Copyright: Copyright © 1998 Softdisk Publishing
Citation: Screen Saver Studio Deluxe, the easiest way to make screen savers!


Contents
This tutorial will acquaint you with the main features of Screen Saver Studio Deluxe. You will make an actual screen saver that has a star bouncing around the screen, accompanied by the tune "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!"

At the top of this tutorial are two arrow buttons, << and >>. Click on the right one to go to the next page and the left one to go to the previous page. Make sure you actually do all the instructions listed on each page before moving ahead! The instructions you should follow are in red type.

If you maximize the Screen Saver Studio Deluxe program, you can work in Screen Saver Studio Deluxe while still being able to read this tutorial. Depending on your screen resolution, however, from time to time you may need to minimize this tutorial or move a Screen Saver Studio Deluxe window to complete an instruction.


Page 2
Click anywhere on Screen Saver Studio Deluxe to make it the active program. (After this, this step will be assumed.)

Double-click on the Segment 1 box or just press <Enter> to edit the contents of Segment 1.


Page 3
The graphics that follow are from the Windows 95 version of Screen Saver Studio Deluxe - the two versions are fairly similar. You will be doing the same actions, but you will be clicking on buttons instead of tabs. Click on the Graphic button.


Page 4
The upper left corner of the page has 10 slots (or layers) for graphics. The first slot is highlighted and it says <none>, meaning there is no graphic in that slot. We want to add a star graphic. Above the slots section it says "Graphic: [double-click]", so double-click on slot 1 or press <Space> to change the graphic in slot 1.


Page 5
This is a standard file selection dialog. Browse to the \SSSTUDIO\SOURCES\TWINKLE directory. There are three graphics in this directory - star1.bmp, star2.bmp and stars.bmp. Click on Star1.bmp to highlight it and you can see a thumbnail preview of it in the right hand corner.


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Since this is the graphic we want, click Open to return to the graphic page.

Now the graphic page shows you the name of the graphic in the slot. Below the slot list is a preview of the graphic in the highlighted slot.


Page 7
The center section of the graphic page, the Define Graphic box, has a Speed slide that defaults to 10. Change the speed to 30 so the star will move faster. Do this by clicking on the right arrow of the slide bar, or by dragging the thumb to about the middle and then clicking just outside of the thumb.

There is also a Motion pull down menu in this box. Click on the motion menu and select Bounce so the star will move around the screen and bounce off the edges.


Page 8
At the bottom of the right section is the Graphic Starting Point box. This has controls for both the X axis and the Y axis. Click on the pull down for each axis and change them to the Keep Old setting. (This becomes important later on when we want our star to move fluidly by beginning a segment where it ends the last one.)

The upper right section, the Fading for Graphic box, controls how the star gets on and off the screen. Change the Fade In effect to Zoom and set the speed bar for the effect to 75.


Page 9

Click Okay to return to the segment controller. You will see a preview of what you have created behind it!

Click on the Text tab to add some text.


Page 10
The define text box in the upper left hand corner is already active, so just enter your message. We typed "Hello World!!!". The text will come up in the middle of the screen, but since the star will be moving around in a random place, the text will not usually obscure the star.

Note that you can make the text move, make it fade in, determine where it starts on the screen etc. just like a graphic.

If you want, you can click the Font button to bring up the standard Windows font dialog to change the size, color and style of your message.


Page 11
Our star would be lonely all by himself, so let's add some stars in the background! Click Okay to get back to the segment controller. Click on the background tab.

There is already a graphic that looks like a few stars. When it is repeated across the screen both left-to-right and up-and-down - "tiled" as it is called - it will look like a whole bunch of stars!

Click on the "Tiled Graphic" radio button, then click on the Select button. You will see a standard open dialog; browse to the TWINKLE directory and select the STARS.BMP.


Page 12
Now we'll add the song! A song is sound, and sound is Audio, so click okay to get back to the segment controller, then click on the Audio tab.

Click on the Select button and you'll see the standard file selection dialog box. Browse over to the TWINKLE directory and there is only one audio file to pick. Select twinkle2.wav and click OK.

