Copyright: (c)1997  Win Software


Table of Contents
Photo Gallery Screen Saver Compiler ver. 1.20

Win Software (Shrewsbury, MA, U.S.A.)    © 1997

written by Dr. Richard D. Kaminsky

Table of Contents

1.	License Agreement (please read)

2.	Contact Information

3.	Getting Started

A.	Marketing Screen Savers

B.	Distributing Software over the Internet

4.	What Each Input Box and Button Does


Software License
License Agreement

Win Software grants you the right to use this SOFTWARE, including any accompanying documentation and activation codes, in the manner described below.  In the United States of America this license agreement is governed by the laws of the state of Massachusetts.

This SOFTWARE and its various components are owned by Win Software unless otherwise indicated. This SOFTWARE is protected by copyright law and international copyright treaty.  As such, it must be treated like any other copyrighted material (for example, a book).  You may copy this SOFTWARE for archival purposes and/or make it available over a computer network, but only one person is permitted to use this SOFTWARE at any one time.

You may transfer this SOFTWARE on a permanent basis provided you retain no copies and the recipient agrees to the terms of this license.  If this SOFTWARE is an upgrade, any transfer must include all prior versions of this SOFTWARE.  Except as provided in this license, you may not transfer, copy, lend, sublicense, or electronically transmit this SOFTWARE.  Further, you agree not to modify, decompile, or reverse engineer this SOFTWARE, except where permitted by applicable laws.

The screen saver software you create using this SOFTWARE is owned entirely by you.  In particular, you may transfer, copy, lend, or electronically transmit your screen savers without paying a royalty to Win Software.  Further, you do not need to give Win Software credit for creating the screen saver software.  You must, however, purchase from Win Software an ACTIVATION CODE (typically a five digit number) to enable the SOFTWARE.  This ACTIVATION CODE may be used to create an unlimited number of screen savers - no additional payments are required.

Win Software may provide you with SUPPORT SERVICES related to this SOFTWARE. Any supplemental software and documentation provided to you as part of the SUPPORT SERVICES shall be considered part of the SOFTWARE and subject to these terms and conditions. With regard to the information you provide to Win Software as part of  the SUPPORT SERVICES, Win Software may use such information for its business purposes, including for product support and development. Win Software will not utilize such information in a form that personally identifies you.

Limited Warranty

Win Software warrants that this SOFTWARE will perform substantially in accordance with the accompanying documentation for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of receipt. Some states and jurisdictions do not allow limitations on duration of an implied warranty, so the above limitation may not apply to you. To the extent allowed by applicable law, implied warranties on this SOFTWARE are limited to ninety (90) days.

Win Software and its suppliers' entire liability and your exclusive remedy shall be, at Win Software's option, either (a) return of the price paid, or (b) repair or replacement of this SOFTWARE. Any replacement SOFTWARE will be warranted for the remainder of the original warranty period or thirty (30) days, whichever is longer.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, WIN SOFTWARE AND ITS SUPPLIERS DISCLAIM ALL OTHER WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE. THIS LIMITED WARRANTY GIVES YOU SPECIFIC LEGAL RIGHTS.  DEPENDING ON YOUR STATE OR JURISDICTION, YOU MAY HAVE ADDITIONAL RIGHTS.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL WIN SOFTWARE OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF BUSINESS INFORMATION, OR ANY OTHER PECUNIARY LOSS) ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE, EVEN IF WIN SOFTWARE HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. BECAUSE SOME STATES AND JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, THE ABOVE LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.


Contact Information

Win Software develops Internet marketing software.  If you have comments or need assistance, you can reach us by mail, e-mail, or phone (toll-free in the United States, Canada, Virgin Islands, and Bahamas).  Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) will be answered at our Web site.

How to Contact Us

Mail:	P.O. Box 239, Northboro, MA 01532-0239, USA

Phone:	800-532-0697   Monday-Friday  9am-5pm EST

Web:	http://www.win-software.com/~win/

E-mail:	win@win-software.com


Overview
Getting Started

This program allows you to create screen savers that run on Windows '95 systems (Windows 3.1 and NT are not supported).  These screen savers are 100% owned by you.  There are no royalties to pay to Win Software, and you do not have to give Win Software credit for creating your screen savers' software (see the License Agreement).

There are many opportunities to sell screen savers, either on 3½" disks, CD-ROMs, or directly over the Internet.  This program makes it easy by creating a single SETUP.EXE file for each screen saver.  This one file is all your customers need to install or uninstall your screen saver.

To create screen savers, you will need this program and a photo-paint utility (a bitmap editor) that can save your images as Windows bitmap files (*.BMP files).  Here are the four steps to creating a screen saver:

Step 1: Save your screen saver images as Windows bitmap files (*.BMP files).  Use your photo-paint program to resize and apply special effects to your images.  One special effect that looks especially good is feathering the edges of images to black (because the screen saver's background is black).  Save the images as Windows bitmap files.  To avoid excessively large files, we recommend using 300x300 pixel or smaller images.

