I hope the young at heart will enjoy themselves here.
This program is funware. Have fun, share it, and have a great holiday. This is the 3rd major revision of Christmastime.
Version 3.0 has a new game with 2 new screens. There are also a few other little additions that you'll just have to find.
I have plans for many other fun children's programs. If you enjoy this program, please send me email or a postcard, or $5 (which will certainly encourage me to continue with my projects).
I think shareware is a good idea. I believe people should be able to try out a program, be sure it is what they want, and then register for a low price.
Here's how to contact me:
Grace Sylvan
879 Lewiston Dr
San Jose CA 95136
tigger@sylvan.com
http://www.sylvan.com/
(come visit my web page for lots of other children's shareware)
Keep those cards, letters and checks, coming, thank you!
System Requirements
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This program will run on any 256 color mac running System 7 or higher. This program is also graphic packed, with over 500 graphic elements. SuperCard does it's best, but QuickDraw can be sluggish on the older macs. It runs pretty well on my Performa 550.
Be sure to select Special - Fast Drag to improve the behavior with the Christmas tree ornaments if you're on a slower machine. If you want to rearrange items in the Nativity scene, move the mouse slowly. You can still click on the spots that play music and play the other games.
If you're lucky enough to have a fast Powermac, you can select Special - Slower Animations to slow things down. If animations seem to be crawling along, check the Special menu and Fast Animations if you can.
How to use the program
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Experiment! Try clicking on things. Some objects can be moved by dragging them while holding the mouse button down.
Changes you make will be automatically saved.
To hide or see the menubar, hit the RETURN or ENTER bar.
To stop the sound, hit SPACE, or use the menus.
Click on the cabinet doors to open the cabinet and get the decorations. Then drag them to your preferred locations. You can drag them out quickly, just take your time placing them. When you release the mouse button, wait for the cursor to become a watch before moving it to get the next ornament.
To put away the decorations, drag them back to the cabinet. To put them all away, use the Special-Clean Up menu.
Use the menu to make your own custom recording, or Preferences to leave your own custom text message.
You can also limit the sound volume using Preferences.
The new toys under the tree are based on graphics made by Loraine Wauer, Billy Bear Storybooks: http://www.worldvillage.com/kidz/bilybear/welcome.htm
Fast Powermac? If the animations seem frenzied, try Special-Slower Animations.
Nativity Help
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You can rearrange the visitors by holding down the mouse button and dragging them around.
Pressing the up-arrow and down-arrow buttons will change the pointer to an arrow. Clicking on a visitor with it will display them in front of (down arrow) or behind (up arrow) the other visitors around them.
Clicking on various spots in the scene will play an assortment of Christmas Music.
Everything can be put back to the way it originally was by using the Special-Clean Up menu.
Santa's Workshop Help
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This is a game of memory. Click on the windows to find the matches.
Click on the carolers to hear some music. Click on the picture above the carolers to change the tune they "sing".
Click on the tree to go back to the Livingroom.
What appears in the windows and the animation at the end is randomized for greater playing pleasure, both here and in the Letter Mixup game.
Hit SPACE to stop the music that's currently playing - anywhere in the program.
Inside Santa's Workshop
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The Elves are busy packing Santa's bags. You can help by clicking on the right size box to pack the presents in. If you pack enough of them, maybe you'll get a chance to see Santa himself!
Click on the door to leave the workshop.
The elf voices are Katherine and Robin Sylvan.
Many of the toys are by Loraine Wauer, Billy Bear Storybooks. http://www.worldvillage.com/kidz/bilybear/welcome.htm
Some of the toys are by Kristy Shanks
http://www.kwebdesign.com/kdesk/
The other toys came from assorted icon archives.
Santa's Sleigh Help
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Great job! Santa is loading up his sleigh. This page is just for fun, try clicking on things. Some things might change all by themselves, too.
When you're done, hit the 'done' button to leave.
Seal, sun, and elves in the window based on graphics by
The trees are based on graphics by Mark Pettus, MightToad Software
http://members.aol.com/mightytoad/
The Gingerbread man and moon is from Component Software's Winter Fun Icon Collection
Letter Mixup Help
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Click on the cards in order to spell the mixed up words.
You can move around in the word lists using the Word List, Next Word, and Back Word buttons. Word list 3 contains the religious words. Word List 1 is the easiest, List 2 has longer words, and List 4 has the longest words.
Hint will show you the next letter.
Click on the snowperson for fun.
Use File-Preferences to change the font that is displayed.
Click on the house to get back to the Livingroom.
Thank You
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Now it's time for thank you's. To my family, Kayvan (for buying me SuperCard and not complaining when dinner was late) and my children Robin (2) and Katherine (5), who helped in every way possible - much of this program was written with one or both of them by my side or in my lap. Katherine helped me choose colors, graphics, and edited some of the graphics for the program. (Katherine and Robin are now 4 and 7 years old)
Dylan Elliott (4) sat in my lap and recorded the 'Ouch!' sound while visiting from Australia. Especially thanks to those who wrote me after the first release, and
my beta testers for both releases, and also Diane Bunde and Granite (authors of My Little Kitchen) for inspiration that a mom and kids could write a program.
And to Loraine Wauer of Billy Bear's Storybooks - she's been a great inspiration during the past months, and fun to work with!
Individuals may freely distribute this program - please, do give it to any friends you think might appreciate it.
Publishers of CD ROM or DISKETTE collections, magazines, etc, should contact me for permission. I will probably grant it, but I want to know when and where this gets published - it also lets me get the latest versions to you!
Grace Sylvan
879 Lewiston Drive
San Jose, CA 95136
tigger@sylvan.com
Disclaimers
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This program makes no claims to be of any use to anyone, and the author will not be held responsible for any damaged caused to systems. This program was released with no known bugs, but the author also does not promise that there are no bugs, that bugs will be fixed, etc. Please do contact me if you encounter problems, or if you have suggestions for other children's programs.
There is nothing about this program that should damage systems, but with legal things as they are, here's the disclaimer. I hope you enjoy yourself, but I do not promise that, either. :-)
Program History
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Version 1.0 was released just before Christmas 94. It had 2 screens - the nativity and the livingroom.
Version 2.0 (Aug 95) had many additions - sound effects, 20 more songs, the word unscramble and workshop concentration game, lights on the tree (that flicker if you're in 256 color mode).
Version 2.01 (Nov 95) has a minor bug fix for a problem with speech manager on some of the newer, fastest macs, and a couple of fixes that make it more bulletproof if kids hit keys they shouldn't. This will run on all color macs with 256 colors or more.
Version 2.02 (Nov 95) I disabled "Clean Up" in the workshop and word game, it should have been all along. Changed some code so that the program won't generate errors on locked volumes (like CD's). Many of the options under preferences won't work right on a cd version of the program, but the program will, in general run. You also lose whatever decorating you did on the tree when you go to another activity if the disk is locked. If you like the program, copy it to your hard drive.
Version 2.03 (Dec 95) applied the speech manager fix to the Livingroom text. Made the scramble animations randomize feature work better.
Version 2.04 (June 96) made the error message for 'out of memory' clear, so that people can fix it without contacting me, for some reason, some systems seem to require more memory than others. Gave an option to slow down the animations. No more hyper bouncing about on the newest powermacs. I wanted to make the adjustment automatic, but ran into odd behaviors on some of the test systems.
Version 3.0 (Dec 96) 2 new screens - inside Santa's Workshop and Santa's sleigh. Also added some new presents under the tree, and 4 new characters to the Workshop Matching Game. Fixed a bug that resulted in an error message when the clear or escape keys were pressed.
