FAQ for Message Manager Deluxe v3.03

I do not understand how to use Message Manager Deluxe, help?

We understand...our documentation sucks. Actually the .hlp file is way out dated and we fired our help writer. No one else knows how to do it and none of the developers want to learn. :)

Basically for a Windows implementation do it something like this:

\\servername\share\loadmsg.exe [name of your message file]

So if you have the extracted .zip local, copy the loadmsg.exe and the message file you created (and all resources needed to display msg) to a network share. Then run the loadmsg.exe application, passing it the name of the message file as the first parameter.

If for some reason you message does not display or something is acting weird, type in

loadmsg.exe [name of file] DEBUG

This will show you the reason for not displaying the message.

Keep in mind that when you create your message within the editor, the locations of the files you use for the message are hard coded in the message. So if you pick c:\test.rtf as the message file. When you copy your message.dat file to the network and run it on a machine...it will look at c:\test.rtf for the message contents.

Typically we recommend using UNC shares for loading all files. In our implementations at local schools we have the following:

\\school1\message\loadmsg.exe message.dat

These files exist in the same directory
\\school1\message\contents.rtf
\\school1\message\logo.jpg
\\school1\message\alert.wav

Within the message editor when we edit the message.dat (message.exe is local to admin's workstation) the path in the message contents is
\\school1\message\contents.rtf
and the path for the splash screen is
\\school1\message\logo.jpg
and sound is
\\school1\message\alert.wav

We also have a short tutorial on how to setup and deploy Message Manager Deluxe to your server. We understand our documentation is slim, but this high level overview should help you get started creating messages with Message Manager Deluxe.

View the Message Manager Deluxe Implementation Example