Windows bitmap files support several formats.  The most popular are 1-bit (2 colors), 4-bit (16 colors), 8-bit (256 colors), and 24-bit (16 million colors).  The first three formats can also be uncompressed or RLE compressed.  The 24-bit format gives excellent color resolution, but produces very large files and will not display well on computers using 256-color (versus 16-million-color) display adapters.  Thus, using your photo-paint utility, you should convert all your images to 1-bit, 4-bit, or 8-bit, RLE compressed Windows bitmaps.  If possible, limit each bitmap's palette to at most 236 colors because display adapters in 256-color mode reserve 20 colors for the Windows operating system.

Step 2: Create a 315x208 pixel image to be displayed as the title of your screen saver's setup program.  This image may show your screen saver's name, your company's name, your Web address, your phone number, etc.  Use a gray background color to match the setup window's background color (red,green,blue = 192,192,192).  Save this image as a Windows bitmap file using one of the formats described above.

Step 3: Create a small copyright image.  When your screen saver starts running, this image will be displayed in the lower right corner of the screen for approximately 30 seconds.  Use this image to display your company's name, Web address, a copyright notice, etc.  On computers with display adapters set to 256-color mode, this image will be displayed using Windows' 20 system colors (the other 236 colors are reserved for displaying your other images).  So, for best results, design your copyright image with text and line art in saturated colors - avoid photographic images.  Save this image as a Windows bitmap file using one of the formats described in Step 1.  We recommend using the 4-bit (16 color), RLE compressed, Windows bitmap format.

To preview your image in 256-color (versus 16-million-color) display mode, set your display adapter to 256-color mode, run this program, select your copyright image, and click the View button.

Step 4:  Run the Photo Gallery Screen Saver Compiler (this program).  A dialog box will pop up.  Fill it in and click the Compile button to create your screen saver's setup program.

By default the file created is named SETUP.EXE .  This one file is all your customers need to install or uninstall your screen saver.  Simply run SETUP.EXE and click its Install or Uninstall button to install or uninstall the screen saver.

Screen savers are *.SCR files located in Windows' system directory (usually C:\Windows\System).  After installing your screen saver your customers may delete SETUP.EXE .  However, to uninstall your screen saver, they would then have to manually delete its *.SCR file.

Note, installing a screen saver does not automatically select it as the current screen saver.  To select a screen saver and set its options, use Windows' Control Panel: Start | Settings | Control Panel | Display | Screen Saver .


Marketing Screen Savers

Screen savers can be mass-produced easily and inexpensively - yet sold for as much as $19.95 each.  To distribute screen savers, simply copy them onto 3½" disks, include them on CD-ROMs, or make them available over the Internet.  The materials cost for a  3½" disk with custom-printed label is approximately $0.60.  Distributing screen savers over the Internet is even less expensive, typically $0.00-$0.10 per copy (from bandwidth fees).  With the right images screen savers can be very profitable.

Using Win Software's Photo Gallery Screen Saver Compiler (this program) you can compile digital images into screen savers. Each screen saver consists of a single setup file. This one file is all your customers need to install or uninstall your screen saver. Currently, only Windows '95 systems are supported.

The screen savers you create are truly yours. Your customers will only see your company's name on the software, and there are no royalties to pay to Win Software.

There are many large markets for screen savers.  You can sell screen savers as:

1.	Advertising Specialties.  Ad specialties are customized products such as pens, letter openers, coffee mugs, calendars, and T-shirts.  Businesses buy millions of dollars of ad specialties each year for their advertising.  Screen savers on 3½" disks can compete extremely well on price and value with these products.  When distributed over the Internet, their price is unbeatable.

2.	Tourist Gifts.  Tourists love screen savers of historic sights.  Can you think of a better way to remember - and brag about - a great vacation?  People will view your screen savers at home and work.

3.	Fund Raising Gifts.  Many organizations from charities to church groups to college alumni associations are looking for ways to raise funds.  Screen savers make an excellent gift that can be offered from these groups' Web pages as shareware or freeware.

4.	Family Photo Albums.  Screen savers are a great way to display family photos at work or home.  Photographs of weddings, vacations, and other special events can be compiled into screen savers for easy viewing.  Screen savers are also easy to send over the Internet to distant relatives.


Shareware and Freeware

Shareware and freeware are software sold through an honor system.

Anyone may copy a shareware program.  If they keep the copy, they

are expected to pay the author.  Freeware is similar; however, only a

donation is requested - payment is not absolutely required.


How to Distribute Software over the Internet
Distributing Software over the Internet

The Internet makes distributing software easy and inexpensive.  Below are the three most popular ways to distribute software.  To learn more, check your Internet Service Provider's (ISP's) home page for online information and courses on using the Internet.

1.	E-mail.  Once upon a time e-mail could only send text messages.  Today, most e-mail clients (e-mail software)  support MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions).  This allows you to attach one or more files to a text message.  The files and text are sent together as one message.  This is a handy way to distribute software to one person or a small group of people.

