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1991-12-24
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Deskpic - A desktop picture/screen saver program for OS/2 Presentation Manager.
By John Ridges
Invocation: START DESKPIC
To install, place DESKPIC.EXE in your path, DESKPIC.DLL in your libpath.
Any Desktop Picture Reader or Desktop Screen Saver extensions should also be
placed in the same directory as DESKPIC.EXE.
Deskpic brightens up your Presentation Manager screen by reading a picture
and making it the screen background instead of that old boring monotone
background color. It will read BMP, GIF, PCX, or MET picture files, and it
will also read Animated Desktop Extensions (.ANI files) for the ANIMATE.EXE
Animated Desktop Program. Just place all your picture files (including
Animated Desktop Extensions) in a subdirectory and Deskpic will randomly
choose one to display.
Deskpic is also a screen saver - after a programmable period of inactivity,
it will clear the screen and randomly choose a screen saver graphic.
Included is Flex (a bouncing geometric figure), Melting Flex, Spaceflight,
and Fade to Black. But best of all, Deskpic is extensible. New picture file
formats can be read with Desktop Picture Reader extensions (.DPR files) and
you can have more screen savers with Desktop Screen Saver extensions (.DSS
files). When you start Deskpic it will look for extensions and link them
right in.
When the desktop has the focus, 'F' will bring the picture forward and
another 'F' or a mouse movement will return it to the background. If the
picture is an Animated Desktop Extension, 'P' will pause the animation and
another 'P' will allow it to continue. You can terminate Deskpic with 'F3'.
Double-clicking on the desktop will bring up the options dialog.
For those of you that care, I hereby officially release the program into
the public domain. If you're interested in writing Desktop Picture Reader
or Screen Saver extensions, there is a package with instructions and two
sample extensions that I'll be posting. (If you can't find it, contact me
and I'll get it to you.) I'm really looking forward to seeing some whiz-bang
extensions, so somebody please write some.
Deskpic's been pretty thoroughly tested and I'm willing to bet what's left
of my professional reputation that it's bug free. Of course, legally, I
make no guarantees about anything it might do to your programs, data,
hardware, or sanity. Hey, you get what you pay for.
Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Hate mail? You can contact me at Compuserve
72000,2057 (checked weekly).
5/22/90 - Bug fixed that locked up Presentation Manager when the picture was
an animated desktop and the desktop had the focus and a screen saver was
activated and the user typed a character. No excuse for this one, I guess
that just about wraps it up for my professional reputation.
6/03/90 - Added on-line documentation.
6/06/90 - Made Deskpic minimize to an icon when the desktop picture is
disabled. This allows you to use the screen saver even though you have some
other program that needs the desktop.
6/30/90 - Added picture tiling and "Browse" button for picture path.
6/07/91 - Made a few improvements to the options dialog. Fixed a problem with
Browse showing ".." at the root level on HPFS drives. Fixed a problem where
the screen saver woke up unexpectedly when some applications were being used.
Changed the screen saver so that when it is woken up with the keyboard,
instead of passing the character to the last active application, the
character is ignored.
10/14/91 - Minor update. Fixed a problem that kept the screen saver from
activating when the computer had network print queues. Made "Single saver"
actually work properly (oops).
12/24/91 - Made Deskpic more compatible with the OS/2 2.0 Workplace Shell.
Note to OS/2 2.0 users:
Version 1.32 of Deskpic has been tested with OS/2 2.0 beta 6.167 and seems to
work with only a few exceptions. First, the "Desktop Picture" portion is
useless since the picture obscures any objects you have on the desktop.
You should disable the "Desktop Picture" and use the desktop's background
setting instead. You won't get animated desktops, but I think the Workplace
Shell had made them impossible anyway (at least I can't think of any way to
implement them -- oh well). Second, the screen savers "Aquarium" and "Spheres"
don't work and should not be used (they'll crash Deskpic). I'm convinced this
is due to bugs in the 6.167 beta, so I'm not going to do anything about it
unless they still don't work with the release version of OS/2 2.0.