In the Action radio button section, select the Continuously radio button. This will make the sound automatically play again (or loop) when it finishes playing all the way through.


Page 13
One Tab to go! Click Okay to get back to the segment controller. Click on the Timing tab so we can change how long Segment 1 lasts.

Select the Stop after x seconds radio button and change the value in the box inside of it to 6. This means that after the star fully zooms-in onto the screen, it will bounce around for 6 seconds, and then the fade-out effect will begin. (Since we chose instantaneous fade-out, it means the segment will be over after 6 seconds.)


Page 14
Click Okay to get back to the segment controller...Did you notice it? When the big yellow star moves around, it blocks the background stars in an area around the star. In fact, the area is the rectangle that contains the star. This is because the star graphic actually has black around the yellow, and this is being drawn over the stars. But don't worry, there is a way to fix it!

Click on the Graphic tab and look in the Define Graphic section. There is a check box labeled "Keep Black Transparent". If we turn it on, all the black parts of the graphic will become "invisible" and everything underneath will be seen! In the Fading for Graphic section, there is a "Transparent Fade" check box that does a similar thing with the graphic as it is fading in. Check the Keep Black Transparent and Transparent Fade check boxes.

NOTE! You don't want these checked unless you have graphics moving over other graphics or over backgrounds - it uses up time and memory.


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Click Okay to get back to the segment controller. Viewing your progress so far, the sound plays, the text is in the middle of the screen and the bouncing star zooms-in without covering the background! Excellent! Click Okay to return to the main screen.


Page 16
On the left hand side of the screen are tabs labeled Graphic 1 through Graphic 10 and one labeled Text. Graphic 1 is highlighted, so you are seeing what we put in slot 1 - our big star! You could click on the Text tab and see our text. If you look at one of the empty slots, Graphic 2, for example, you'll see the background, which is little stars!

To add a new segment, click on the box labeled End of List. This highlights it. Now press the <Insert> key on the keyboard or click on the Insert new segment button [image] on the tool bar. This causes all of segment 1 to be copied into segment 2 for you. This is convenient since segments are usually very similar with only small changes between them.


Page 17
Double-click on segment 2 and the segment controller dialog again comes up. It remembers the last tab you used, so you should be on the Graphic page.

We do not want the star to zoom-in in this segment - we want to keep it the same size. So click on the Graphic Tab if it's not already selected and change the Fade In pull down menu to Instantaneously. Also, change the motion from bounce to stationary.

Click on the Text tab and click on the Clear button - this will erase the text. You could also have just highlighted all the text and pressed delete like in any text editor.

The Clear button only works on the "main" section of each page and leaves all other actions alone. Go and set the text motion to Bounce and then click Clear - the motion is still Bounce. The Use Prior button, however, affects all settings by copying the current page values from the prior segment's page. If you click on Use Prior Segment Values, the motion goes back to stationary and the text comes back too! Click Clear to erase the text again.


Page 18
If you start to play a sound in a segment, it always stops any sound that was still playing from a previous segment. Right now, the twinkle.wav is selected to play in segment 2 just like it was in segment 1 - which will stop the song right in the middle and start playing it again. This is not what we want!

Click on the Audio tab and then click on the Clear button to change the twinkle.wav to <none>. Now the song from segment 1 will play continuously like we want it to.

Click on the Timing tab and change the duration to 1 second.

Get back to the main screen by clicking Okay, then click on the End of List segment and insert another new segment.


Page 19
Double-click on segment 2 and click on the Graphics tab. Double-click on star1.bmp in graphic slot 1 and open star2.bmp. Click Okay to get back to the main screen.

The star is winking!


Page 20
Now we need to change segment 3 slightly, so double-click on segment 3 to edit it. Click the Timing tab and increase the time to 3 seconds.

Click on the Graphics tab and change the Fade Out setting to zoom. This is because we zoomed-in in segment 1, so we want things to mesh nicely when we go from segment 3 to segment 1.

Click Okay to get back to the main screen.


