@database xsnow.guide @node Main @toc Main This document gives You a short description of the snow screen blanker modules for the GarshneBlanker system. Contents @{" Introduction " link "Introduction"} - What is this all about? @{" Installation " link "Installation"} - How to install them on Your Amiga @{" The Blankers " link "Blankers"} - What do they do? How do You configure them? @{" The Author " link "Author"} - Shocking details! @{" Legal Stuff " link "Legal"} - Well... not really. @{" Extend ... " link "Extend"} ... xsnow if You want. @endnode @node Introduction @toc Main INTRODUCTION In my eternal struggle to write the most important and useful software available for the Amiga line of computers I'm glad announce my latest success: Snow Screenblankers for GarshneBlanker The problem is obvious: During the winter beautiful snowflakes are falling from the sky but many people don't even notice that because they are sitting at their Amigas and staring madly at their monitors. Not once can those poor people look out of their windows and enjoy aesthetically falling snow. NOT ANYMORE! If You're installing these fine screen blankers for the GarshneBlanker system You can stare madly at Your monitor just as before and be able to see nice falling snow at the same time! The archive You've just unpacked contains two blankers doing basically the same: * snow displays falling snowflakes on a black screen. This blanker is small and fast. * xsnow display falling snowflakes in front of different backgrounds. This blanker is larger, slower, more configurable. A final warning: These blankers took me about four hours to write so You will not see incredibly, never-seen-before graphics. Even worse, on slower Amigas these blankers shouldn't be very fast. Sorry. (No, I don't want to learn how to program BOBs and such :-) ). @endnode @node Installation @toc Main INSTALLATION To be able to use these blankers You need * An Amiga with OS2.0 or later * The GarshneBlanker system (version 3.6 = 38.8) installed somewhere * Knowledge on where to put new blanker modules, how to copy files, and what processor You've got. Installation is quite easy: All GarshneBlanker modules are located in one single directory. Look at the directory in this distribution corresponding to Your Amiga's processor and copy everything in it into this directory. Just like > cd SnowBlank/MC68030 > copy #? to Then quit and restart GarshneBlanker. Voila! If You're the lucky owner of an 68040 CPU You should install the 68030 versions. There's no need to include separate 68040 versions - 68030 and 68040 optimizations yielded exactly the same executable. @endnode @node Blankers @toc Main THE BLANKERS The snow blanker shows falling snowflakes on a black screen. You can change the following parameters: * Snowflakes: Sets the number of snowflakes visible on the screen at any time. You can select a value between 10 and 1000. If Your Amiga is really very fast and You want to see huge amounts of snow You can @{" change " link "change"} this range by hand. * Flake Size: You can choose "small" or "big" snowflakes. Small snowflakes are just single pixels, big snowflakes 3x3 pixels. * Collect: If You select "Yes" here no snowflake will disappear after it reaches the ground but stay there. * Display: You can select any screenmode. The depth of the screen is set to a fix value of 1. -------------------------------------------------------------------- The xsnow blanker will draw some kind of "background picture" and do basically the same thing as snow afterwards. The background picture can consist of a landscape, trees, snowmen, and stars. The following parameters can be set: * Every parameter of snow. All "Yes/No", "small/big" parameters can have a value "random" which causes the module to choose Yes or No randomly when it starts. * Stars: If this is selected the module will draw stars to the sky. And they will even blink (wow! :-) ). * Background: If this is set to "on", xsnow tries to draw a very simple winter landscape. * Snowmen: Set this is to "yes" to get (very simple) snowmen. * Trees: Same for (very simple) trees. * Objects: The number of objects (Snowmen, Trees) to draw to the screen at most. This slide makes no sense if both "Snowmen" and "Trees" are set to "no". * Display: Like in snow. The depth is set to 4 here. @endnode @node change @toc Main HOW TO CHANGE THE LIMIT OF SNOWFLAKES To change the limits of snowflakes to be displayed You have to edit snow.ifc or xsnow.ifc. In this file, change the line SLIDER "S_nowflakes" n 10 1000 200 to e.g. SLIDER "S_nowflakes" n 10 10000 2000 and the snowflakes slider will go up to 10.000 (You need to select another blanker module and reselect snow/xsnow in order to see Your changes. Warning! My blankers expect this file to contain valid data. If You do stupid things here they will crash badly. For example, negative numbers are a certain way to crash my blankers. @endnode @node Author @toc Main THE AUTHOR I like to hear from You! If You've got another Amiga model than I do (I've got an A4000/30) please tell me if my blankers run on Your configuration. If it doesn't work, it would be nice if You provided additional information (Your setup, what's happening). Send bug reports etc. to: karlheinz.agsteiner@informatik.tu-chemnitz.de (or simply kag@informatik.tu-chemnitz.de) My WWW page is located at http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/~kag or (snail mail): Karlheinz Agsteiner Lessingstr. 10 09130 Chemnitz Germany @endnode @node Legal @toc Main LEGAL STUFF As I wrote above it took me just some hours to complete these blankers. They are really not worth being protected in any respect. Do what them what You like to. @endnode @node Extend @toc Main EXTEND XSNOW Well, I really would like to see a _nice_ snow blanker module. xsnow is just a first step. But I'm not good at drawing nice snowmen, trees etc. so it may look a bit "childish". If You have any idea (snowflakes falling on the WB screen like in xsnow, nicer landscapes, santa's sled like in xsnow) feel free to change xsnow and to submit it to aminet. @endnode