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There are two basic ways to run Mup: directly from a command line or via the Mupmate program. You can use either approach, or switch between them as you wish. The Mupmate program just provides a more menu-driven environment on top of the Mup program itself.
You can create a Mup file using any ordinary text editor, and then run the Mup program on the file you created. On Windows, Notepad is a typical editor choice, and on Linux, editors like vim and emacs are commonly used, but pretty much any text editor (not word processor) can be used. Many people, however, prefer to be able to edit, display, and play from a single integrated and more graphical interface, and for them, a helper program called "Mupmate" is provided. The Mupmate program helps lead you through some of the steps, and you can easily access this User's Guide from its Help menu.
Mupmate is currently only supported on Windows and Linux. However, since the source code is available, and it is based on the cross-platform FLTK toolkit, it would probably be fairly easy to make it run on any system supported by FLTK.
Once you have installed Mup and Mupmate on Windows, double clicking a .mup file in Windows explorer will run Mupmate on that file. Or, you can run Mupmate by going to the Start menu, and choosing Programs, then Arkkra, and then Mupmate. If you would like an icon on the desktop, you can create one by right clicking the Mupmate choice in the Arkkra menu, choosing "copy", right clicking somewhere on the desktop, and choosing "paste".
On Linux, you can just type the mupmate command in a terminal window, optionally followed by the name of a Mup input file. Or you can add mupmate to your favorite window manager's menus.
Mupmate provides five top level menus: File, Edit, Run, Config, and Help. The File menu provides commands for opening new files and saving the file you are working on, as well as exiting the program. The Edit menu provides the kinds of things you would expect in a editor: commands to find a pattern, or find and replace; to select text; to copy, cut, and paste; to go to a specific line; and to undo the previous operation, if you make a mistake or change you mind. The Run menu lets you set runtime options, and then run the Mup program on your input in various ways. You can either just generate a PostScript or MIDI file, or display the PostScript or play the MIDI. The Config menu lets you specify what application program you want to use to view PostScript files and which you want to use to play MIDI files, and well as specify locations for other Mup files. Mupmate will try to find reasonable default values, but you may want to check that they are what you want, and tweak them if they aren't. The Config menu also provides a way for you to fill in the Mup registration form if you wish to send in a paper form rather than registering online via credit card, as well as a place to entry the registration key you will receive once you have paid. The Help menu lets you browse this User's Guide, view some startup hints, or see the current version number of Mup and Mupmate.
Mupmate does not directly provide a print facility. Almost any PostScript viewer already provides this ability, so you can simply select "Display" from the Run menu and use the viewer's print capabilities. Alternately you can use "Write PostScript File" from the Run menu to create a PostScript file that you can print as you would any other PostScript file.