1.) Macintosh or compatible computer running System 7 or newer.
2.) QuickTime 3.0 or newer recommended ( So you can take advantage of WAV and AVI file types )
3.) Sound Manager 3.0 or newer
4.) Minimum 900k of free RAM
5.) Minimum 1 MB of free hard disk space.
Q. What does Screen Gear do?
A. Screen Gear is a screen saver and a simple presentation tool. Screen Gear will take a folder of AIFF, PICT, JPEG and QuickTime files and turn them into an elegant slide show, fading one file into the next while playing narration, music or both.
Q. How do you use Screen Gear?
A. Refer to the "QuickStart" or "Using Screen Gear" section.
Q. How much does Screen Gear cost?
A.The shareware fee for Screen Gear is $15 for a single copy.
WHAT'S NEW?
Ñ Internal update to support some custom file types.
HOW TO REGISTER
Screen Gear has the following pricing.
1-4 single user licenses, $15 per user
5-9 single user licenses, $13 per user
10+ single user licenses, $10 per user
Site license, $150 covers your organization within a 160 kilometer/100 mile radius
An UNLIMITED resale/distribution license costs $250. With this license you can make your own customized screen savers and sell them royalty free!
If you are a registered user of a previous version of Screen Gear you can use that information to register this version of Screen Gear!
Paying for Screen Gear is relatively simple. Open the "Register" program that accompanies Screen Gear. Enter your name, your email address and the number of single user licenses you desire for each program you wish to purchase (or Site or Worldwide licenses). Save or Copy or Print the data from the Register program and send the data and payment to Kagi. Kagi handles all of the payment processing.
If paying with Credit Card or First Virtual, you can email or fax the data to Kagi. Their email address is sales@kagi.com and their fax number is +1 510 652-6589. You can either Copy the data from Register and paste into the body of an email message or you can Save the data to a file and you can attach that file to an email message. There is no need to compress the data file, it's already pretty small. If you have a fax modem, just Print the data to the Kagi fax number.
Payments sent via email are processed within 3 to 4 days. You will receive an email acknowledgement when it is processed. Payments sent via fax take up to 10 days and if you provide a correct internet email address you will receive an email acknowledgement.
If you are paying with Cash or USD Check you should print the data using the Register application and send it to the address shown on the form, which is:
Kagi
1442-A Walnut Street POB #392-M3
Berkeley, California 94709-1405
USA
You can pay with a wide variety of cash from different countries but at present if you pay via check, it must be a check drawn in US Dollars. Kagi cannot accept checks in other currencies, the conversion rate for non-USD checks is around USD 15 per check and that is just not practical. If you have a purchasing department, you can enter all the data into the Register program and then select Invoice as your payment method. Print three copies of the form and send it to your accounts payable people. You might want to highlight the line that mentions that they must include a copy of the form with their payment. Kagi can not invoice your company, you need to act on my behalf and generate the invoice and handle all the paperwork on your end.
Please do not fax or email payment forms that indicate Cash, Check or Invoice as the payment method. As far as we know, there is still no technology to transfer physical objects via fax or email and without the payment, the form cannot be processed. Payments send via postal mail take time to reach Kagi and then up to 10 days for processing. Again, if you include a correct email address, you will hear from Kagi when the form is processed. Screen Gear has a protection scheme and when you pay, we tell you how to indicate to Screen Gear that you have paid the registration fee. If you do not have an email address, please enter your complete postal address and please remember, we do not know what country you live in so please enter that into the postal address also.
Assuming that Kagi provides you with the registration code: If you do not have an email address you should consider selecting the Postcard Receipt so that Kagi can inform you of your registration code. Kagi transmits the registration codes via email and paid postcard receipt only.
Once you receive your registration number for Screen Gear do the following:
Click the "I've registered" button in the "Registration" section of the "preferences..." menu. The registration information has to be typed exactly as it appears in the registration document that Kagi provided as it is case sensitive. Alert, after you have received your registration information please keep it in a safe place.
