Readme file for MessyDesk and MessyBoard
February 12, 2003

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MessyDesk and MessyBoard were written by Adam M. Fass, a Computer Science Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University.

e-mail: afass@cs.cmu.edu
web: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~afass

CAUTION:  MessyDesk and MessyBoard are research projects built by a lone graduate student, not commercial software supported by a large company.  Use these programs at your own risk.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: MessyDesk and MessyBoard automatically record your activity.  See the "PRIVACY" section for details.

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CONTENTS
* GETTING MESSYDESK AND MESSYBOARD
* SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
* USING MESSYDESK
  - Decorating
  - Preferences
  - Saving
  - Capturing
  - Minimize
  - Partial Desktop
* USING MESSYBOARD
  - Decorating
  - Name Tags
  - Capturing
  - Using The Screen Saver
  - Connecting Automatically
  - Using The Projection Client
  - Running A MessyBoard Server
* KNOWN PROBLEMS
* PRIVACY
  - MessyDesk
  - MessyBoard

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GETTING MESSYDESK AND MESSYBOARD
--------------------------------

*** You must have DirectX 8 or higher or MessyDesk and MessyBoard will not work.  If you have Windows XP then you should have it already, but if you have Windows 2000 then you may need to upgrade.  Get DirectX from:
http://www.microsoft.com/directx/

Go to:
http://www.messyboard.com/
And download the file "Messy_*.zip" (* represents the version number)

Unzip the contents into a single directory anywhere on your hard drive.

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USING MESSYDESK
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Start MessyDesk by running "MessyDesk.exe".  MessyDesk will create a new empty desktop.  (Your old Windows desktop is not affected and it will be there when you exit MessyDesk.)

To get the main menu, right-click anywhere on the desktop.

---Decorating---

Select "Add" from the menu to add notes, pictures, shortcuts, web links, thought bubbles, capsules, or arrows.

You can also add notes, pictures, shortcuts, or web links using drag and drop or cut and paste from any other application.  The Paste command is available on the menu or you can press Ctrl-V.

For example, you can drag pictures or text directly from your Internet Explorer web browser onto the desktop.  You can also drag files or folders onto the desktop to create shortcuts or pictures.  Drag or paste a URL to create a web link.

You can modify existing notes and pictures by right-clicking on them.  You will see the standard menu with some additional options for the item that you clicked on.

You can copy images from MessyDesk into other applications by right-clicking them and selecting "Copy Image" from the menu.  You can copy text from notes by selecting the text and pressing Ctrl-C.

---Preferences---

Select "Preferences" from the menu to set your default note color, text color, and font.  These are stored in the Windows registry.

---Minimize---

Select "Minimize" from the menu to minimize MessyDesk.  This allows you to access the traditional Windows desktop.  You can bring MessyBoard back up my clicking the icon on the task bar.

---Saving---

MessyDesk automatically creates a file called "default.dwn" in the directory where MessyDesk.exe is located.  This file is loaded automatically when MessyDesk starts.  Select "Open Desktop", "Save Desktop", and "Save Desktop As" to create and manage other desktops.

---Capturing---

Daily Capture runs automatically and it takes a snapshot every day at midnight and every time it is shut down.  Images are saved in the "DailyCapture" directory, which is created in the same location as MessyDesk.exe.  To disable Daily Capture, select it from the menu.

To make MessyDesk take snapshots of itself whenever a change is made, select "Auto Capture" from the menu and choose a directory where the images should be saved.  This feature is not recommended, since the images are large and MessyDesk may freeze for a second while capturing itself.  This feature is more useful in MessyBoard.

---Partial Desktop---

You can use command line options to make MessyDesk cover a single monitor or an arbitrary rectangle instead of covering your entire desktop.  This way you can use your existing desktop and MessyDesk at the same time.

To make it cover a single monitor, use "-monitor n" where n is the zero-based number of the monitor.  (Monitor numbers do not match the numbers in the Windows display settings dialog box.  You'll have to use trial and error to figure out which is which.)

Example:
MessyDesk -monitor 1

To make it cover an arbitrary rectangle, use "-rect left top right bottom".  Numbers are in desktop-space coordinates, where the origin is at the top left corner of the primary monitor.

Example: a thin strip along the top of the primary monitor
-rect 0 0 1024 768

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USING MESSYBOARD
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Start MessyBoard by running "MessyBoard.exe".  You will be prompted for a server address, which is a standard IP address followed by a colon and a port number.  You can try connecting to the "visitors" server at this address:

128.2.185.249:2370

MessyBoard may take a few seconds to connect and display a window.  To get the main menu, right-click anywhere in the window.

---Decorating---

Select "Add" from the menu to add notes, pictures, web links, thought bubbles, captions, or arrows.

You can also add notes, pictures, and web links using drag and drop or cut and paste from any other application.  The Paste command is available on the menu or you can press Ctrl-V.

For example, you can drag pictures or text directly from your Internet Explorer web browser onto MessyBoard.  Drag or paste a URL to create a web link.

You can modify existing notes and pictures by right-clicking on them.  You will see the standard menu with some additional options for the item that you clicked on.

You can copy images from MessyBoard into other applications by right-clicking them and selecting "Copy Image" from the menu.  You can copy text from notes by selecting the text and pressing Ctrl-C.

To set a background image, first add the image to MessyBoard.  Once it has been added, you can right-click it and select "Make Shared Area Background" from the menu.

---Name Tags---

A name tag on MessyBoard shows everyone that you use the board.  It stores your default colors and font and lets everyone else know what they are.

