Bird Songs™ version 1.3 was released on September 24, 1995. Also available is the current version that operates in conjunction with a CD ROM player and the Peterson Field Guide series audio CDs, incorporating both the Eastern/Central and the Western Bird Songs. See the documentation provided with this package. The simple design of the program was intended to be straight forward, so we hope you require little need of this manual. If you do need help, the operation and features of Bird Songs™ 1.3 are fully documented in this manual, and in addition, Bird Songs™ supports Balloon Help under system 7.x.
Bird Songs™ can be run on any Mac more modern than a Mac SE, including the SE 30. It requires System 6.0.5 or better, and works fine under System 7.5.1. 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. Four 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. The pictures are from Audubon's 1840 "Octavo" book. There are some bird songs that have no corresponding picture for several reasons including: Audubon and associates didn't record the bird, and some species were introduced to the United States later. You can review pictures and/or songs of the birds by clicking the bird name in the scrolling window. The third item summons a nested menu where you can select the sound level you want for Bird Songs™. The sound level of your Mac will be reset upon quitting the program. The next time you run Bird Songs™, the previous sound level will be remembered and set. Selecting the fourth menu item, 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 Songs menu is shown below.
The first item in the Bird Songs menu is the Make Bird List item. Selecting this item summons the Bird List Manager dialog box shown below. The use of this dialog enables you to generate a custom list to help you memorize the bird songs available. Whatever list you generate you can save using the Save and Save As... menu items in the File menu. Saved lists can be later opened using the Open menu item in the File menu. The last file used by the program will be remembered and opened the next time you start Bird Songs™. Revert to default (all birds) with Reset List button.
The first scroll box contains a pop-up menu above it: shown here appears "Warblers [2]." This pop-up menu displays the documents or bird categories available, and when each category is selected, the bird song (and picture) names appear in the left hand scroll box. To select birds you can click or drag-click, shift-click to add or deselect multiple items, or push Select All to select the entire list. Pushing the Add button causes the selected list of the left hand scroll box to be copied to the right hand scroll box. Duplicate birds are perfectly legitimate. You can remove items from the right hand list by selecting bird names, followed by pushing the Remove button. When you are done, push OK, and your new list appears in the main Bird Songs™ window. Pushing Cancel causes the existing list to remain unchanged. If you want to save this generated list, don't forget to save it through the File menu. If you try to quit the program before saving a changed list, Bird Songs™ will remind you to save them. To reset the list to the entire available list, push the Reset List button. Selecting the Open item in the File menu from the main window will enable you to call a previously saved list. If a custom list is in use when summoning the Bird List Manager dialog box, the current list will appear in the right hand scroll box. Finally, you can rearrange the custom list in alphabetical order, as shown in the example above, by pushing the Alphabetical Order button.
The Play List item causes each bird song to be played, and/or or each picture to be displayed, in order from top to bottom. If you begin Play List before going into background mode, and the background mode option is selected, then the play order will continue to be from top to bottom during background play.
The Play Game item 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 main 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, followed by the next random bird being 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 High Scores dialog box is shown below.
Finally, the Preferences item calls the Preferences dialog box, which is only available in Bird Songs™ 2.0 or later versions. If you wish to obtain one of the CD versions of Bird Songs™, see the documentation included in this package for instructions.
The dialog box allows you to select play from a hard disk based set of sounds (Use CD button deselected), or from an audio CD. You also select the audio CD loaded in the drive from this dialog box. The Speak Names check box, when selected, utilizes the naration on the CDs to be utilized in the following ways. During play list, bird review, or play in background modes, the spoken name of the bird preceeds the play of the bird song. Also during play game mode, if you give up and push the Next! button, the name of the bird you failed to identify will be spoken.
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 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.
2) Sound manager errors or no Bird Files in Bird Files Folder message. Solution: Upgrade from version 1.0. The current version is 2.1, and 1.3 is current Postcardware version. 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. If you are not using Sound Manager 3.0 (System 7 before 7.5), then I strongly urge you to get it. It can be found on many Macintosh bulletin boards. Some users have reported an inability to use Bird Songs™ before upgrading to Sound Manager 3.0.
3) CD version. Bird Songs menu item turning on sound mode is set, but still no sound. First, make sure your sound volume is set greater than zero through the sound control panel. Second, if you have an internal CD ROM drive, open your sound control panel, select the Sound In item in the pop up menu. Push the Options button, select internal CD, and select the Pass Through check box. If you have an external CD ROM drive, make sure your volume control is turned up loudly enough.
ProtoHype hopes you enjoy this copy of Bird Songs™. You may distribute it freely (postcardware version 1.x), 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.
Please let us know if you are having problems with Bird Songs™ so they can be fixed for future releases. Any bug reports should be sent to us either by electronic mail or by snail mail to the addresses listed below. Please, if you are experiencing difficulty with the commercial or freeware (Postcardware) version of the application, send us e'mail (or mail) about it. We frequently check e'mail and will respond promptly. E'mail is the most effective way to communicate with us.
