Sending messages
For the most part, using Manhattan involves exchanging messages. As mentioned in The Message is the Medium, a message can be as simple as a plain text sentence, or it can include megabytes of multimedia. In this section we'll cover the steps for sending a Manhattan message using the Handouts/Notices module as an example. The Handouts/Notices module is for one-way communication from you, the teacher, to your students. It's a good place to put things like the course syllabus, other handouts, or general notices you want to make available to your students. For a new Manhattan classroom, Handouts/Notices will not contain any messages, and will look like this:
Since students are not allowed to put messages into the Handouts Notices module, they will not see the New Item button. Clicking on the New Item button will bring you to the form shown below:
You probably can't see the entire form on your screen at once. You will have to scroll down the page to view the "Attachments" section at the bottom, which has all of the Browse buttons.
This is a typical, compose message form, which you'll encounter again and again as you work with Manhattan. In fact, if you know how to send a message in one Manhattan module, you pretty much know how to send a message in any Manhattan module.
Note the Blue Arrow 
at
the upper left corner of the page. This arrow, always found
near the upper left corner of the page, should be used
instead of your web browser's back button. In this particular
context, clicking the arrow will cancel the creation of a new
message, and return you to the main Handouts/Notices
page.
The Topic:
Type the topic of your message in the space provided. Depending on which module you are working with, the "Topic" may be called a "Subject" or an "Assignment". The topic you type will appear on a list of all messages posted to the Handouts/Notices module. You and your students will click on the topic in that list to read the message. It is important to pick a topic that helps others identify the content of your message.
The Message:
The largest text box on your screen is for your message. You can type as much text as you need in this box - the text will scroll if you type more than can fit on the visible screen. You'll also find that the text wraps automatically, like a word processor, when you reach the end of a line.
The text box is NOT a word processor, however - it is intended only for typing simple messages. In particular, note these special characteristics of the message box:
-
You can't insert spaces by pressing TAB. That's because your browser uses your TAB key to advance to the next field in the form.
-
If you enter a complete web address, for example "http://manhattan.sourceforge.net", the address will become a live, 'clickable' hyperlink when the message is read. For this to work, you must include the http:// part. That is, "manhattan.sourceforge.net" won't appear as a web link, but "http://manhattan.sourceforge.net" will. Also be sure to leave one or more spaces or blank lines before and after the web address. A good practice is to put a web address on its own line like this:
Hey, everybody, check out this site: http://www.sourceforge.net It's great! -
You can also use a few HTML tags in your messages:
<B>This is Bold</B> <I>This is Italics</I> <U>This is Underlined</U>
Check Spelling
Notice the Check Spelling button in the above screenshot. This button will appear on all pages used to compose Manhattan messages if both of the following are true:
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Your server administrator has enabled and properly configured the capability server-wide. (Most often this is the case.)
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You, as the teacher, have enabled the feature for this particular classroom. See Select modules for details on how to do this.
When you click on the button, the contents of the body of the message will be spell-checked in a pop-up window:
The spell checker is both intuitive and capable. It highlights any words not found in its dictionary and provides a list of potential alternatives, allows you to ignore misspelled words, and allows you to type in your own corrections. When the spell check is complete, the window closes, and the corrected text is placed back into the form used to compose the message.
Attaching Files
Manhattan supports two kinds of attachments: 1) ordinary files and 2) sets of files which together make up a complete web site. In this section, we'll explain the most commonly used kind of attachments: ordinary files.
To attach an ordinary file to a Manhattan message, be sure to leave this checkbox, which appears in the "Attachments" section of the form used to compose a message, UNCHECKED:
You can then attach a file to a Manhattan message by entering its full pathname in any one of the text boxes in the "Attachments" section. An example of a file's full pathname is:
C:\My Documents\homework\assign1.doc
A much easier way to accomplish the same thing is to click on any one of the Browse buttons in the "Attachments" area of the page. This will cause your web browser to open a standard "file browser" dialog box like this:
Use the same procedure you would use within, say, a word processor to find and open the file you want to attach to your message. If you are using Netscape, be sure to change the "Files of type:" entry from "HTML files (*.html)" to "All files (*.*)" as shown in the above diagram. After you have selected and opened a file, you will be returned to the web page with the full path of the file filled in for you.
You can attach up to twenty files per message and it doesn't matter which of the Browse buttons you use to attach an ordinary file.
Sending the message
Click on either one of the two Send Message buttons, then click OK to the "Send this message?" prompt to send the message on its way. How long it takes to send a message depends on the size of the message and its attachments, the speed of your modem or network connection, and the amount of traffic on the Internet. Short messages go very fast, but attached word processing files can be large, especially if they contain graphics. Be patient and wait! Depending on the web browser you are using, you may see a message "Host contacted, waiting for reply..." message in the status bar at the bottom of the screen while a long message is being transferred. Relax - everything is working fine!
After the message is sent, you'll be returned to the area you started from when you clicked the New Memo command. How can you be sure the message was sent? If you can read the message in Manhattan, then so can the recipient or recipients.