Question

I have put together a small contacts management app in php for my personal use on my localhost. It has nice features as autocomplete search box and all.
Now as I am really lazy, I thought probably it would be possible to write an add-on to invoke my fax-modem and actually dial a number with a customized link. I mean something like:

<a href="NUMBER HERE" class="dial">NUMBER HERE</a>

The add-on will listen for click events on links with a class of ‘dial’ and pass the number to a program that can dial the number or manipulate the fax-modem directly to dial the number. After the number is dialed the function returns ‘false’ to cancel the click event.

My question is:
Is there a way to manipulate the fax-modem directly from code inside the add-on? How?
– or –
If the first approach is not possible, is there a way to call a batch file and pass the number to it as a parameter from within an add-on? How?

And all this is taking place on a windows XP machine.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Answer 1

Theoretically, you should be able to use the

<a href="fax:[phone]">Fax Me</a>

notation, from the RFC, but you’d need an application installed that handled the fax: protocol (which your fax software may well do).