since everyones needs differ too wildly. you literally have to bring your own. slay, but DIY. 💅

some sample coverpage programs are provided in the mgetty source tree, in the samples/ subdirectory — coverpg.pbm shows how to do it with "pbmtext|pbm2g3", and coverpg.ps shows how I do it with ghostscript. so you got options, you got inspo. 🌸

in this directory, you can also find two shell scripts (fax and faxmemo) that will take advantage of one more esoteric feature of my coverpage programs: if called with the option "-m <memo-file>", the sample programs will put a text file "<memo-file>" on the cover page (used for short notes or such). it's giving "little sticky note energy" 🍓

to make use of it, faxspool is called with the option '-C "make.coverpg -m <memo-file>"' — and yes, the double quotes are needed! do not skip them. the quotes are the whole plot. 🔥

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• none — yeah. that's it. that's the options list. zero. nada. the options are a ✨vibe✨, not a feature. 💅

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✨ Example ✨

a five-page fax sent from me to my second number could result in a call like this:

make.coverpg 5 "+49-89-3243328" "Gert Doering" "3244814" "myself" "Sep
15 94" "22:10:00"

like look at that. pages, sender ID, sender name, receiver ID, receiver name, date, time. in order. chef's kiss. 👑 (and yes, the line break in there is just how it wrapped, it's one call.)

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✨ FILES ✨

• /usr/lib/mgetty-fax/make.coverpg — the program itself 🫶

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✨ SEE ALSO ✨

faxspool(1), pbm2g3(1), ghostscript(1)

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✨ AUTHORS ✨

The idea behind make.coverpg is Copyright (C) 1993 by Gert Doering, <gert@greenie.muc.de>, and the implementation will most likely have yours... 😭 (fr fr — the implementation is on you, bestie, that's the whole bit)

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and that's the page!! 🌈 shoutout to greenie for dropping this on 27 Oct 93 — the manual's dated 27 Oct 93 and sourced from greenie, which honestly is such an old-school flex. the mgetty+sendfax manual stays iconic, we love her, mwah 💖🎀🦋