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_SETUP.1
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Christian Desktop Readme.txt
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1998-08-17
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Christian Desktop
(c) 1998 Rom Tech, Inc.
2000 Cabot Blvd. West, Suite 110
Langhorne, PA 19047 USA
Direct Sales: (215) 750-6606
Customer Support: (215) 750-6606
Fax: (215) 750-3722
Web: http://www.romt.com
NASDAQ: ROMT
(c) 1998 Jonathan Potter, Left Side Software
This software requires Windows 95 or Windows 98 to run.
Contents:
1. Installation 8. Installing Startup and Shutdown Screens
2. Introduction 9. Wallpaper Notes
3. About Themes 10. Other Notes
4. Usage 11. Uninstalling
5. Previewing a Theme 12. Copyrights
6. Miscellaneous Settings 13. Content
7. Installing Themes
1. Installation
First, before proceeding, you must close all applications running in the
background, including the MS Office Task Bar, any anti-virus programs, etc.
Then insert the disk into the CD-ROM drive.
Windows« 95/98
The program will start automatically on most Windows« 95/98 machines when
you insert the Christian Desktop CD (this may take a few seconds). If the
program does not start automatically:
1. Click on the Start button; then select Run.
2. Type D:\SETUP in the space provided*. Click OK.
3. Follow the on screen instructions.
* Note: If "D" is not the drive designation of your CD-ROM drive,
replace "D" with the letter that does identify your CD-ROM drive.
If you receive an error message such as "Cannot find the file d:\setup
(or one of its components)", this usually means the wrong drive letter
has been used or the CD-ROM has not been placed in the CD-ROM drive.
When the program first runs, it will prompt you for a directory to save
the themes in: "C:\Program Files\RomTech\Christian Desktop\Themes"
is the default directory. If you already have themes in another directory
that you would like to use, change it to that directory here. If you need
to change this directory in the future, you can do so in the "Miscellaneous"
tab in the Christian Desktop program. If you are not sure, just leave the
default path as it is.
Christian Desktop also adds two items to the context menu for Theme files
- Apply Settings, and Install Theme. Once these are installed, you can apply
a theme instantly by right-clicking on it and choosing Apply Settings
(or by double-clicking on its icon). You can install a theme by right-clicking
on it and choosing Install Theme.
Themes that you install with Christian Desktop can automatically be
uninstalled, either using Christian Desktop, or with the "Add & Remove"
Programs section within Control Panel.
For this to work, the Desktop Themes executable must remain in the place
it was when it was first run. That is, you should copy it to its
"final resting place" before running it for the first time. If you move
the Desktop Themes executable after it has installed itself, you can update
the context menus by clicking the 'Update' button on the Miscellaneous page.
However, any themes you have installed will no longer be uninstallable from
Add & Remove Programs section under the Control Panel. (uninstalling them
through Desktop Themes will still work).
If you have previously installed the 'Theme Installer' application by the
same author, you should remove this (by double-clicking on its icon again).
Christian Desktop completely replaces Theme Installer as the installer/uninstaller
for themes.
2. Introduction
The Plus! pack for Windows 95 adds many additional features to Windows,
including a Themes capability. A Theme is a collection of sounds, icons,
pointers (cursors), along with wallpaper, color and font settings and a
screensaver. Basically, it's all the things about the Windows interface you
can configure through the Control Panel, brought together into one package.
There are literally hundreds of Themes available, and until now you needed
the Plus! pack to use them. Without it, it was necessary to install all the
components manually, a difficult and time-consuming process. Then, if you
didn't like the finished product, you had to manually change all your settings
back again.
The Christian Desktop application is a direct replacement for the Desktop
Themes control panel provided with the Plus! pack. It offers the same
functionality as the Plus! version with a few additional features. Even if you
have Plus! you might want to consider switching to using Desktop Themes for
the additional features.
3. About Themes
A Theme is described by a .theme file, which is basically a .INI file
containing all the settings for that particular theme. Christian Desktop can
read this file and make all the necessary configuration changes at one time.
