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ScreenFlip README
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1995-12-05
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_______________________________________________________________
SCREENFLIP 1.5 — A freeware Screensaver Module
By Leo Breebaart, Copyright ©1994-95 Kronto Software
Internet e-mail: leo@cp.tn.tudelft.nl
Internet WWW page: http://www.cp.tn.tudelft.nl/leo/kronto.html
_______________________________________________________________
Description
ScreenFlip performs ‘animated’ horizontal and vertical flips of your
screen’s contents. Silly, no?
Features
• Compatible with After Dark (both 2.0 and 3.0), DarkSide of the Mac and UnderWare.
• Flicker-free animation.
• Does not use any permanent System memory under After Dark 2.0.
• Has an animated About Box and thumbnail.
• Runs under both MultiModule and the Randomizer — without crashing.
• Comes with extensively documented source code (CodeWarrior 7 C format).
• Both the module and the source code are free.
Restrictions & Technical Remarks
• ScreenFlip needs Color QuickDraw to run. A color screen is not essential,
however: on a Black & White SE/30 the module works just fine.
• Multiple-monitor setups are supported, but not actively used — the animation
always runs on the main monitor only (and will simply black out any other screens).
• ScreenFlip tries to be a well-behaved, system-friendly module. It will,
for instance, not reserve any permanent memory in your system heap. That
means that having ScreenFlip selected costs you no more memory than having
the default ‘Starry Night’ module selected.
• The ‘Instant Flips’ option uses a lot of (temporary) memory. If the module
won’t run because of this, you can try quitting one or two applications.
Otherwise you can just uncheck the option. There’s no need to restart.
• I cannot guarantee that ScreenFlip will work with versions of After Dark
earlier than 2.0u. The same holds for any other programs that are supposed
to be able to play After Dark modules (except for DarkSide and UnderWare,
which I had access to). In all such cases, ScreenFlip may run, or it may not.
Feedback about compatibility issues will be much appreciated.
• At the moment of writing the latest version numbers of the screensavers
ScreenFlip has been tested to work with are 3.0b for After Dark, 4.2 for DarkSide
and 1.0.1 for UnderWare. Free updaters for these programs are readily available
on the Internet and on all the major commercial software archives. See also the
URL appendix at the end of this document.
Version history
1.0 28 Jul 1994
— Initial release.
1.1 24 Feb 1995
— Fixed a bug that made the About Box animation use the same inter flip
delay as the real module, instead of no delay at all, which was the
intended behaviour.
— The About Box now wil take advantage of After Dark 3.0’s expanded
about box area (provided you’re running 3.0, of course. Duh.).
— Added animated thumbnail for After Dark 3.0.
— Cleaned up the source code.
1.1.1 19 May 1995
— Documentation update. No changes to the actual module.
— Removed all references to the After Dark FTP Site and the Programmers’ List,
because both are now (temporarily) defunct.
1.5 5 December 1995
— ScreenFlip is now a FAT module that will run native on PowerMacs, provided
you are using After Dark 3.0 or later.
— Code ported to CodeWarrior.
— Many internal improvements to the code and the project structure. The module
should now react much more gracefully to error conditions.
Credits & Acknowledgments
Frits Kuijlman did the initial port of the code from THINK C to CodeWarrior, and helped me
figure out how to get the module to run native on a PowerMac.
Neither Frits nor I would have had much success, however, if Robert Geisler had not shown
us the way. Without his Fat Module code this version of ScreenFlip would not have happened.
The text shadowing effect in the module’s About Box was created using the
freeware Adobe Photoshop plug-in filter Drop Shadow, by Alien Skin Software.
As always, thanks to Lloyd “Screensaver FAQ” Wood for feedback and
beta-testing.
ScreenFlip was created using CodeWarrior 7, Think Reference 2.0.1,
ResEdit 2.1.3, BBEdit 3.5.1, and Adobe Photoshop 3.0.1.
Known Problems
• Under certain very rare circumstances (specifically: if you have a
multi-monitor setup in which your main monitor (the one with the menu
bar) is not placed in the ‘left-upper-most’ position in the Monitors control
panel) the module will start drawing garbage on your screen when
activated. This is an entirely cosmetical bug, and I know precisely what’s
causing it — I just don’t know how to fix it, yet.
• Under certain other not-so-rare circumstances (specifically: if After
Dark starts displaying a “Please Wake Up” message while the module
is running, e.g. when a background application wants your attention) the
module will also start drawing garbage to your screen. This too, is an entirely
cosmetic bug — but I’l be darned if I know what’s causing it, or how to
fix it.
I would appreciate hearing about any other bugs or problems you may encounter
with ScreenFlip.
For Programmers
The most recent version of the After Dark programmer’s interface (which
also gets updated every now and then — the copy you have may
be outdated!) is available from the major Internet archive sites such
as sumex.stanford.edu, mac.archive.umich.edu and their mirrors.
The best place to browse if you want to program After Dark modules,
though, is the Photon Farmer’s FTP site (or their Web pages). You will find
all kinds of After Dark modules and resources there, and these guys also
maintain the After Dark Programmer’s mailing list (archives accessible!)
You may also want to take a look at The Swarm, another screensaver module
I wrote, which also comes with documented source code.
Final Remark
Nobody who owns a Macintosh screensaver package should be without
the most recent version of Lloyd Wood’s Screensaver FAQ (Frequently
Asked Questions) List. Copies of this list are also available from all major
archive sites on or off the Internet. It is a must-have.
Enjoy,
__
Leo Breebaart (leo@cp.tn.tudelft.nl)
_______________________________________________________________
Appendix: URLs
Here are URLs for some of the Internet resources mentioned in this document.
Newer versions of these files may of course have been released by the time
you read this. Most of the files are available from many other sites as well.
Kronto Software WWW/ftp sites (for info about me and my other programs):
http://www.cp.tn.tudelft.nl/leo/kronto.html
ftp://kronto.cp.tn.tudelft.nl/pub/macintosh/
Photon Farmers After Dark Mailing list and FTP Site
http://www.phofarm.com/
ftp://ftp.phofarm.com/pub/screensavers/mac/afterdark/
Robert Geisler's Fat Module example code
ftp://ftp.phofarm.com/pub/screensavers/mac/afterdark/Fat_Module_Source.sit.hqx
DarkSide of the Mac 4.2:
ftp://ftp.apple.com/dts/mac/hacks/darkside-of-the-mac-4-2.hqx
Macintosh FAQs WWW/ftp sites:
http://www.astro.nwu.edu/lentz/mac/faqs/home-faqs.html
http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/screensavers/
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/macintosh
Drop Shadow 1.1g:
ftp://ftp.euronet.nl/Mac/info-mac/gst/grf/pshp/drop-shadow-11g.hqx
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