QUICKSTART
Ñ When I created Screen Gear I wanted to make a program that's easy to use with minimal knowledge on the part of the user. To this end all you need to do is double-Click the "Screen Gear" application and dismiss the about dialog by clicking on it (Only present on nonregistered versions of Screen Gear). Next select the folder with files you want to view from the "Designate File/Folder" option of the "File" menu. Then select "Begin..." from the "File" menu.
Note: If you want Screen Gear to playback files that are located in the same folder as Screen Gear, select the "Default" button from the "Designate File/Folder" dialog. This is very useful for transferring Screen Gear and files to other machines without forcing you to use the "Designate File/Folder" again.
The folder where Screen Gear is located is generally the best location to place all your files/folders for playback. If the "Default" button has been set, it doesn't matter where you move the folder that contains Screen Gear and your files. Screen Gear will always be able to locate and play them back without using the "Designate File/Folder" dialog.
That's all there is to it! If you would like more information on how to use the keyboard to navigate your files press the "?" key while viewing your files. A chart can be found in the "NAVIGATION" section in the preferences.
Ñ If you want Screen Gear to start every time you start your computer then Double-Click the "Screen Gear" application and make sure the "Start Screen when you start your Mac" box is checked in the "General" section of the "preferences..." menu. Now Screen Gear will start every time you startup your computer.
Ñ If you lack images or sound files to playback you can try any of the following:
- If you see images you like on the internet you can copy them to your computer hard disk. Screen Gear will playback most of the images you get from the internet without any file conversion because they are already in JPEG format.
- Screen Gear doesn't support the GIF format directly, but you can convert GIF to PICT if you have QuickTime 3.0 installed.
From the Screen Gear file menu choose "convert To quicktime..." and save the file. Now select "convert From quicktime..." from the "File" menu. You will be presented with a standard open dialog. Locate the file you just saved and open it. Another dialog is presented, but this time it's a save dialog. Below the field where you enter the name for your file is a popup list for the available save options, select "picture" and save.
Congratulations, you've just converted a GIF file to PICT, now Screen Gear can play it back!
- If you have a music CD and QuickTime 3.0 installed on your computer, you can let Screen Gear try to convert the files to the AIFF format. To do this use the "convert To quicktime..." option from the Screen Gear "File" menu.
After locating and selecting the music file from a CD, a settings window is presented that allows you to sample the music at different rates. Down sampling can be very useful for reducing the size of a file to reduce space used on your hard disk and reduce the processor power required for playback.
I generally set my files to 22kHz at 8 bits. It really just depends on what kind of quality you want and how much horsepower your computer has.
Finally select the "convert From quicktime..." option from the "File" menu and convert the QuickTime music file to the AIFF format.
Larger sound files may not convert properly or may fail during the conversion process. To correct the problem you may try increasing the memory for Screen Gear and try again. If that doesn't work, try using a sound converting program such as SoundApp. It does a great job at sound file conversion and it's Freeware.
Ñ If you would like more information on using Screen Gear, refer to the "Using Screen Gear" section.
USING Screen Gear Pro
Ñ To display or listen to an AIFF, PICT, JPEG or QuickTime file types with Screen Gear, just place the files in a folder. From the "File Menu" choose "Designate File/Folder" to locate the folder with the files you would like Screen Gear to present. Next make sure Screen Gear is the front most application(currently active application) and select "Begin..." from the file menu.
Hint: You can use a similar procedure to jump to an image while Screen Gear is displaying an image by pressing D and then locate the file you would like to view. You may need to turn on the disable mouse to ensure that Screen Gear doesn't detect mouse movement and wakeup.
Ñ Now that you have a file or folder selected you can activate Screen Gear by moving your mouse to a sleep corner, providing you have activated the sleep corners in the preferences. If Screen Gear doesn't activate Immediately check your sleep corner delay settings.
Ñ Another way Screen Gear can be activated is by letting Screen Gear time out due to no activity (that could be a long time depending on the settings in the preferences).
Ñ While a presentation is running you can press the ╥?╙ key to view a list of keyboard navigation commands if they aren't disabled in the preferences.