Page 21
Now let's preview the entire screen saver to be sure it's doing what we want. Click on the big preview button [image] or the little preview icon ( [image]) and you'll see a bar that says Segment 1. The star should be bouncing around while zooming-in over the background and the song should be playing. After a bit, the bar should change to segment 2 and the star should stop moving and wink while the text goes away. Then in segment 3 the star zooms out. After that it cycles back to segment 1.

This "big picture" preview shows you each segment one after the other instead of just the segment you are working on, but you get out of it in the same way - by pressing ESC, ALT+F4 or double-clicking on the close box of the dialog. If something looks wrong, go back to the proper segment and edit it.


Page 22
When your file is okay, save it by clicking file|save or click on the save icon ( [image]). You will see a standard save dialog - browse to the desired directory and save your project like any other file.

NOTE! The Screen Saver Project file (SSP) that you are saving contains only a list of the various elements (graphics and sounds) you chose for your screen saver. It does not contain the elements themselves! If you delete a source graphic, for example, when you open up the SSP again it will tell you it can't find the graphic!


Page 23
Now let's turn your work into a screen saver! Create the screen saver by clicking the big build button [image] or file|build SCR/EXE or click the build SCR/EXE icon ( [image]) in the tool bar to bring up the build dialog.

You must enter a Selection Name. This is the name that your screen saver will have in the screen saver selection list if you build a Windows 3.1 style screen saver. Type in Sample Screen Saver.

You may enter description text in the description box - this is only visible when looking at the screen saver settings dialog.


Page 24
At the top of the build dialog are three (or four) pull down menus that describe exactly what you are building. The first choice is Screen Saver or Presentation. A presentation differs from a screen saver in that it is a program that must be launched and it cannot be exited by a mouse click. Select the screen saver item.


Page 1
You should be looking at a blank session. As you can see, Segment 1, (the big black box) is highlighted. The words "Segment 1" at the bottom of it are highlighted in your system colors and there is also a dotted line around the black box. (But sometimes the dotted line is hard to see.)


Page 25
The second choice is the compatibility selection. You can build a screen saver or presentation that will run on any Windows system - Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT - or one that will run only on newer Windows systems - Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT. The latter are faster since they use true 32 bit code, but they will not run on Windows 3.1 or Windows for Workgroups 3.11 systems! (Even if they have Win32s installed.) Select any (3.1, 95, 98, NT) systems.


Page 26
The third option is whether to make an installer or to make no installer. A finished screen saver or presentation always has at least two files though it may have more. An installer packs all of the needed files together into a single EXE file. When this EXE file is run, it unpacks all the parts into the proper place, and if it's a screen saver, actually makes it the default screen saver on your system! Select to make an installer.

When you are making an installer, another option becomes available - whether or not to use compression. You should almost always use compression - it can make the installer about half the size it would be without compression. However, it may also take a significant amount of time on slow systems, so you should build screen savers and test them first, building an installer using compression only on the absolutely finished product. Since our screen saver has not been tested, go back and select making no installer.


Page 27
You can leave the items in the graphics box alone for now.

Click Okay to continue the build.

The next thing you see is a standard Save As dialog. You should save your screen saver in the Windows directory so it can be used immediately.

The file name you give it must follow the 8 character DOS limitations when you are making a Windows 3.1 screen saver. (If you are building a Windows 95 screen saver, you can use long file names and the file name you give it here is the name that shows up in the screen saver selection list.)

We are building a Windows 3.1 screen saver, so enter FIRST as the file name and press <Enter> or click Save.


Page 28
After some progress thermometers go by, you'll see the following dialog:

This just alerts you to the fact that there are more than just an SCR file in a screen saver. If you want to give this screen saver away to a friend, you have to give him the extra file. Better still, remake the screen saver as an installer using compression after you check it out.

Click OK to get past the dialog and finish building the screen saver!


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To test your screen saver, do the following:

In Windows 3.1, press ALT+TAB until you see Program Manager. Double-click on the Main group. Double-click on Control Panel. Double-click on Desktop. Select FIRST as the screen saver and click on Test.

Congratulations! You've made a screen saver! Screen Saver Studio Deluxe can do much more, however! You should try out the Slide Show and Logo Wizards, load up some of the sample screen saver projects and just try experiment with things on your own. Have fun!