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³                             þ MegaMID  XTern þ                             ³
³                                Version 1.11                                ³
³                              6th November 1996                             ³
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 þ INTRODUCTION þ

MegaMID XTern is a shell for MegaMID, the DOS MIDI player. It provides MegaMID
users with an external interface to easily browse and select MIDI files to
play.
It has finally been updated - after being stagnant for few revisions of
MegaMID. Thanks for all those suggestions in making MegaMID XTern a better
program.

 þ SETUP þ

If 'mx.exe' came bundled with MegaMID (as it is), you don't have to do
anything - other than perhaps create a batch file that runs 'mx.exe'
and put the batch file in your search path. This will allow you to run
the shell from any directory on your computer.
If you received MegaMID XTern separately, read on:
To install MegaMID XTern, just copy the file 'mx.exe' into your MegaMID
directory. Please ensure that MegaMID has already been set up as described in
the 'megamid.exe' file. Note that MegaMid XTern is ONLY a shell - it requires
that you have the full version of MegaMID already installed.


 þ USAGE þ

To run the shell, just type :

MX <options>

You will then be shown the list of MIDI files in the current directory, if
any. The controls should be pretty intuitive - just select the MIDI file you
wish to play, and press ENTER. You could also highlight a drive or directory
you wish to switch to. You can also select a number of files to be played -
sort of like a playlist. Take a look at the keys below:

KEY                 FUNCTION

Up/Down/PgUp/PgDn/  Move highlight bar
Home/End
Enter               Play current selection, or playlist (if any)
Space               Add/Remove MIDI file from playlist
Backspace           Clear playlist
Tab                 Toggle all items in playlist
Del                 Delete current file
Esc                 Quit
ALT - key           Select option
key                 Search

NOTES:
- SELECTING OPTIONS
  Other active keys are the ones highlighted on the right side of the screen.
  You can activate an option by pressing the ALT key together with the
  highlighted letter.
- SEARCH
  Pressing any regular key will cause the next file starting with the letter
  of the key pressed to be highlighted. The search will start again from the
  top of the list if no files matching the letter are found from the current
  position onwards.
- SKIPPING SONGS
  When playing from a list, you can skip to the next song by pressing 'ENTER',
  or return to MegaMID XTern by pressing 'ESC'.

 þ OPTIONS þ

The command line parameters that MX supports are:

/NOSORT         Do not sort files (default)
/NOSCAN         Do not scan for titles (default)
/NOLOOP         Do not loop playback (default)
/SORT           Sort files
/SCAN           Scan for titles
/LOOP           Loop

The parameters are evaluated from left to right, with subsequent parameters
overriding previous ones.
The default parameters are included so that they can be used in a situation
like this - say you want to turn SCAN on most of the time, so you put the
line:

C:\MEGAMID\MX /scan %1 %2 %3

... in a batch file (MX.BAT) somewhere in your search path.
Then, when you actually wish to run MX in a directory that happens to be
full of thousands of MIDI files and you want to turn SCAN off just this
once, you can type:

MX /noscan

This MX refers to the batch file (MX.BAT) created earlier. This /noscan
parameter would override the /scan parameter in the batch file.
This is the same trick (if you don't know it already) that can be used
with the MEGAMID program as well.

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That's all, I guess. I hope that the shell will make MegaMID a nicer program
to use.

FONG Chee Keat
13th September, 1995.

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REVISION HISTORY

v1.12                                                          2nd May 1997
- Now accepts directories with 3 letter extensions.

v1.11                                                     3rd November 1996
- Fixed a search-related bug.
- Some colour changes.

v1.10                                                     31st October 1996
- Help now available by pressing F1.
- Delete MIDI files by pressing DEL.
- Color changes to distinguish MID and KAR files.
- Changed keys for activating options to ALT-key combinations.
- Search for files by pressing the first letter of the filename.
- Added command line parameters.

v1.01                                                         2nd June 1996
- Fixed minor bug which may cause certain text messages from MIDI files to
  mess up the display.

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