4. Usage
Start the Christian Desktop program by clicking on its icon in the Programs
Menu (via the Start button), under Galaxy of Home Office Help. A dialog will
appear containing several pages, the first of which allows you to select a
theme from those installed.
All the themes supplied with this disk must be installed first (see the
Install section below). A drop-down list is used to choose a theme.
This list contains the names of all themes present in the specified directory.
It also has two special entries at the top of the list:
(current settings)
This refers to the current configuration of your desktop. You can select
this at any time to return to your current configuration.
(original settings)
This refers to the configuration of your desktop when the Christian Desktop
program was run. You can use this to return to the original settings, which
allows you to undo any changes you have made with the APPLY button. Note that
the Cancel button does not undo the effects of pressing APPLY.
When Christian Desktop first runs, it also automatically saves your current
settings to a theme called "My Original Settings". This way you will always
be able to return to your old settings after having installed other themes.
The "Save As" button allows you to save the current settings to a new theme.
You can use this to preserve your configuration before you start playing
with new ones.
The "Active Components" list allows you to choose which components in the
currently loaded theme will be installed in your system when you choose
APPLY or OK. By default they are all switched on, meaning that a new theme
will totally overwrite your existing settings. You can selectively disable
parts of the theme through these switches. Please remember, not every theme
has all of these components in it.
5. Previewing a theme
To preview a theme, you must first Install it. See the description of the
Install page below for more information about this.
You can preview the components of a Theme before you Apply it to your
desktop. The "Display", "Sounds" and "Pointers" pages allow you to see or
hear the various components of the current theme. Each page contains a list
of components - for the graphical ones, just click on its name to display it.
To hear a sound, select the appropriate sound by name and click the play
(>) button.
6. Miscellaneous settings
The "Miscellaneous" page contains several additional options that Plus!
provides. Some of these might not work on a standard Windows 95 system,
but feel free to play around with them. The "Stretch Desktop Wallpaper to
fit the page" feature is emulated by Christian Desktop, but some of the
others seem to require Plus! to work. If you change the 'Show icons using
all possible colors' setting, you will need to reset Windows for the change
to take effect.
This page also has a text field showing the path to the themes. You can use
this to modify the path that themes are stored in. If you enter a directory
that does not exist, it will be created automatically.
7. Installing Themes
The Install page allows you to install a new theme. You must enter the full
name of the theme file in the Install page text box. Use the BROWSE button
to display the themes supplied with the Christian Desktop program. Using
the pull-down menu at the top of this dialogue box, select the "C:" drive.
Then highlight the "Program Files" folder and click OPEN, then the "Galaxy
of Home Office Help" folder and click OPEN, then the "Christian Desktop"
folder and click OPEN. There will then be displayed 12 folders, one for
each of the 12 themes included with this disk. Highlight a theme folder
you would like, then click OPEN. It will display the theme file (the
theme's name followed by ".theme"). Highlight this item, then click OPEN.
Then click the "Install" button. This theme will now be displayed on the
Theme page and is ready to be previewed. You can also use the Browse button
to find other themes on your PC if you know where they are.
Theme Installer will also attempt to install any TrueType fonts that may
have been included as part of the theme (not all themes have these fonts).
Quite often, themes have several components defined in the .theme file that
were not supplied in the archive (e.g., the screen saver). Christian Desktop
will successfully install a theme even if components are missing, and will
display a list of the files that could not be installed at the end of the
process.
Themes that have been installed with Christian Desktop can also be
uninstalled automatically. To uninstall a theme, select it in the list and
click the Uninstall button. You can also uninstall themes via the
"Add & Remove" Programs section within Control Panel. If an error occurs
while uninstalling a theme, it is usually because one or more of the theme
components is in use by something, and can not be deleted.
Some third-party themes are not constructed correctly. The .theme file which
contains the references to the theme components uses a notation that allows
non-specific path names for components.
