CREDITS

John P. Weiss <John.Weiss@colorado.edu> is the one to blame for this
thing.



==========================================================================
INSTALLATION

1) This program recommends the programs "bplay" and "setmixer".

    "bplay" is a buffered audio player, allowing mplay to run smoothly
    in the background while you're doing other things.

    "setmixer" is a command-line controller of the audio-card mixer.
    Used for volume control and such.

1a) Get "bplay" and "setmixer", and install them.

1b) Edit the script "mplay.sh"  There are three variables at the top
    of the script:
	    PLAY=
	    VOLCTRL=
	    VOLPARM=
    ...read the comments for each of these and set to whatever you
    like.  You can set $VOLCTRL to a non-existent file; mplay will
    just ignore it.  You *must* set $PLAY to a player.

    If you don't like "bplay," you might try another program.  The
    program "sox" usually has some script with it to play sound files,
    but it gets kinda choppy when run in the background.

2) Put "mplay.sh" someplace in your path.

3) Enjoy!



==========================================================================
REPORTING BUGS & MAKING CHANGES


Until sometime in late 1998, I'll be completing my PhD dissertation
and looking for employment.  That means that I'll barely have time to buy
groceries - let alone make bugfixes!  I may later return to this
program to make fixes and changes.  Or not.


Most people make bug reports of one of the following types:

1) "It's broke.  Fix it."

2) "It's broke.  Here's what I did and here's how it crashed: ..."

3) "It's broke.  Here's what I did, here's how it crashed, and here's
    a gdb backtrace of the crash: ..."

4) "It's broke.  This is how and why it crashed.  And, here's a patch
    that fixes it: ..."

Bug "report" #1 is useless and a waste of bandwidth.  #2 only slightly
helps - believe me, programmers *do* check for bugs, but everyone's
system is different.  So, #3 is more useful, since it may not crash on
my system, but the gdb backtrace tells me where to find the crash.

Because I'm going to be so busy for the next year, #4 is the best for
me.  I can just apply the patch, make sure it doesn't break anything,
then make a new release.  I don't mind *maintaining* source code if
this pup is actually useful...


Lastly, if you want to make *major* changes, I don't mind.  HOWEVER -
as a courtesy to me, please either [A] let me know; or [B] rename the
new version to something else.  In either case, be sure to credit me
and everyone else who's contributed to the program.  I'm not one of
these control-freaks, but if you decide to take over this program, I'd
like to know, so I can get new versions as you make updates.  Just in
case I do have a free moment to do a bugfix...  ;)



==========================================================================
Copyright (C) 1997 by John P. Weiss

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the License, included as the file "LICENSE" in
the source code archive.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

You should have received a copy of the file "LICENSE", containing
the License John Weiss originally placed this program under.
