         File: Message.zip
       Author: John Cooke <bebox@dircon.co.uk>
      Release: 1.0 (1998-05-12)
Compatibility: R3
     Location: 
  Description: BMessage viewer. Supports D&D across machines!
        Notes:


COMPILING

    Open a Terminal
    cd to the directory that contains the makefile 
    type 'make'
    the app will be created in the exe directory


USING THE SOFTWARE

    Launch the app (I don't have to tell you how to do this :-)
    A window should appear with the legend "No Messages"
    Drag and drop ANYTHING into the window (Tracker, Rraster and rocolor
     are good apps to drag from)
    The dragged message will be decoded showing you the name, type and
     data value of each component.

SO WHAT?

    Well, that might be useful if you are debugging, but what else can it
    do?

    Well, you can drag from the Message application to somewhere else.
    Try dragging from Rraster into Message, then from Message into 
     another Rraster image. Do you get what you expected?
    Or try this
        > from a Tracker window create a Duplicate of a file
        > drag this file into Message
        > now drag from Message into the Trash
        (that's why I got you to make a Duplicate first :-)

NOW WHAT?

    Pull down the File menu and click Open, choose 3girls.msg which is
     in the samples directory that came with the Message source code.
    Drag this onto an Rraster image.

    Or try this, drag a rectangle from Rraster to Message. Choose File>Save
    from the menu and save the message to a file. Mail this file to a
    friend (preferably someone on the other side of the planet). Get your
    friend to open the file using Message (assuming he has downloaded it!)
    then he can drag from Message onto an Rraster image. 
    You have just dragged-and-dropped an image over 10,000 miles - not bad, eh?


MIME TYPES

	The APP_SIG of the app is application/x-Vnd.JohnCooke-message

	The TYPE of a saved (flattened) BMessage is application/x-Vnd.Be-message
	(which I hope Be adopts as a standard)

	All of the icons for these are in the resource file res/Message.rsrc
	(in case they don't get picked up by the FileTypes database)


SUPPORT

	email the author <bebox@dircon.co.uk>
