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Text File | 1997-04-12 | 18KB | 384 lines

====================================================================== BOUNCER III INFORMATION Copyright (C) 1997 Accidental Software ====================================================================== Bouncer is a screen saver for windows. The standard windows desktop Screen Saver interface is used to control this program as a screen saver. The program may be also be started from the icon that setup places in the Bouncer program group. --------------------------------------------------------------------- INSTALLATION --------------------------------------------------------------------- The shareware version of this program may be supplied without VBRUN300.DLL. This file is required to install and run this program. VBRUN300.DLL is widely available and can be found on most windows systems. If you don't have VBRUN300.DLL in your windows\system directory, you can download this file from our page on the internet. Our URL is..... http://www.accidental.com Download the file VBRUN300.EXE. Double click on the file and select unzip. The file VBRUN300.DLL will be placed in your windows\system directory. If your program has been provided as a self extracting executable (as bncXX.exe)........ 1. Double click the file "bncXX.exe". 2. Select the Unzip command button from the dialog that shows. 3. The files needed for this program will be unzipped to a temporary directory and the setup.exe program will automatically run. After Bouncer III has been installed, the temporary directory will be deleted. If your program has been provided as a Zip (bncXX.zip)...... 1. Use PKUNZIP to "unzip" the file to its own directory (folder for windows 95). 2. Run Setup.exe provided in the zip archive to install the program. If your program has been supplied on disk. 1. Place your Bouncer disk in the floppy drive. 2. Run the setup.exe provided on the floppy disk. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- USING YOUR OWN PICTURES AND MUSIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can use your own pictures or music in this program...... 1. Start Bouncer setup by double clicking on the bouncer icon or by choosing Bouncer as your windows screen saver, then select the settings command button. 2. Select the [Pictures - Music] command button. 3. Select an option button located at the bottom of the page (Pictures, Midi Music, or Wave Music). The Picture option button is selected initially. 4. Use the drive and directories list boxes to find the type of files you should expect to see based on your option selection. Pictures can be in one of the following formats, BMP, DIB, JIF, JPG, PCX, PNG, RLE, TGA, TIFF (uncompressed only), WMF, WPG (raster only). Midi Music must be in MID format, and Wave Music will be in WAV format. 5. Add your selections from the left bottom list box by selecting (click one item or click and hold as you move the mouse pointer over the desired files. Click the [Add .....] button to place the selected items to the list on the right (the right list is the list of items Bouncer will use when it runs). 6. Insure the [x] Enable Music check box is checked for Midi or Wave music, or the music files in the list on the right will not play when Bouncer runs. 7. For Midi or Wave music. If Midi or Wave is selected with the [x] Enable Music check box enabled, the title bar of the Pictures / Music form will read "Bouncer Pictures - Midi music" or "Bouncer Pictures - Wave music". If the "- Midi music" or "- Wave music" statement is not indicated in the title bar, music is not enabled. 7. Select the Help menu item for more information. --------------------------------------------------------------------- PICTURE INFORMATION --------------------------------------------------------------------- The maximum picture display size can vary depending on the Max Zoom size you have set in the Options section of Bouncer III. Additionally, if you have added text to a picture, the final display size may be smaller than the same picture would be without text since the picture will never expand (zoom) to cover the text. If the Center Picture option is selected, the final display size of the picture may be larger than if the picture is randomly placed on the screen. Since the picture display size will never reach the full screen size, smaller pictures may provide the best display clarity with Bouncer III. Very large pictures will be scaled down to the final zoom size and may take longer to display as the picture zooms in and out. Although Bouncer III can use most any size picture satisfactorily, particularly on Pentium based or better processors, the following guidelines may be useful in tuning your pictures for use with this program. We recommend setting your screen mode to 16 bit color (high color) or better. This is required if you intend to use the Screen Background capabilities of the program. 1. Consider reducing very large pictures in pixel width and height to a smaller size. Larger pictures may suffer in quality when displayed since pixels will be discarded to get the image to fit the final zoom size of the picture. --------------------------------------------------------------------- DISPLAYING PICTURES IN A SPECIFIC ORDER --------------------------------------------------------------------- When Bouncer runs, the pictures you have added to the Bouncer Pictures list (the list on the Right) will display in alphabetical order (providing the randomize Picture Order feature is not selected from the options menu). If you want your pictures to display in a specific order, the pictures you are using will need to be renamed so that their alphabetical order is the same as the picture sequence you want to show. Note: You can rename the pictures in the Bouncer directory after the pictures have been copied to the bouncer directory. When pictures are added to the Bouncer Pictures list, a copy of the picture from the original directory is made and placed in the Bouncer directory. When pictures are removed from the Bouncer Picture list, they are deleted only from the bouncer directory, the original of the picture is still in the directory from which it was copied. --------------------------------------------------------------------- ADDING TEXT TO YOUR PICTURES --------------------------------------------------------------------- Each picture can have a text file that will show when the picture displays. 