BeBlurb v0.75
Introduction
BeBlurb lets you communicate with other BeOS users over the network. You
can send simple text messages and attach files, and address your messages
to multiple users. Users are identified by Person files, created by the
People application.
Requirements
BeBlurb requires libprefs.so and message_daemon. Both can be found on
BeWare.
Getting Started
When you run BeBlurb for the first time, you'll need to provide an identity
for yourself. Drag a Person file to the "From" field in the BeBlurb window
to set the default user. Messages sent from BeBlurb to other network users
will be marked as having come from this user.
You can type a simple message in the "Message" field and drag files to
the "Attachments" field. The message and the attachments will be sent to
the users specified in the "To" field.
To address a message to another user on the network, you can either drag
a Person file to the "To" field in the BeBlurb window, or you can
right-click on the "To" field and choose "Add Person" from the pop-up menu.
Once you've specified recipients of your message, the "Send" button becomes
active; click it to send the message.
A status bar will appear to illustrate the progress of the blurb delivery.
If the connection hangs or the send is otherwise taking an unreasonable
amount of time to transfer, you can abort by closing the status window.
At any time, press command-n while a BeBlurb window or a status window is
active to create a new BeBlurb window.
Receiving Blurbs
BeBlurb doesn't have to be running to receive messages from other users.
message_daemon will launch BeBlurb with the incoming message when it
arrives. If BeBlurb is already open, then the new message is displayed
in a new BeBlurb window.
If the incoming message contains attachments, clicking on the icon of the
attachment will provide a Save panel to allow you to save the attachment.
Relationship to Person files
BeBlurb extends a Person file by adding a hostname attribute. Thus, when
you drag a Person file to the "To" field, the stored hostname is used to
route the message across the network to the correct host. If the Person
file doesn't have a hostname, when you drag it to the "To" field, you'll
be asked to specify one.
Since BeBlurb bases its knowledge of people on Person files, it only knows
about people for which you have a Person file. If you receive a message
from someone for whom you don't have a Person file, the mini People icon
will not appear next to that name. To save that person's information as a
Person file, right-click on the person and choose "Save this person".
Known Bugs and Limitations
- BeBlurb doesn't send messages to multiple recipients well at the
moment.
- There is no limit checking on the size of attachments. You should
limit attachments to a meg or two, total.
- Saving a Person from his network identity loses the mime type.
- The application will occasionally not quit properly when no more
windows are open.
- The Blurb window isn't resizable. Initially, I didn't think this
was necessary, but as people are starting to send me code snippits
via BeBlurb, I'm starting to want this ability.
- More preferences are coming, to resolve the following:
- The People path is hardcoded as ~/people/.
- The window-closing behavior for clicking "Reply" and "Send"
is currently fixed.
- The sound played when a new blurb arrives isn't
customizable.
- There isn't an option to quote messages to which you're
responding. (In the meantime, copy and paste works wonders.)
Some of these issues are directly related to the performance of
message_daemon, which I'm concurrently developing.
For more information...
History
- Tue Mar 3 01:26:48 EST 1998
Minor bug fixes and some interface tweaks. Preferences are almost
in but not quite.
- Fri Feb 27 00:26:04 EST 1998
Minor bug fixes.
- Thu Feb 26 17:37:49 EST 1998
Changed the behavior of the "Send" button such that, when editing
text, typing the RETURN key actually types a newline, and ENTER
continues to serve to hit the default button.
- Wed Feb 25 02:39:18 EST 1998
Fixed a bug that garbled hostnames in the Person editing window.
Tweaked the placement of the progress windows.
- sometime on Tue Feb 25
Cleaned up the code that handles sending to multiple people. It
actually works now.