ANSWER(1L)ANSWER(1L)NAMEanswer - phone message transcription system
SYNOPSISanswer [ -pu ]
DESCRIPTION
Answer is a part of the Elm mail system and is designed
for secretaries and the like to allow them to answer
phones and|or listen to phone message machines and quickly
and easily transcribe the messages into electronic mail.
The program will use standard mail addresses or aliases
included in the standard .elm directory alias files. It
can also use its own alias set (usually a subset of the
system aliases, with more fields per user (i.e. unique
first names, unique last names, first-initial last name,
and so on)). Note that if you want to use this capabil
ity, it means that you must create this alias set and then
install it, using newalias, as a separate alias table for
the account this program is to be run from.
Options are:
-p Prompt for phone slip type message fields.
-u Allow names that are not in the alias table.
Without this option all names must be resolvable
as aliases and answer will reprompt for a new
name if the alias cannot be resolved.
Interface-wise, the program is a breeze to use - type
'answer' to start it up and then merely type a user name
at the
Message to:
prompt, fill in the requested information (simply type an
"x" next to the pertinent information - "TELEPHONED",
"PLEASE CALL", "URGENT", etc. if the -p option was given),
and then enter a message, if any, ending with a blank
line. If you elect to use the special alias file, names
can be entered as 'Firstname Lastname' and the system will
try to find a mail alias based on the first letter of the
first name plus the last name. For example, 'Dave Taylor'
will cause the program to search for an alias 'd_taylor'
in the file (note the transliteration into lower case).
The program will loop until killed or quit.
Answer can be easily exited by typing any of 'quit',
'exit' 'done', or 'bye' at the 'Message to:' prompt.
USENET Community Trust Elm Version 2.5 1
ANSWER(1L)ANSWER(1L)AUTHOR
Elm Development Group
SEE ALSO
The Elm Alias System Users Guide
newalias(1L), checkalias(1L), mail(1), mailx(1), frm(1L),
printmail(1L)FILES
$HOME/.elm/aliases.text individual alias source
$HOME/.elm/aliases.dir individual alias dbz direc
tory table
$HOME/.elm/aliases.pag individual alias dbz hash
table
$HOME/.elm/aliases individual alias data table
/tmp/snd.$$ edit buffer for outgoing
mail
BUG REPORTS TO
Bill Pemberton flash@virginia.edu
COPYRIGHTS
Copyright 1988-1995 by The USENET Community Trust
Derived from Elm 2.0, Copyright 1986, 1987 by Dave Taylor
USENET Community Trust Elm Version 2.5 2