Ñ Images will be displayed in the center of your screen while movies can be located anywhere on the screen. Each image will be shown at the physical dimensions specified for that particular file. If that size is larger than your screen can accommodate, the image will be adjusted to fit your screen. (this can cause some distortion to the image). Selecting "Full Screen" allows the image to be stretched proportionately to the size of your screen. Selecting the "Fill the Screen" will cause all pictures and movies to fill the entire screen. Some images may become distorted, although this can cause some amusing results.
Ñ Unless you have a very fast computer and hard disk drive, the size of your images may affect the rate at which the screen changes, because larger files take longer to load. You may want to resize your image(s) to reduce the file size for faster loading.
Ñ The files will be presented in alphabetical / numerical order. You can change the order by adding a letter or number to the front of each name ╤ for example ╥aBook,╙ versus ╥bBook╙ and so on.
Ñ If you want a QuickTime movie to play on top of a picture then just name the movie so it will follow directly after the picture. Make sure you have your view set to view by name and take a look at the files included with Screen Gear. They are organized as follows:
SG01 "PICT" image file
SG02 "PICT" image file
SG03 "PICT" image file
SG04 "QuickTime" file
SG05 "AIFF" sound file
Files can be an alias as well.
The image being displayed along with a QuickTime file will be presented for the duration of the QuickTime file only. When the QuickTime file is done playing Screen Gear will move on to the next file regardless of your seconds per frame settings. This is so you can synchronize audio(narration) tracks with images for presentations.
If you don't want the QuickTime movie or sound file to play over your picture(it will by default - remember any picture that the movie follows) then create a small colored picture. This file should be the same color you selected as your background so you don't notice the difference. You can copy this file and rename it or make an alias of it (saves space) as necessary to use it in multiple locations.
Ñ If you pause a movie by pressing the space bar you can continue the movie where you paused by pressing the right arrow. If you press the left arrow the movie will play backwards and will start looping until you stop it. Pressing the pause key and then pressing the right arrow automatically places you in the pause play mode. This tells Screen Gear to stop displaying the next picture or movie until you press the right arrow key again. To place Screen Gear in the auto play mode just press the P key and the screen will automatically change to the next picture and will continue there after.
Ñ There are many different ways to combine your files to create all sorts of interesting effects, don't be afraid to experiment. To add/remove or change the order of your files just go to the file location and make the necessary changes and begin the show.
Ñ If you place an AIFF file into your file folder you can have a music file or several music files playing in the arranged order. AIFF files play independently of images or QuickTime files. In other words if the music is longer than the 10 seconds the picture is set for displaying, the music will continue to play through to the next picture and so on. Once the music is finished and there are no other AIFF files to play, the music will start playing from the beginning of the first AIFF file all over again.
Ñ If you would like to adjust the volume of Screen Gear while it's playing you can press the S key and then press any number from 0 - 9. The number 9 would set the volume to the loudest setting and the number 0 would turn the sound off. Once the S key has been pressed the volume control remains active until the file fades into the next file. This will allow you to adjust the volume without constantly pressing the S key. Note: If you aren't fast enough in changing your volume settings and your image changes to the next image while you're in the middle of setting the volume, you could accidentally change the frames per second settings. The audio levels in Screen Gear are not dependent on the system volume levels.
HELP WHAT DO I DO?
Q. Oops, I forgot my password and I keep getting locked out of my computer when Screen Gear activates! What do I do?
A. The best thing to do is force Screen Gear to quit by pressing and holding "option and command" and then press the "esc' key. This should allow for you to save and then quit any open applications that you may have. After all of the applications have been shutdown restart the computer.
FYI you should restart the computer anytime you force an application to quit. Once you've restarted the computer, start Screen Gear if it's not already started. Then go to the "preferences..." menu option under the "File" menu and check the "Password" check box. From here you have several options, you can enter a new password and or check several different security options. You can even select the "No Password" button to remove password protection.
If you can't access the preferences to change your password you will need to get a new fresh copy of Screen Gear from a backup or from the Screen Gear web site at http://www.screengear.com.gu/.