Beware sending large files by e-mail.  Older hardware on the Internet may truncate long messages.  Also, people retrieving e-mail over slow modem connections may be surprised and annoyed by large e-mail messages.

2.	FTP.  Most Internet Service Providers will allow you to store Web pages and other files on their servers (computers).  To copy files to or from their servers, you can use a program called a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) client.  While modifying files requires a password, downloading files typically does not (this is referred to as anonymous FTP ).

Modern Web browsers contain built-in FTP clients for downloading files.  This allows you to place links on your Web pages that, when clicked, automatically download files.  For example, suppose your FTP server is ftp.xyz.com and you have a file setup.exe in the server's directory  /pub0/scsav .  The following HTML code creates a link that, when clicked, downloads setup.exe :

<A HREF="ftp://ftp.xyz.com/pub0/scsav/setup.exe">Click Here to Download</A>

This is the best way to distribute your screen savers to a large number of people.  Just be aware that your Internet Service Provider may charge a small fee (e.g., $0.09/megabyte) for downloads.  Check their home page for details.

Also be aware that Microsoft's Internet Explorer 3.0 will append a number in parentheses after the names of *.exe files (but not other file types).  Netscape Navigator 3.0 has a different quirk.  Various file types are defined in Navigator's Options | General Preferences | Helpers dialog.  Only *.exe and *.bin file types are defined to download in binary (versus ASCII) mode and be saved to disk.  Other file types may become corrupted or be displayed if downloaded.

3.	HTTP.  Web pages are defined by HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) files and other files.  Web browsers download these files using a service called HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol).  HTTP is different from FTP.  While unlikely, your Internet Service Provider may provide you with HTTP service but not FTP service, or vice versa.

You can create a Web page link similar to the FTP example above for downloading files via HTTP.  Suppose your Web pages are located at the URL (Universal Resource Locator) http://www.xyz.com/~username/ and you have a file setup.exe in the same directory as your Web page files.  The following HTML code creates a link that, when clicked, downloads setup.exe :

<A HREF="http://www.xyz.com/~username/setup.exe">Click Here to Download</A>

Web browsers automatically display downloaded files with recognized extensions, such as *.html, *.gif, or *.jpg .  *.exe is usually not recognized; so, most browsers will ask whether to save the file to disk or download a plug-in for viewing files with this extension.  Some people may be confused by these options.  To avoid confusion, use FTP rather than HTTP for distributing software.


What Each Input Box and Button Does

Setup Program's Title Image.  Type the file name of a Windows bitmap file (*.BMP) or click on Browse… to search for a bitmap file.  This bitmap will be displayed when the screen saver's setup program is run.  It may be used to display the screen saver's name, your company's name, your Web address, your phone number, etc.  For best results use a 315x208 pixel, 256-color, RLE compressed, Windows bitmap (see Getting Started for more details).

Screen Saver's Name.  Type the default name for your screen saver using letters, digits, and space characters.  Your customers may change this name later when they run the screen saver's setup program.

Screen Saver's Copyright Image.  Type the file name of a Windows bitmap file (*.BMP) or click on Browse… to search for a bitmap file.  This bitmap will be displayed in the lower right corner of the screen for about 30 seconds when your screen saver runs.  Only Windows' 20 system colors will be used to display this bitmap on computers having 256-color (versus 16-million-color) display adapters (see Getting Started for more details).  To view the bitmap, click on View.

Screen Saver's Images.  Type the file names of the images you want displayed - one file name per line (note, blank lines will be ignored).  To search for a file, click on Add… .  Each image is typically a 256-color, RLE compressed, Windows bitmap (*.BMP) (see Getting Started for more details).  The screen saver will display these images one at a time in the order listed.

Web Page to Go to When the Jump Key is Pressed.  Leave this input box empty or type the URL of a World Wide Web page (for example, "http://www.win-software.com/~win/" -- do not type the quotes).  While your customers are running your screen saver, they can press the Jump Key to exit the screen saver and run their default Web browser to display this URL.  If this input box is left empty, no Web browser will be run.

Compile button.  Click the Compile button to create your screen saver's setup program (you will be prompted for the file name to save to).  The setup program is a single *.EXE file.  This one file is all that your customers need to install or uninstall your screen saver.  Simply run the program and click its Install or Uninstall button.

Exit button.  Click Exit to exit this program.

Help button.  Click Help to display the help that you are now reading.


Activation Codes
Activation Codes	Table of Contents

Photo Gallery Screen Saver Compiler is sold as shareware.  Anyone may take a free copy of this software for evaluation purposes.  If you choose to keep this software, you must purchase an activation code from Win Software.

No activation code is required to try this program.  Without a valid activation code, however, any screen saver you create will display the message "DEMO -- Not for Sale or Distribution" in the lower left corner of the screen.

To purchase an activation code, write down the Key # shown on your screen and visit Win Software's Web site for further instructions.