I hope that the operation of Bird Songs™ is straight forward enough to require little explanation here. However, I will describe briefly its features. This explanation pertains to version 1.1, released on March 12, 1995.
Bird Songs™ can be run on any Mac more modern than a Mac SE (untested on an SE 30). It requires System 6.0.5 or better, and works fine with System 7.5. It does not require a color monitor, although the pictures don't look very good in black and white (1 bit monitor).
After launching Bird Songs™, the main window is brought to the foreground after the brief introductory splash screen displaying the Bird Songs™ masthead. Let's start with the Mode menu. Three items appear as seen below
The Sound and/or the Picture items may be selected. These add functionality in the foreground only, and do the obvious thing: allow the playing of bird songs and/or the displaying of pictures. You can review pictures and/or songs of the birds by clicking the bird name in the scrolling window. The third menu item when selected, Play Songs in Background, causes a continuous play of bird songs in a random order when Bird Songs™ is in the background. It plays only songs, and this mode allows you to exercise your ear while doing other things, like typing a report. The Bird Bath menu is shown below.
The bottom item, Play Game, puts you in a competitive mode when selected. The most challenging way to approach the game is to turn off the pictures and try to identify the birds by song only. If, after hearing the song, you aren't sure of the bird's identity, push the Repeat button near the center of the window to hear the song again. If you just don't know and don't want to guess any more, push the Next! button. After pushing Next!, the Bird Name will appear under the picture briefly, and then the next random bird will be played. The game is finished when you have successfully identified (or skipped with the Next! button) all the birds. If your score is one of the best scores seen by your computer, the High Scores window will be summoned to allow you to put your name on the High Scores list. Make sure you select the mode you want to keep score by, Percent Correct or Total Score, in the High Scores dialog box. If you use total score, then the amount of time it takes to finish the game also is factored into your score. The faster you finish, the higher your score will be.
The last item in the Bird Bath menu is the Make Bird List item. Selecting this item summons the Bird List Manager dialog box shown below. The use of this box enables you to generate a small list to help you memorize the bird songs available.
The first scroll box contains a pop-up menu on top of it, shown here appears "My Backyard Birds 1." This pop-up menu displays the documents available, and when each document is selected, the bird songs (and pictures) it contains appear in the left hand scroll box. By selecting birds and pushing the Add button, you build a list in the right hand scroll box. Duplicate birds are perfectly legitimate. You can remove items from the list by selecting and pushing the Remove button. When you are done, push OK, and your new list appears in the main Bird Songs™ window. If you want to save this generated list, don't forget to save it through the File menu. To reset the entire available list, push the Reset List button. The Open item in the File menu will enable you to call a previously saved list. If a custom list is already in use, then summoning the Bird List manager will result in the current list appearing in the right hand scroll box.
Trouble shooting
1) No birds appear in the main window. Solution: Push the Reset List button in the Bird List Manager box. If you save a Bird List and then later throw it in the trash while Bird Songs™ is expecting it, you will get an Open Dialog box. If you can't select another Bird List file, then the program resets the list for you. If you still have trouble, then push reset in the Bird List Manager dialog box.
2) Sound manager errors or no Bird Files in Bird Files Folder message. Solution: Upgrade from version 1.0. The current version is 1.1. If strange things continue to happen with the application, throw away the preference file in the preferences folder inside the system folder (system 7.x), or in the system folder (system 6.0.x) and restart the application.
ProtoHype hopes you enjoy this copy of Bird Songs™. You may distribute it freely, but Bird Songs™ may not be sold, included on "for sale" Share Ware disks and CD-ROMs, or otherwise used for commercial purposes without the written consent of ProtoHype.
Any bug reports should be sent to us either electronically or by mail to the addresses listed below. Please, if you are experiencing difficulty with the freeware (Postcardware) version of the application, send us e'mail about it. We frequently check e'mail and will respond promptly. E'mail is a more effective way to communicate with us than the phone is.
