Q: What is Announce?
A: A simple Macintosh utility for sending instant text and audio
messages to one or more users on an AppleTalk network.
Announce is basically two programs: An application program, Announce User,
for sending messages and a system control panel, Announcer, for receiving
messages.
Q: What do I get when I register Announce?
Q: How much does it cost?
Q: How do I order?
A: New users are allowed to evaluate the Announce software for 30 days.
After this time they must stop using the software or purchase a license to
continue using it. (However, Announce does not physically stop working after
30 days; we rely mostly on the honor system.)
When you register, you get a disk containing the latest version of the
Announce User, Announce Admin, and Announcer software. In the registered
version, the 'welcome' screen, and other shareware messages,
do not appear each time you open Announce
User. The Annouce Admin software gives administrators the ability to
set clocks, restart, and shut down Macs remotely.
The cost is $39.00 per unlimited users for a single organization in a
single building. Contact T&T Software for situations where you have a
small number of users spread over many buildings, or other situations
that do not easily meet the standard license agreement.
See also
How to Purchase the Full Announce Package below.
Payment must be in U.S. dollars and checks must be drawn on U.S. banks.
Payment is accepted by check, money order, international postal
money order, Visa, MasterCard, or PayPal. Company purchase order are also accepted.
Q: What is the latest version?
A: The current version of the Announce User application, Announce
Admin application, and Announcer control panel is 1.2.8.
At this time no updates are planned.
Q: As a registered user, will I receive upgrades?
A: Unfortunately there are no upgrades planned at this time.
Contact T&T Software to obtain the latest full version
if you purchased an older version.
Q: Can you add a Reply button to the received message window?
Q: Can you increase the length of the text message?
Q: Can you make the received message window modeless?
A: The ability to enhance the received message window is very
limited in the current release. I will consider these enhancements
in a future major upgrade but it will require time and research to
implement these features safely.
Why?
The features of the received message window, including the message
size, is limited by the Macintosh's Notification Manager, a part of the
operating system software. When the Announcer receives a message,
it does not display the message itself, but "passes" it to the
Notification Manager. Then the Notification Manager decides when
it is "safe" to display the message. This guarantees Announcer is
compatible and reliable no matter what program(s) are running when
a message comes in. Unfortunately, Apple did not provide many ways
to customize the Notification Manager.
Q: Are you planning to support TCP/IP networks?
Q: Are you planning a Microsoft Windows version?
A: No future upgrades are planned at this time.
Q: Can I save incoming messages?
A: Yes. In the recent versions of the Announcer control panel
you can check an option to save incoming messages to a text file.
This text file, Announcer Log, is created in the Preferences folder,
inside the System Folder. In System 7.x you can make an alias to
Announcer Log and move the alias somewhere convenient, like the
Desktop or Apple Menu Items.
Q: Can I save common outgoing messages?
A:: Yes. In the Announce User or Announce Admin program,
Select New Announcement from the File menu. Type your message, then
select Save from the File menu. Next time you want to send this message,
open the file you just saved.
Q: Can I make the alert sound option default 'on?'
A: Yes. Use Apple's ResEdit program to edit the 'STNG' resource
in Announce User. Change the 'Default Play Alert Sound' setting to true.
Q: I don't want users sending audio messages on the network.
Can the ability to Add Audio be disabled?
A: Yes. Use Apple's ResEdit program to edit the 'STNG'
resource in Announce User. Change the Audio Quality setting to
four blank spaces, then Announce User will not display an Add Audio button.
Q: We use At Ease and need Announcer to use a different network name?
A: Recent versions of the Announcer control panel will let
you select the Announcer's network name to be either the Owner Name or
Macintosh Name. By default Announcer selects the Owner Name.
At Ease users will want to go to the Announcer control panel
and change the Network Name option to Macintosh and then Restart.
See the Sharing Setup control panel to define specific names.
Q: When Announcer installs I get an 'error -1027' message.
Q: In the user list I see some names more than once, but the last
letter in each name is different?
A: Make sure you have only one copy of the Announcer control
panel installed. Remove any old copies of Announcer from the Extensions
folder. Also make sure your Macintoshes have unique Owner or Macintosh
names in the Sharing Setup control panel.
Q: Announcer works on most of our Macs, but one or two Macs do not
appear in the user list?
A: Select Poll Zone for More Users from the Announce menu.
If a Mac still does not appear, rename the Announcer control panel
on the Mac that will not appear to ZAnnouncer and Restart. This
changes the order that Announcer loads during start-up and can
resolve conflicts with other network software that needs to load
before Announcer. If you are running OS X see the related question below.
Q: Announce User works on all of our Macs except the PowerMac 9500?
A: The PowerMac 9500 originally shipped with Open Transport 1.0.
Apple fixed some bugs in this system software and you should upgrade to
Open Transport 1.06 or later.
Q: Does Announce work on OS X?
A: The Announce software was
written and tested for System 7.5.x and older. It was carefully
designed to meet Apple's guidelines so it should continue to work on newer
systems, however there is no guarantee. Announce will not run natively in
OS X, however some users have reported success running Announce in OS 9 (classic)
under OS X.
Q: Why do the names for some OS X users not appear in Announce User?
A: The Announcer control panel extension must have successfully loaded
on a user's computer before their name will appear in the Announce User client.
Mac OS extensions only load in OS X when OS 9 (classic) is launched.
So, if a user is running OS X, before their name will appear,
OS 9 must be launched and the Announcer control panel must have successfully
loaded under OS 9 at that time.
You can set OS 9 to start automatically when a user logs in: Go to the
System Preferences, under the classic options, and check a box "start
classic when you log in." Make sure that the Announcer control panel
is installed under OS 9.
FAQ Revised: October 1995, April 2003
