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Plugins

McMorran.org has music and animation. Why all this extravagance? Because it's fun. You'll need some additional software called a plugin to make this stuff work. If you don't have it, or you've got an old version, your computer gives you an error message. Don't panic, just get the darn plug-in!

Plugins are free and dead easy to install, so don't panic.

		Acrobat Reader Required for PDF documents (text and pictures)
		Flash Required for interactive animation and some video playback (minimum version 8)
		Windows Media Player the standard audio/video player for Microsoft Windows computers. Also available for MacOS.
		QuickTime the standard audio/video player for Mac computers; needed for MOV files, QuickTime VR panoramic images. Available for Windows and Mac.
		RealPlayer Another audio & video streaming player - sometimes used for radio & TV webcasts.

RSS

This site now offer RSS (Really Simple Syndication) so you can feed the latest headlines into you web browser, or into another website, without having to visit this site specifically. Here are some ways you can use RSS:

Creating a Live Bookmark in Firefox
This is the easiest option - first you need to get Firefox web browser. Once you've installed Firefox, visit www.mcmorran.org and follow these simple steps:

1. Look in the URL (web address) bar and you will see a small RSS icon (on older versions of Firefox, this is found at the bottom right corner of the window). Click on it.
   
   
2. A dialogue box like this will pop up - Firefox is asking you where you want to put the bookmark. For best results, select the bookmarks toolbar folder, as this will save the link into the bar across the top of the window under the browser buttons.
   
   
3. When you have done this, you should see the bookmark appear in your toolbar. If you can't see it, you may have too many bookmarks to display all at once on the toolbar. Try opening Bookmarks > Manage bookmarks to change the order of the bookmarks. When you click on the bookmark, a drop-down menu will appear showing the latest headlines. Easy!
   

Adding headlines onto your site
You'll need a file that can read RSS feeds - I'll add a sample file here for PHP developers soon.

Reading headlines into a feed reader
Try an online reader such as Bloglines, Google or Feedburner - you can gather all your favourite headlines in one place. There are also downloadable software applications for Windows, MacOS and mobile devices.

Searching

You can now search for content on this site by keyword. You usually find what you want if the words you enter are in the title or text of the page.

Searching the online shop
If you are in the online shop you should search using the category search in the shop menu. If you do search via the site search, there is an option to search the shop too.

Search item not found?
If you don't find what you want you are given the option of searching on the web, using the Exalead search engine.

Shopping

You can browse the online shop by category - just select a link from the left-hand menu. This will open a new page with a list of sub-categories to choose from.

Scroll down the page for more items - where there are multiple pages in your selection, you will see a list of clickable page numbers at the bottom of each page, and a "next" link for the next page.

If you find it easier to find by searching, use the search box on the left-hand side. Select a main category from the drop-down list and enter words you want to search for, such as author, artist, title, item, etc.

Click on an item to find more details about it. If you decide to buy, click on the "Add to shopping cart" button and follow the on-screen instructions. You can continue shopping. When you want to finish and pay, click on the "Shopping cart" icon and select the "Proceed to checkout" button at the bottom. This will open a new window to take you to the Amazon website where your purchase is finalised.

The online shop is provided by Amazon.co.uk and all transactions, deliveries and payments are processed through Amazon and are subject to Amazon terms and conditions.

Bug reporting

Uh-oh - if something really is broken, don't just leave it lying around - drop me a line and tell me about it.