Greeting Card Maker (NOT IN MM LITE)
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Greeting Card Maker:

The Greeting Card Maker (or GCM, for short!) was designed for Mokum Mail to give the appearance of a Greeting Card; a message that will appear on the screen without any scroll bars.  There is a multitude of features that can be used or added to your card to give it your own personal touch.  It is a quick fun way to send off a 'Birthday Greeting' or a 'Thinking of You' message.

You may want to view the 'How To' demo first. Click here.

From the Editor window, click on the GCM button and a new window will open.



You may wonder if we added a kind of Flight Simulator to Mokum Mail... don't worry!  Creating a Greeting Card is very simple. It needs only a few steps to create a stunning message: Select Background - Add picture(s) - Make them move (optional) - Add Music - Type your text... that's all !

  1. Select a background image (optional). You can fill the whole background with one large image or you can use gradient colors or a combination of image and colors.
  2. Select one or more transparent .GIF or .PNG images and move them to the position you want by clicking on the compass buttons.
  3. Decide whether or not an image should move over the screen and if yes, set the MARQUEE properties.
  4. If you want some text, click on the text box button, type the text and position it where you want.
  5. For fun, you may want to add music.

That's all there is to it. Now let's have a look at the various sections of the Greeting Card Maker.

At the top-right you see these buttons, which are self-explanatory. When you have to stop in the middle of creating a Greeting Card message, just click the CANCEL button. At restart, click on OPEN LAST and you can continue where you left off. If you want to use your card more than once then SAVE it to disk. Click on the TEST button (or press Function Key F2) to see how it looks. You may want to do this often while you are creating your card.

A full size background image should be no less than 800 x 600 pixels. The image will be stretched or contracted to any monitor size. Set the width and height to a little more than 100% so you can be sure that the whole window is filled.

You can also decide to have a gradient color background... simply pick the colors and decide if they should run from 'left to right' or from 'top to bottom'. Or you can also combine gradient colors and bg image; e.g. set the image's Left and Top position to 10% and both the Width and Height to 80%; you will see the bg image in a colored 'frame'. Finally, decide if you want a border around the whole card and define it's color.

Click on the ADD button to select a transparent .GIF or .PNG that you want to place in front of the background image. You can select as many as you like, just keep an eye on the total message size...

Select a picture in the above list box and move it around by clicking on these compass buttons. You can set the 'jump' to a higher value, by default the picture moves 1 pixel left/right - up/down.

OR, you can use the Exact Placement buttons you will find directly below the compass in the GC window.

A picture can have a border around it, select it in the list box and set the border width and color.

If you want one or more pictures to move over the screen, select each in the list box and set the Marquee properties.

Add some music or sound or both... While you work on your Greeting Card, you may want to MUTE the music.

You can type the URL of a music file that is stored on a web site. In this case, Mokum Mail adds code to retrieve the music from the site. The Color FG and Color BG boxes are for setting the colors of the music player when streaming from your site.

Here you can set from left/right, from top/bottom, Width, Height, Text Font, Text Color, Background Color and Opacity of your message in the Text Box. If there is a Scroll Bar in your box, you can also set the colors for that.

... and finally you can enter the text for your message by clicking on the ENTER TEXT button.

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST...
When you type a value in any box, press the TAB key to leave the box and update the screen.



EXAMPLE:
Although merely 'playing' with the functions and clicking TEST to see the results is probably the quickest way to figure things out, allow me to show you how easy it is to make a pretty Greeting Card, in this case a "From Kauai With Love", my Favorite Island!



In the Card above, I added a picture for my background.  I chose a 4px width border and a color to surround my card.  I added a Hawaiian Midi file for music.  Small TIP here...While working on your card, if the music gets annoying, you can click the Mute button!  The area surrounded by RED above is where you set your text properties; I set my Text box width and height, chose to have my text centered, chose the color and font, removed the background color as I did not want my text in a box.  Since my message was short, I did not need to choose scroll bar colors because the scroll bar does not show.

IF I had wanted a border around my text box, I would highlight my text box on the right hand side and set the color, size and style where I have indicated below.



Let's add some animation!

In the Example, note that I have added an animated sun and some circling birds.  Both are .gif files which work best in this situation when they are transparent.  Use the ADD button to add these files.  Highlight the file first, then placement can be done using the compass or the exact placement boxes.

Adding the 'circling birds', I did it a bit different.  After adding the file, and then highlighting it, I clicked on the MARQUEE button, selected YES (which pops down other options) so they would fly across the entire screen!

At any time, you can check how it will appear in full size by clicking on the TEST button.  IF you, like me, have a wide screen, it is a good idea when testing to also check for how others may see it by clicking on the 1024x 768 button.



It will make some difference...and I sometimes have to make some small adjustments.



When you are satisfied with your results, you may want to first click on the SAVE button to save your card.  It will be saved as a .mmc file in the folder ..mm_data/MM_Cards.  You can now use it again by opening your GCM window and clicking the OPEN button. Now that we have saved it, let's click on the DONE button which will put our creation into the Editor window where we can pick our addressee and send it!



Don't be afraid to push buttons and try different settings and options!!  In other words, HAVE FUN!

To view my Example, click HERE!