As you’ve no doubt already noticed, creating your own Misebirakasu requires a resource editor. Resorcerer is highly recommended, and is the sole resource editing tool used by the author.
It is also highly recommended that you use the latest version of Misebirakasu, and to that end, you should probably read the new chapter entitled “Upgrading Old Copies.”
Working on a copy of the “blank” Misebirakasu included in this package-
To be considered a chapter, a pair of TEXT/styl resources must have the same ID. Misebirakasu loads TEXT/styl 128 as the first chapter. Chapters must be numbered consecutively starting with 128. The name that appears in the Chapters menu is the name of the corresponding TEXT resource. If you don’t want more than one chapter, just make sure you only have one set of TEXT/styl resources (must be ID 128). The Chapters menu will not appear in this case, and neither will the chapter switching buttons and the status bar. The name of the TEXT resource will be used as the name of the Chapter.
In the Finder, change the name of the Misebirakasu application to whatever you want to call your text. The name of the display window will be changed to the name of the application when the application starts up.
Also in the Finder, set the Finder Memory Partition for Misebirakasu, using the following guidelines:
Add 100k to the total size of your largest TEXT/styl resource pair. This is the minimum to which you should set Misebiraksu’s memory. This is actually a conservative estimate, but a safe one.
If you use pictures, be aware that Misebiraksu now keeps all of the current Chapter’s pictures in memory for speed.
If Misebirakasu crashes, you know the amount of memory is too low, unless it’s my fault, in which case it would be a good idea to report what happened.
Optional Modifications
‚å•8000 Pictures Within the Text
Type a Control-S, then the resource ID of the picture you want to display there. You must use four characters for the id number: thus, 0128 is OK, but 128 is not.
‚å•8000 Icons and Styles in the Chapters menu
Your Chapter menu can have icons, styles and command keys, just like the Chapter menu in this Misebirakasu. To do this, you must add special characters to the titles of your Chapters. These characters won’t show up in the menu or the status bar. Warning: you must not put ( (open parentheses) in a Chapter name. This will disable the ability to select that chapter. Use brackets [ ] instead.
For Icons: ICON and cicn resources must be numbered starting at 257. Put ^ in the title of your chapter, and directly after it, put the id of your icon minus 256. For example: “Teenage wasteland^1” would be the name of a Chapter titled “Teenage wasteland,” and ICON or cicn ID 257 would appear in the menu next to it.
For Styles: Put < in the title of your chapter, and directly follow it with the first letter of the standard Mac style you want. Example: “<BSally take my hand” would appear as “Sally take my hand.”
For CommandKeys: Put / in the title of your chapter, and directly follow it with a letter. Example: “My Wife/W” or would be a Chapter entitled “My Wife,” which could be accessed by pressing command-W. My Wife ⌘W is how it would apper in the Chapters menu.
‚å•8000 Finder Icons
You can also paste a custom icon over the supplied one in the Finder 'Get Info' box, but don’t edit the supplied one directly, because this will obfuscate the icons if a person has more than one Misebirakasu application on a disk. (You can edit the custom icon in ResEdit after pasting, it will be icon family ID -16455.) Included with this version of Misebirakasu are several alternatives which you can use if you like.
‚å•8000 Menu Names
STR# resource ID 128 contains the names of the optional ‘Chapters’ and ‘Sections’ menus. If you want to rename these to something you feel is more appropriate, ’tis your privilege to do so.
‚å•8000 Windows
'WIND' resource ID 128 contains the size, style, and onscreen location of the display window. Note that dialog-style windows are not a good idea, simply because they don’t (in this case) conform to the Macintosh Interface. Moveable-Modal dialog boxes are better, but still not recommended. ‘WIND’ 1200 determines the style of the window used to display Misebirakasu’s about box and yours as well. You don’t need to edit the size of this window, because Misebirakasu automatically resizes it to the size of your picture.
‚å•8000 About Picture
PICT resource ID 256 is the picture displayed when the user presses the ‘?’ button. If there is no PICT id 256, the ‘?’ button will not appear. ****Compatibility Note: this used to be 200. Adjust your resources accordingly.
‚å•8000 Preferences
Open 'µprf' (that’s 'option-m', plain 'prf') resource 128 to customize Misebirakasu’s behavior.
Font Settings:
◊“Prefer Outline Fonts?” Normally, most programs look for bitmapped fonts first, and outline fonts second. If this is on, Misebirakasu will do things in reverse (i.e. use the outline version of the font if one is available, bitmapped otherwise). Resorcerer has a preference that allows you to do this also, so if you find that your text looks different in Misebirakasu than it does in Resorcerer, this will fix it. Some fonts look better if you use their TrueType versions, including the bold & italic versions of Times. Turning this on will slow the Mac down a bit. This option is off by default.
◊“Font Scaling Off,” if turned off, will allow the Mac to scale fonts in it’s usual way, which can, in some situations, result in very jagged and possibly aesthetically distasteful fonts. This option is off by default.
◊“Fractional Widths,” I’m not going to explain. It can distort on-screen characters with odd spacing. If you know what it is, and want to use it, go ahead. This option is off by default.
◊“Preserve Glyphs,” if turned on, will display TrueType fonts as the designer intended, without any spacing added. This can result in characters running together or other wierdness, but can be useful if you’re using a really neat font, where it may increase aesthetic tastefullness! Or it might not do anything at all. This option is off by default.
Convenience Settings:
◊“Fit Vertically To Screen,” will have Misebirakasu the display window stretch itself vertically to fill the current screen. If horizontal stretching is something you’d like to see, you’d best tell me, because I won’t implement it without complete and overwhelming demand. This option is on by default.
◊“Center Window,” will have Misebirakasu center the display window in the screen. This emulates the way previous versions of Misebirakasu behaved. This option is on by default.
‚å•8000 Sections
To define sections within a chapter, put a Control-Z just before the name of the section, and one just after it. Do the same for the name of each section. If you want to put a divider line in the Sections menu, put a Control-X after the last Control-Z of the section you want the divider after. Each chapter can have up to thirty-one sections. If you don’t have any sections, the sections menu will not appear. Check out the sections menu and note the relation between the text and the menu.
Known problem- you must put at least one character between two consecutive sections.
