ANSWER(1L)

NAME
answer - phone message transcription system

SYNOPSIS
answer

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 uses its own alias set (usually a subset of the system aliases, with more fields per user (ie unique first names, unique last names, first-initial lastname, and so on)). Note this means that you must create and then install, using newalias, a separate alias table for the account this program is to be run from.

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, and then enter the message, ending with a blank line. 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.

AUTHOR
Dave Taylor, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories

SEE ALSO
The Elm Alias System Users Guide , by Dave Taylor

newalias(1L), checkalias(1L), mail(1), mailx(1), from(1L), printmail(1L)

FILES
$HOME/.elm/aliases.text individual alias source
$HOME/.elm/aliases.hash individual alias hash table
$HOME/.elm/aliases.data individual alias data table
/tmp/snd.$$ edit buffer for outgoing mail

BUG REPORTS TO
Syd Weinstein    elm@DSI.COM    (dsinc!elm)

COPYRIGHTS
© Copyright 1986, 1987 by Dave Taylor
© Copyright 1988, 1989, 1990 by The USENET Community Trust