home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
OS/2 Shareware BBS: WPS_PM
/
WPS_PM.zip
/
SCRNBLNK.ZIP
/
SCRNBLNK.TXT
< prev
Wrap
Text File
|
1991-01-29
|
8KB
|
166 lines
Screen Blanker V1.2
A Screen Saver Program for OS/2
Purpose: A screen saver is a program which blanks the
screen after a specified period of
inactivity, in order to prevent patterns from
being "burned-in" to the screen.
Installation:
SCRNBLNK.EXE is a utility in C:\OS2 directory.
Create STARTUP.CMD file to activate Screen
Blanker each time you reboot your system.
The command to do this is:
SCRNBLNK /INSTALL
You may also wish to add an entry for Screen
Blanker to a Desktop Manager program group so
you can easily start it at other times.
If you want Screen Blanker to be effective in
OS/2 DOS sessions, you must also install a
device driver. SCRNBLNK.SYS is in C:\ directory.
a suitable directory (such as OS2\SYSTEM).
Then modify your CONFIG.SYS file to install
this driver at startup. You must add a line
of the form:
DEVICE=C:\SCRNBLNK.SYS
(or wherever you installed the file). This
line should go before the DEVICE=... lines
which install the mouse drivers; otherwise
Screen Blanker will be unable to detect mouse
activity within the DOS box.
Usage: Screen Blanker is normally activated from
your STARTUP.CMD file whenever the system is
booted, as described under Installation
above.
Once Screen Blanker has been activated, it
will monitor keyboard and mouse activity in
all OS/2 sessions. If the specified period
elapses without either being used, the screen
will be blanked. Optionally, a display of the
current date and time will be shown in random
positions on the screen.
The screen can be restored to its previous
state by pressing any key or moving the
mouse.
Screen Blanker may also be started at other
times in any of the usual OS/2 ways -- by
selecting it from the File System, by an
entry in a Start Programs menu, or by
entering the command SCRNBLNK from a command-
line window.
When Screen Blanker is started it normally
displays a dialog box that allows you to set
some options. The command line parameter
/INSTALL used at startup suppresses this
dialog box and uses default or previously set
values.
Page 3
If Screen Blanker is already active when it
is started, the new copy communicates with
the previous copy to change the options in
effect. The Remove button in the dialog box
can be used to terminate a previously-
activated screen blanker. The /NOCLOSE
option may be specified when Screen Blanker
is started to prevent it being removed.
If the Screen Blanker device driver has been
installed, Screen Blanker will also blank the
screen while the DOS Compatibility mode
session is in control of the screen.
Alternatively, a separate DOS screen blanker
may be used in the DOS compatibility session.
Command Line Options:
The following options may be specified on the
command line when Screen Blanker is run:
/INSTALL This is normally used when Screen
Blanker is run from a STARTUP.CMD file. It
bypasses the dialog box popup, and installs
the program with whatever options have been
previous set up.
/NOCLOSE This option prevents the Screen
Blanker from being removed from memory, and
also prevents changing most of its options.
If Screen Blanker is run from a STARTUP.CMD
file with this option, the only way to remove
it is to remove the command from STARTUP.CMD
and reboot the system.
Dialog Box Options:
The Screen Blanker dialog box allows setting
various options.
The "PM Session", "DOS Session", and "Non-PM
Sessions" checkboxes allow you to control
when Screen Blanker is active. By default it
is active in all sessions. If you remove the
check from "PM Sessions", blanking will not
be active in the PM session. Blanking for
the DOS session will only be possible if the
Screen Blanker device driver has been
installed.
Page 4
The time interval at which blanking should
occur may be entered in the indicated place.
The default is five minutes.
The "Show clock" check box can be used to
control whether the time and date are
displayed during "blanked" periods. If "Show
clock" is selected, then the "Colors"
pushbutton can be used to adjust the colors
used in the time/date display. When this
pushbutton is selected a second dialog box
pops up containing scroll bars that are used
to select the colors.
If the "Save settings" check box is selected,
then your preferences for the other options
will be saved in the system OS2.INI file, and
will be applied automatically whenever the
Screen Blanker is subsequently started.
Caveats: (1) Screen Blanker uses the OS/2 VioPopUp service
to blank the screen. OS/2 limits use of this
function to one program (session) at a time.
This means that if a running program has
taken over the screen by "popping up", Screen
Blanker will be unable to blank the screen.
It also means that a running program that
wants to use the "popup" while the screen is
blanked will be unable to do so. Most
programs that use this function appear to
wait for the screen to be available, so in
practice this doesn't seem to be a serious
problem.
(2) Some levels of OS/2 version 1.2 contain a bug
in VioPopUp which results in a "Protection
Violation" (Message SYS1943) if the program
is removed (by selecting the Remove option).
This occurs only if it has blanked the screen
one or more times before being removed. This
error arises a few seconds after the program
has terminated and appears to be beyond my
control. It is apparently harmless, and has
been corrected in recent levels of OS/2 1.2.