Select "Add" from the menu and then select "Name Tag" to add a name tag.  Click on the text to enter your name, and click on the small circle to log in.  The circle will turn yellow and your name will appear in the title bar of the window.

Change the text color, background color, and font of the name tag to change your default colors and font.  New notes that you create will automatically have those settings.

If you use MessyBoard on more than one machine, you can log in with your name tag and you will automatically get your default font and colors.

---Capturing---

To make MessyBoard take snapshots of itself whenever a change is made, select "Auto Capture" from the menu and choose a directory where the images should be saved.

---Using The Screen Saver---

The MessyBoard screen saver shows MessyBoard when your computer is idle.  To install it, start up MessyBoard, connect to any server, and select "Screen Saver" from the menu.  The Windows Screen Saver dialog will pop up with the MessyBoard screen saver selected.

To configure the screen saver, press the "Settings" button.  The screen saver cycles through a list of servers, and you can set a separate list for each of your displays.  To look at the lists for each display, press the arrows next to the "Servers for Monitor:" label.

Use the "Add..." and "Remove" buttons to add new servers or remove them from the list for the current display.

The "Switch Servers every _blank_ minutes" controls how often the screen saver will switch from one server to the next.

If you enable monitor power management, the MessyBoard screen saver will switch your monitor on and off at designated times.  This way your monitor can be on all day so that other people can see your screen saver and you can still save power at night.  This is independent of your Windows monitor power management, so you may want to turn that off from the Windows screen saver dialog (Press the "Power..." button next to the Energy Star logo".

While the Screen Saver is running, you can press the space bar to cycle through the list of servers manually.

The MessyBoard screen saver does not exit when you move the mouse or press any key.  This allows you to interact as you normally would.  To dismiss the screen saver, press the escape key or select "Exit" from the menu.  (The screen saver sometimes loses keyboard focus, so you may have to click on it before pressing the escape key.)

---Connecting Automatically---

If you don't want to type the address every time you start the program, you can make MessyBoard connect to a server automatically.  Here's what you need to do:

1. Right-Click MessyBoard.exe and select "Create Shortcut".  A shortcut will be created.

2. Right-Click on the shortcut and select "Properties".  Go to the "Shortcut" tab.  The "Target" field should show the full path of the program, possibly with quotes around it.  Add the following text to the end of the field, after the quotes:

-server 128.2.185.249:2370

(Change the address to make it connect to a different server.)

Press the "Ok" button.

3. Double-click the shortcut, and it should now connect to the server automatically.  You can move the shortcut anywhere you want, including the desktop.  You can make different shortcuts to connect to different servers.

---Using The Projection Client---

The projection client covers the entire display with MessyBoard.  On a machine with a single display, you can run Projection.exe and it will cover the entire desktop.  You may wish to hide the Windows Task Bar so that only MessyBoard is visible.

On a multi-display machine, you can specify which monitor the projection client will run on.  Create a shortcut for Projection.exe like you did for MessyBoard.exe in the previous section.  Bring up the shortcut properties and add the following text to the end of the "Target" field:
-monitor 1

The number after the -monitor option specifies which monitor it will appear on.  Monitor numbers start at 0.  You can specify the -server and -monitor options at the same time.

---Running A MessyBoard Server---

The MessyBoard server is not included in the distribution.  Please contact me by e-mail if you want me to set up a server for you or if you would like to run your own server.  My address is afass@cs.cmu.edu

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KNOWN PROBLEMS
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* Dragging and dropping images from Netscape does not work, but you can cut and paste.

* Dragging an image from Internet Explorer will not work if the image is a link.  Instead of the image, you'll get a web link.  Use cut and paste instead.

* The BMP files saved by Auto Capture and Daily Capture may not be compatible with some image viewers.  I recommend using ACDSee: http://www.acdsystems.com

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PRIVACY
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MessyDesk and MessyBoard are research projects, and one of the reasons that I am distributing them is to observe how people use them.

---MessyDesk---

MessyDesk can automatically take snapshots (bitmaps) of itself at midnight and every time it is shut down.  MessyDesk only captures its own content, and it does not capture other windows or record any other information about what you do with your computer.

The first time you run MessyDesk, you will be asked if you want to capture snapshots.  If you press the "No" button, MessyDesk will not capture any snapshots.  Either way, you can change your mind at any time by selecting "Daily Capture" from the main menu.

The snapshots are stored in the "DailyCapture" directory, which is automatically created in the directory where MessyDesk.exe is located.  These images are not automatically sent anywhere.

I may contact you at some point and ask you if you want to send me your snapshots.  You do not have to do this.  If you save your snapshots and send them to me, that will help me discover how people are using MessyDesk and how I can improve it.

---MessyBoard---

The MessyBoard server takes a snapshot every time a change is made, and I save all of them.  These snapshots may be used in research papers and talks and on web sites.  The server also saves the contents of each board every night at midnight so that I can restore the boards after a power outage or server crash.  The server does not record any information about who is posting material on MessyBoard.  MessyBoard only captures its own content, and it does not capture other windows or record any other information about what you do with your computer.

Any MessyBoard is accessible to anyone who knows the IP address and port number of the server.  No attempt has been made to keep any of this information secret, so if you post content on MessyBoard then it is possible for anyone to observe your activity.

IF YOU DO NOT WANT YOUR ACTIVITY RECORDED AND OBSERVED, DO NOT USE MESSYBOARD!!!
