Permission granted to freely distribute Minisaver on all public bulletin board systems and online services, but this document must be included. Permission also granted to publish Minisaver on individual "shareware " disks provided no fees are charged beyond normal disk-duplication costs. For shareware CD collections or multi-disk sets, contact me for permission first.
About Minisaver
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Minisaver is a freeware system extension. Installation is foolproof: drop it in your System folder and restart. There are no controls; the program is designed to be an install-it-and-forget-it no-frills screen saver. It takes up approximately 6k of RAM and 20k of disk space.
Macintoshes use an "event-based" system for handling user input. Mouse clicks, key presses, menu selections, and even disk insertions all generate "events." Programs watch for these events to determine what the user wants to do. When you start up your computer, extensions (and control panels) like Minisaver are allowed to perform any installation that is necessary. During this time Minisaver draws its icon on your startup screen. Installation can be cancelled by holding down the mouse button before Minisaver installs. A red X will appear over Minisaver's icon to show that it has been deactivated. Minisaver installs itself into memory in such a way that it can watch all events as they are processed. If, after a certain period of time, Minisaver has seen no events or mouse movements, it decides you are not using your computer and activates its screen saver animation.
Minisaver continues to watch for events, and if any occur, it notices them and turns off its animation. Note that serial port activities such as printing or transferring files via modem are not considered events, and thus do not prevent the screen saver from activating. Minisaver's animation uses so little CPU time that printing can continue uninterrupted, so I did not feel it was necessary to make it watch the serial port. If this is a problem for you, please tell me!
Minisaver and PowerMacs
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I do not recommend running Minisaver on a Power Macintosh. The program is not inherently incompatible with the PowerPC processor, and though I don't have a PowerMac to test it on, I believe it would run without error. But since Minisaver is compiled in 680x0 code, a PowerMac must switch into emulation mode every time Minisaver looks for events. Since up to 60 events are processed per second, this switching in and out of emulation mode can cause quite a slowdown. (A "fat binary" version of Minisaver is planned - read further.)
Version History
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1.0 - Initial release, very limited. A few users on local BBSs tried it out.
1.1 - Changed the distracting flickering spots animation for a smoother "bouncing ball."
Added 'vers' resources and fixed a few minor glitches.
1.2 - Changed the method of event watching. Instead of patching the "GetNextEvent" trap, which caused some incompatibilites and ran slowly in the System 7 Finder, the "jGNEFilter" mechanism was adopted. Added a feature to hide menu bar clocks.
1.2.1 - Glitch which caused the menu bar to remain black after screensaver deactivation was repaired, as was a problem with the insertion point sometimes remaining visible after the screen saver blacked the screen. Finder Balloon Help added and a 'sysz' resource (for better memory management) added.
Future Plans - possible, but not guaranteed ideas.
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+ Control panel allowing user to change number of minutes until activation and to toggle whether the startup icon is to be displayed.
+ Sleep/don't sleep corners.
+ Allow user to paste in their own PICT instead of the bouncing ball.
- System 6 support will be discontinued if the control panel is implemented. Sorry!
+ Fat Binary version - 680x0 and PowerMac code to be supported.
How to Reach the Author
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America Online: MarsSaxMan
eWorld: MarsSaxMan
Both of those addresses can be reached through the Internet:
marssaxman@aol.com or marssaxman@eworld.com
Snail Mail:
Jonathan Durkee
9205 Starina Way
Sacramento, CA 95826-4148
Though this program is freeware, I'd still appreciate feedback from you. I intend to support and maintain Minisaver, and your input will help me make sure it is bug-free and has all the nice features you want (and that I don't waste my time writing features you don't want :-). Besides, I love to get email! Please send a note, even if it's just "downloaded minisaver. cool." I also keep a mailing list for updates, so if you email me you will receive Minisaver updates as they are written.
This program was developed with Zedcor's FutureBASIC compiler. I enjoy helping beginning programmers out, so if you have any questions, fire away. I frequent the Ariel Publishing forum (keyword Ariel) and Zedcor forum (keyword Zedcor, not surprisingly) on America Online, so you can try posting questions there as well. (If I don't respond, someone else will.)
