Last change: 12.03.2004 (jh)

The MAVA presentation system MMP is an application to play MAVA documents. These documents can be loaded from the local hard disk or from a web page via URL. MMP provides a menu, a toolbar for a faster access and a properties dialog to configure the presentation system.

This chapter describes the usage of MMP. First, elementary steps are described based on an example. Afterwards the menus and properties are explained.

Download from the document site one of the documents made available there. After you have downloaded the zip file, please unpack it first. Remember the folder, where the unpacked document is stored.

one of the documents made available there. you have downloaded a zip file, please unpack it first. note the folder, where the unpacked document is stored.

Illustration 2-1: The MMP Application window

After the application is started, select either the button "Open" from the toolbar or the menu "Open Document from file..." from the menu File. The file selection dialog will appear. Choose the folder, in which you unpacked the document before. Then a document will appear. You will recognize MAVA documents by the file extension ".mava" and by the blue file icon. Select the document and press "Ok", thus the document will be loaded now. Afterwards the MMP window becomes larger, since it is covering the presentation area for the loaded document now.

Now you can start the presentation of the document. either by pressing the Start button of the toolbar or by clicking the menu option "Start document" in the menu "Control". Pushing the Stop button or choosing the menu option "Stop document" in the menu "Control" will stop the presentation.

If you would like to look at another document, you can open and play these similarly to the previous document. If you would not like to look at further documents, you can close the document using the button "Close" on the toolbar and exit the presentation system.

2.2 The MMP menu

The MMP menu bar includes four different menus. They are described in the following section.

The first menu "File" is used to load documents, to open the properties dialog, to reload documents which were recently opened or to terminate MMP.

• "Open Document from File...": Opens a document from the local file system. In a file selection dialog the requested document can be selected.
• "Load Document from URL...": Loads a document from a URL. In the dialog you can enter an URL (for example a URL of a document on a Web server).
• "Close document": Closes the document which is currently opened.
• "Preferences...": Opens the preferences dialog.
• A list of recently opened documents: If one of these menu options is selected, then the appropriate document is loaded.
• "Exit": Closes MMP.

The "Control" menu includes following menu options:

• "Start document...": This menu option becomes active, if a document was loaded before. With this menu option the presentation can be started.
• "Stop document...": This menu option becomes active, if a document was started before. With this menu option you can stop the playback, but the document remains loaded.

The "Window" menu offers two menu options:

• "Show Toolbar": Shows and hides the toolbar.
• "Full screen mode": Shows the presentation in full screen.

The "Help" menu offers the following menu option:

• "About MMP": Opens a dialog, which shows further information about MMP, like the current version.

The toolbar offers the four most important menu functions as buttons. The following four functions are available:

• "Open document from file..."
• "Close document"
• "Start document"
• "Stop document"

The properties dialog, accessible in the menu "File", offers two tabs.

In the first tab "Basic Properties" (Illustration 2-2), the user can specify a start folder for the file selection dialog. There you can specify a default document folder which the MMP file dialog will display as starting folder. The "Technical demonstration" area is intended for developers and technical demonstrations. Here you can specify, whether detailed information on required extensions has to be displayed - for example whether required extensions were loaded from the Internet or from the local disc.

Illustration 2-2: MMP Properties - Basic Properties

New since Version 1.3

In the "Security" tab (Illustration 2-3), the security level for loading extensions can be defined. You can allow the presentation system to load only extensions from the local file system, from specific Internet addresses or from any address. The last option provides no security at all. If you do not permit loading of extensions you have the highest security level. With the manage addresses button a dialog is opened that allows to add or remove particular addresses where the loading of extensions from is allowed.

Illustration 2-3: MMP Properties - Security

In the third tab "GUI" (Illustration 2-4) two different things can be configured. First, the look and feel of the GUI can be set (you can choose from three options). The second thing is the language from the GUI. If you change the language, you have to restart MMP to make the change effective.

Illustration 2-4: MMP Properties - GUI

The settings of MMP will be saved in the file "mava.config" in the ".mava" directory which is stored in the user directory.