For example, it can specify :
%themedir%MyTheme\MyComputer.ico
instead of
c:\Program Files\Plus!\Themes\MyTheme\MyComputer.ico
This means that wherever your themes directory is on your system, the theme
will still be able to find its components.
Some themes do not use the %themedir% notation - instead, they use absolute
paths to theme components, often paths on the theme author's own system.
You might see something like :
d:\work\mytheme\MyComputer.ico
This is plainly not going to work on any computer other than the theme
author's.
8. Installing Startup and Shutdown screens
Startup and Shutdown screens are not officially part of a Theme, and are not
included in Christian Desktop(*). However, the feature to change these screens
on your system is contained in this program under the "Screens" page. The
"Screens" page allows you to easily install startup and shutdown screens,
and optionally to backup your old screens. Use the Browse button to locate
the three screens in question. They often have the following names:
Startup - Logo.sys
Shutdown Wait - LogoW.sys
Shutdown Safe - LogoS.sys
Note that you do not need to provide all three screens; Christian Desktop will
only install the ones you select.
You can also select the "Backup old Startup/Shutdown screens" option to have
your old screens preserved. If you do this, you can restore your old screens
later using the Restore button. Note that you can only restore the last
backed-up set of screens, so if you are testing several sets of screens you
should Restore the old set in between installing each new set.
Press the Install button once you have selected the screen files, and they
will be copied to the appropriate locations automatically.
* Note: There are various WEB sites at which Startup and Shutdown "SYS" files
can be downloaded and used as replacements for the standard "SYS" files
contained in Windows 95/98.
9. Wallpaper Notes
Support for JPEG Wallpaper files in Christian Desktop is implemented by
converting the JPEG to a temporary BMP file. If you Apply a theme that
uses a JPEG for wallpaper, the picture is converted to a permanent BMP file
in your Windows directory. This file is overwritten each time you Apply a
theme that uses JPEGs, so you only ever have the one converted picture.
Since BMP files take much more room than JPEGs, you should ensure you have
enough space on your Windows drive (approximately 3mb is required for an
average size 24bit picture). This is the same mechanism as Plus! uses.
The JPEG conversion itself requires about 1mb of memory - if a wallpaper
isn't appearing, and it's a JPEG file, then you probably do not have enough
memory. In this case, try closing some open applications and try again.
Christian Desktop also emulates the Wallpaper stretching that Plus! performs.
This is very useful as it allows you to use practically any size bitmap to
fill your screen, instead of leaving an unsightly border around the outside.
Unfortunately, Christian Desktop's stretching isn't as transparent as Plus!'s
is; it has to convert the original size image to a BMP file in your Windows
directory (much like the JPEG conversion - of course if you are stretching
a JPEG file you only get the one BMP!). This can take a bit of time, and
requires some hard drive space. It generally works very well though.
Because stretching is implemented via a converted BMP file, if you change
screen resolution the stretched image will no longer be the correct size.
To remedy this, run Desktop Themes and select the Miscellaneous tab.
Turn off 'Stretch wallpaper to fit the screen' and click the Apply button.
Then turn it back on and click the Apply button again. You will also have
to do this if you change Wallpaper through the Display Properties, and want
to stretch it to full screen.
10. Other Notes
If you have Plus! installed when you run Christian Desktop, it won't install
itself in the registry as the default theme handler. If you decide you want
to switch to using Christian Desktop, just go to the "Miscellaneous" page
and click the "Update" button. This will force it to install itself as the
default handler, overriding Plus!.
11. Uninstalling
To uninstall the Desktop Themes application, simply delete the file. To
uninstall themes themselves, use either the "Install" page of Desktop Themes,
or the Add & Remove Programs section within the Control Panel.
12. Copyrights
Christian Desktop is (c) 1998 by RomTech, Inc.
Program engine is (c) 1998 by Jonathan Potter / Left Side Software.
Based on Desktop Themes in Microsoft Plus! (c) Microsoft Corp.
Uses The Independent JPEG Group's JPEG software (v6a)
13. Content
Themes courtesy of DeAnna Rushing and Linda Bloom.