The Bang tool is a utility for sending messages to other tools. The Add and Del buttons are used to add and delete connections between the Bang tool and other tools. To make a connection, press and hold the mouse on the Add button, and drag the mouse away. You will see a line stretching as you drag the mouse. Drag the line so that it ends up on the desired tool, and release the mouse. The connection is now made. To check the connection, press the Add button - all of the current connections will be displayed until you release the button. The Del button is used just like the Add button, except that it removes connections - you drag the line to the tool whose connection you want to delete.

Pressing the Bang button will cause the Bang tool to send a message to all of the connected tools. The default message is "bang". In essence, this will invoke the bang method in each of the connected tools. If a tool does not have a bang method, a warning message will be printed in the console window.

The More menu lets you set things up so that the Bang tool will monitor MIDI input and trigger itself automatically when a particular MIDI message is seen. To set up this capability, you should first play on your MIDI input device the desired MIDI message (e.g. a particular note on your keyboard). Then, invoke the "Load Recorded" menu item in the More menu. This will load the MIDI message that you just played. To have the Bang tool then continuously monitor MIDI input for this message, press the On button. This button is a toggle - pressing it again will turn it off. When the Bang tool is On, all MIDI input is monitored, and each occurrence of the specified MIDI message will cause the Bang tool to trigger and send a message to all of its connections.

You can change the message that the Bang tool sends by invoking the "Set Message" item in the More menu. After invoking it, you will see a window in which you can enter the message name. The "Set Comment" item lets you change the text that is displayed in the center of the Bang tool. The "Delete ALL Trigees" item will remove all of the Bang tool's connections.