MaCoPiX FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
      - Frequently Asked Questions
         === Starting Up ===
            ● Annoying to select menu in the starting up
            ● I want to select a specified mascot
            ● Turn on biff function
         ===　Mascot moving ===
            ● Sitting on task-bar?
            ● I can only see mascot's legs at the upper end of the display.
            ● Mascot is floating above the shaped title bar
         ===　Configuration ===
            ● I cannot find any mascots?
            ● My setup does not affect after GUI configuration.
            ● I want to change balloon messages
            ● I cannot click on mascots with sloopy focus window manager
            ● I want combine all menus
         ===　Bugs? ===
            ● Balloons and Clock are heavey?
            ● Tray icon color looks poor in Win2000
            ● Balloon characters look broken
         ===　Advanced... ===
            ● Can I make my original mascots?
            ● Can I use two or more mail accounts for biff?
            ● The difference between Gtk+1.2 and 2.x
            ● The diference in Gtk+2.x


Frequently Asked Questions

Q It's annoying to select menus at starting up.
A You can set a default menu for starting up.
After readed a menu, please use right click menu on the mascot...
   Save→Launcher Menue→Save as default .
(You can also use "Save→Save all" .)


Q I want to select a specified mascot at starting up.
A Installed mascot can be selected using the command line option, likely,
   macopix.exe HxB_ayana.mcpx
Please just appoint a .mcpx file.
All .mcpx file should be installed in UserData/ directory , under where mascot.exe is installed (for Win), or $HOME/.macopix/ directory (for UNIX).


Q I want turn on Biff and/or Time signal function at starting up.
A You can do it using option switches in the command line.
   macopix(.exe) -b
will turn on Biff.
   macopix(.exe) -s
will turn on time signal.
If you want to use both, you can do as following.
   macopix(.exe) -b -s
Please change short cut configuration for windows.


Q I want to let mascot sit on the task-bar.
A In "Common"→"Move"→"Home Position" of the configuration window. This function forces to move mascot to an appointed point on your desktop, when the mascot sticks out to the desktop upper end.
If you want to let mascot sit on the task-bar always, you can also set it in the configuration window.


Q I only see mascot's legs at the upper end of the display.
A Home position function can solve this situation. When the mascot sticks out to the upper side of the display, it can be moved to the "home position".


Q Mascot looks like floating on the shaped titlebar.
A Please set the offset for shaped titlebar (only for UNIX).


Q I cannot fint any mascots. How can I change mascots?
A Each mascot archives distributed in this site contains one menu and several mascots.
At first, please change menu files in which target mascot are included. In the right click menu, select
   Open→Launcher Menu→Launcher .
Then, you can find your menu in the easiest way.
After selected a menu, in the right click menu again, select
   Mascot Laucher→(Menu Title)→(Mascot Title)
to change your mascot.


Q My setup changes from GUI seems not to be reflected in my system?
A You have to save the setup files after you changed it.
In the right click menu, use
   Save
to save each setup files.
If you use    Save All
MaCoPiX saves "Common setup", "Mascot file" for the current one, the current menu as "Mefault menu".
Please be careful to change mascot before saving, it discards all changes in the mascot setup.


Q I want to change balloon messages.
A In the right-click configuration window,
you can find the balloon message settings in
   Mascot→Anime .
The explanation for control code is described in the balloon page of the configuration window.
After changed, never forget to save the mascot.


Q I cannot click on the mascot under the sloppy focused window manager.
A You should use Home Position function.
In [Common]→[Move] settings of the configuration window, please set it.
If you are using Gtk+2.10 or later, you can also use tray icon in the task-bar. Tray icon also has a menu to change mascot settings.


Q I want to put together all of mascot menus.
A You can edit the mascot menu freely in the config dialog window.
If you want to put together several installed menus, you should push "Merge Menu" button in [Menu] page of the config dialog. After editing, you can save the menu files from Popup Menu.


Q Balloon and Clocks seems to be heavy? (Windows)
A In windows version, clock and blloon of MaCoPiX use alpha-blended transparent window in default.
If you feel they are heavey for you system, please
   remove "BG only" option in Opacity configuration
or
   change opacity to 100% to use opaque window.


Q Tray icon looks poor in Windows2000?
A It's normal :)
Windows2000 can only show the tray icon with 16 defaults system colors. You can change it with some other freewares to show the 256 colored icons.
WindowsXP or later can use 256 colored tray icons.


Q Balloon messages does not appear correctly.
A All of the mascots in this page is for Japanese environment (ja-locale) only.

[Case of Gtk+2.x or later]
If you are using Gtk+2.x (or later), MaCoPiX (after ver1.2.1) automatically converts the character code in mascot files (EUC-JP) to UTF-8 in order to understand characters under Gtk+2.x . So, if you have any Japanese Kanji fonts in your environment, you can see the original balloon message in Japanese.

For example, . If you installed them even into your non-Japanese environment, MaCoPiX can display Japanese messages in its Balloon. So, this may be helpful to translate the messages by yourself.


Q Can I make my original mascots?
A Of course, you can. Please see here.


Q I want to use twi or more mail accounts for biff.
A One setting file can describe only one mail account setting.
So, if you prepare two or more setting files, and run two or more macopix simultaneously, you can do it.
The defaults setting file is... 
   UserData\macopix.ini  ($HOME/.macopix/macopix.rc for UNIX)
You should save the settings of mail account 1 in this file, and then, save another account 2 in 
   UserData\mail2.ini    ($HOME/.macopix/mail2.rc for UNIX) .
Then, run 
  macopix(.exe) -b &
  macopix(.exe) -b -r mail2.ini[mail2.rc] &
Now you can watch account 1 & 2.


Q The difference between Gtk+-1.2 and 2.x .
A You can use anti-alias pango font with Gtk-2.x . Furthermore....

[Character codes in mascots]
In Gtk+1.2, character codes in mascot and menu files should be the same one with the locale of your environment.
In Gtk+2.x, macopix tries to fit it with...
   1. [General] code=xxxx setting in mcpx file.
   2. current locale
   3. MaCoPiX default (EUC-JP)
, flollowing this priority.
If it could not find any solutions, you can see "Invalid character code" message in balloon.

[Font]
The font description in Gtk+2.x/1.2 should be different. Please select appropriate one in the font dialog.

Please note that anti-aliased font looks pretty good with Gtk-2.x, but, it requires much memory allocation.


Q The differeces in each Gtk+-2.x versions.
A [Gtk+-2.4 or later]
- Using GtkFileChooser, instead of GtkFileSelection.
- Icon buttons with Gtk_stock icons.

[Gtk+-2.10 or later]
- Trayicon in the task-bar.

You can use above special functions.


Kurumi Chimari
Last modified: Tue Jun 25 20:51:44 HST 2019