Using melscripts:

Ok you just downloaded the most promising whizzbang melscript, but how the !@#@$#@ do you make it work?

Ok first of all, some melscripts doesnt allways work, this might be an oversight on you or the writer, or maybe it is simply out of date, needs extra sub/support scripts or otherwise.

SO! always read the header of the script, the header is the part the is 'commented out' by '//' , most programmers are so nice that they actually write a small description/manual in the beginning so that you have achance of using it, for instance a lot of scripts need you to select objects in a certain order before executing them etc.

The header can look something like this:
 

// bBox
// v1.0
// March 8 2000
// Soren 'kurgan' Jacobsen
// kurgan@kurgan.dk  (suggestions/bugreports welcome)
// http://www.kurgan.dk/
//
// toggles Bounding-Boxing on selected objects


as you can see a lot of programmers (in this case me) are arrogant enough to put their big fat stamp on it ;)  (you could also take this as an invitation to get help, if everything else fails, or if you have a great idea how to make the script better).

Ok, so you have this bBox.mel file and want it to work for you.

first of all the easiest way is to put it in your scripts directory/folder , this makes the script available to Maya.
the scripts directory is located at:
IRIX:  $HOME/maya/scripts/  (fx.  /usr/people/kurgan/maya/scripts/ )
NT (yuk!!)  Your profile/maya/scripts/   (fx. C:/winnt/profiles/kurgan/maya/scripts/ )

next run the script from the maya commandline, (fx > bBox <enter> )
but how do you know what to write?
well usually it is the name of the script without the '.mel' , if this doesnt work, then have a look in the script, look for the line with 'global proc '.... fx:
 

// bBox
// v1.0
// March 8 2000
// Soren 'kurgan' Jacobsen
// kurgan@kurgan.dk  (suggestions/bugreports welcome)
// http://www.kurgan.dk/
//
// toggles Bounding-Boxing on selected objects
global proc bBox()
{
string $selectedObjects[] = `ls -sl`;
for( $current in $selectedObjects)
 {
  setAttr ($current + ".overrideEnabled") 1;
  if(`getAttr ($current + ".overrideLevelOfDetail")`)
   {
    setAttr ($current + ".overrideLevelOfDetail") 0;
   }
  else
   {
    setAttr ($current + ".overrideLevelOfDetail") 1;
   }
 }
}


bBox part is what you should enter.

Sometimes you'd probably like to make a script easy to execute, like fx. the bBox script, so putting it on your shelf is very convenient.
This is actually very easy:
just select the script/command-name ( fx. bBox)
and MMB-drag it to you shelf

simple as that now you have a toggle bBox function.