John asks:

> I need to send HTML pages (fully-formed HTML pages) via email directly from
>  the HP 3000.  The current solution is to use Netscape Navigator to visit
>  the page on the 3000, do a "send page" then use the Netscape email client
>  to email the page.  Rational Visual Test does the pointing and clicking on
>  the PC, but sometimes things just don't go right (Windows is only
>  Windows).  When Windows and Rational Visual test cooperate, the resulting
>  email looks great, so I know that Netscape is doing something right.
...
>  I've been told that I need to find an email program (SMTP) that will
>  recognize the file to be emailed as HTML and send the appropriate
>  content-type header.
>
>  Anyone know of such a program for the HP 3000?
>  If not, anyone know how hard it would be to write one?
>  Any sample source code?

By chance, our newest product, CUSoon, will do what you want. We've just
begun beta tests with a few customers, but I believe the product is hard
enough now to be put into production use.

However, CUSoon is not specifically HP3000-based. Although we expect you to
extract the list of names and mergeable variables off of a mainframe or
minicomputer, the emailer actually runs on any PC that you wish to use.
Because CUSoon is built around internet standard protocols (FTP, SMTP, etc.),
virtually any mainframe or mini that is compliant with those standards may be
used.

CUSoon works using the "watched folder" concept. On the HP3000, you create a
group (a "folder") which will be intentionally empty the majority of the
time. Every so often (the frequency of inquiry is at your discretion), CUSoon
will FTP into the group and download any file that happens to have been
inserted there by a host-run job. Once downloaded, CUSoon purges the file
from the host and begin to merge the variable information found in the file
with the specified templates (both HTML and plaintext), emailing the results
out to the world.

There's very little information up on the web about CUSoon at this point in
time, but we do have Microsoft Publisher-produced fact sheet that has been
converted to HTML available at:

     http://aics-research.com/cusoon/index.html
     http://aics-research.com/cusoon/page2.html

CUSoon is being designed to provide a corporate environment with the capacity
to create highly customized client emails, including the capacity to generate
very detailed tabular information in a very attractive format, such as you
might find in sending parts lists, shipping documents, bill of ladings, lists
of overdue library books, catalog sales information, etc. in a
self-configuring HTML format.

The computational capabilities intrinsic to CUSoon are extensive. Indeed, it
essentially uses the same numeric and text equation engines that we put into
QueryCalc. The advantage of this is that the data that you're drawing from
your database can be extracted in the most ugly, big-iron legacy format
imaginable (all caps, first and last names reversed, etc.) and still have the
data straightened out to appear especially attractive to the recipient.

The price for CUSoon is $2500. That's significantly higher than shareware,
but of course it's also significantly more capable. More than that, we fully
support the product and will be pleased to provide as much assistance as you
require to make your use a success.

Wirt Atmar

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