Q. I get a message that say's I'm out of memory. What do I do?
A. Screen Gear should be able to handle most of the memory needs by itself, but occasionally you may need to quit one or more open applications or reduce the bit depth of the monitor ( from thousands to 256 colors etc.) if you don't need it.
Sometimes you may even need to increase the application's "Preferred size" by selecting Screen Gear and choosing the "File" menu's "Get Info". If you still can't allocate the memory you need, turn on virtual RAM in the memory control panels. The drawback to virtual RAM is that your performance will probably suffer, but it will work in a pinch.
Lastly you may need to buy some more RAM, fortunately it's much cheaper these days.
Q. I get a message that say's "Oops a folder with valid file types may not have been selected". I've selected a folder but I still keep getting this message.What do I do?
A. You may have a situation where Screen Gear is having a difficult time finding valid files to display. By default Screen Gear will only look at 100 continious invalid files or 10 folders deep without a valid file. If Screen Gear can't find a valid file it will give up and present the this message.
To correct the problem make sure you don't have a bunch of invalid files mixed in with your images. Likewise don't have a bunch of nested empty folders or folders with invalid files.
Q. I want to register Screen Gear but I don't have access to the Internet. What do I do?
A. Open the "Register" program that came with Screen Gear fill out the information and print it out. Place the printed paper and your check in a self addressed envelope and mail to (Kagi 1442-A Walnut Street #392-M3 Berkeley, California 94709-1405 USA).
Q. I can't find the register program or I don't have a printer to print and mail the registration form and I don't have access to the Internet. What do I do?
A. You can always get a fresh copy of Screen Gear and the register program from <http://www.screengear.com.gu/>. If you don't have a printer and you don't have access to the Internet just put your "Name, Company, Address, City, State, ZIP or Postal CODE, Country, Phone Number on a piece of paper. Place the paper and your check in a self addressed envelope and mail to (Kagi 1442-A Walnut Street #392-M3 Berkeley, California 94709-1405 USA).
KNOWN CONFLICTS
Ñ The continue option is not supported when multiple folders are used. This feature is for single folder use only.
Ñ The random option will only select a file randomly from the primary folder.
Screen Savers
Ñ Sorry Screen Gear doesn't support multiple monitors at this time. Look for this support in the future.
Ñ Don't use Screen Gear while another screen saver is active. Using any screen saver while using Screen Gear as a screen saver may cause unpredictable results, or predictable depending on how you look at it. An example might be as follows: you are doing a presentation using Screen Gear and you have another screen saver running in the background set to become active in 5 minutes. Now lets also assume your presentation is self running. At around 5 minutes after you start the presentation the other screen saver becomes active and blows the presentation. Oops we wouldn't want that!
Ñ Having Screen Gear set to sleep too early, or not moving your mouse to a non-sleep corner before you do a task such as downloading from the Internet, may cause Screen Gear to sleep when you don't want it to. Make adjustments accordingly.
Ñ When an Apple language kit such as JLK, KLK, CLK is installed and you want to use keyboard navigation during a slide show, make sure before you start, you select "U.S." language from the menu. Otherwise you might not get the desired results from your keyboard.
Ñ If you try to view a ( PICT, JPEG, MOOV or listen to an AIFF or MOOV ) file that was created on anything other than a Mac you might not be able to use the file. The reason is that the other platforms don't use resource information and Screen Gear relies on this information to identify the file types. If you would like to view these files you will need to use ResEdit to open a resource fork and type in the file type. Or you can open the file with your favorite Mac graphic, movie or sound editor and resave the file.
Other Programs
Ñ Screen Gear is not compatible with RAM Doubler¬ if Apple's hard disk driver is installed. This incompatibility only happens when Screen Gear is playing AIFF sound files. Third party hard disk drivers seem to work fine. The system's built-in virtual memory works fine as well.
Ñ Screen Gear is not compatible with GoMac's keyboard commands while Screen Gear is running in the presentation mode. Make sure to wake up Screen Gear if you want to use GoMac's features.