1. Select a picture from the list of Bouncer Pictures by clicking it one time. 2. Click the [Text for Picture <<] command button. 3. Type the text for that picture in the text box that pops up. 4. Select a font size for the text. 5. Click the [Save] command button. 6. Due to the many combinations of line length and font sizes, no specific formatting of the text you type is implemented. Push [Enter] to break the text into lines. Up to 500 characters can be saved as text for each picture. 7. When a picture is removed from the list of Bouncer Pictures, the text file for that picture is also removed. 8. Select the Help menu choice for additional information. --------------------------------------------------------------------- PATTERN SETS - MAKING BACKGROUNDS --------------------------------------------------------------------- Your screen display must be set to 16 bit color or better before this feature can be accessed. If your screen mode is set to 256 colors, palette shifting will occur and the background colors will not display correctly. We recommend setting your screen display to 16 bit color. If you have a 15"" or bigger monitor, we also recommend a display size to 800 x 600. Changing screen display color depth in Windows 95. a. Right click the Desk Top away from any icon. b. From the pop up menu, select Properties. c. Select the settings Tab. d. Select the down arrow in the Color Palette box. e. Select High Color (16 bit) from the choices that present. f. Select the OK button at the bottom of the Display Properties panel. Changing screen display color depth in Windows 3.x. a. Select Main. b. Select Windows Setup. c. Select the Options menu choice. d. Select the down arrow at the end of the Display box. e. Select High Color (16 bit) from the choices that present. f. Select the OK button at the bottom of the Change System Settings panel. Bouncer III is supplied with 12 patterns in the A_ pattern set. These patterns can be used to make backgrounds that will show behind your pictures. If more than 1 background is made, the backgrounds can cycle from one to the next after the set number of pictures has shown. This is called background cycling. To make backgrounds for Bouncer you must select the [Screen Backgrounds] button located in the [Options] utility. After more than 1 background has been made, select the Cycle Backgrounds menu choice from the Screen Backgrounds panel. Set the number of pictures to show before the background changes (cycles). This number can be set from 0 (no picture cycling) to 10 (the background changes after 10 picture have shown). It is also possible to set the background cycle in the Options utility, select the small command button that has a C in it [C]. Additional pattern sets are available form Accidental Software. Pattern Sets are identified by a 2 digit prefix. The pattern set supplied with Bouncer is A_. Additional pattern sets are identified as AA through AZ and BA through BZ. Currently 20 sets are available (AA through AT), each set has 12 patterns. Select Pattern Sets or the Pattern Sets menu choice from the pattern sets panel for additional information. 1. Pattern set prices are currently $10 per set of 12 or $25 for 3 sets. 2. Pattern sets are normally sent to your Email address as an Email attachment. If you prefer to have a disk, an additional $3 for shipping and handling is required. We strive to Email attach pattern sets with 48 hours of receipt of an order. 3. Most pattern sets are approximately 1 mega byte in size, and come complete with a setup.exe utility that will automatically add the pattern set to your Bouncer III program. We can accept Visa or MasterCard: Call 1-800-771-6746 or 1-760-247-2804 E-mail: bouncer@accidental.com FAX: 1-760-247-6819 --------------------------------------------------------------------- OPTIONS - PASSWORD - MESSAGES --------------------------------------------------------------------- Most items in these features are self explanatory. Select the Help menu provide in each feature for clarification of individual items. --------------------------------------------------------------------- KEYBOARD AND MOUSE CONTROLS --------------------------------------------------------------------- When the program is running as a screen saver or from the Run Bouncer command button, the following keyboard and mouse controls are implemented. 1. Push a keyboard key that is not "reserved" to end the screen saver or click a mouse button. Moving the mouse will not end the screen saver. Reserved Keys: 1. "M" - Messages. This key will toggle the selected message (1-7) on or off. If a message is showing, any other message (1-7) can replace it by pressing the corresponding number key. 2. "V" - Volume. This key will allow you to change the volume setting of a midi or wave file. This key only works if music is playing while the screen saver is running (indicated by a Music Note icon at the top left corner of the screen) and by music coming from your computer speakers. This feature can also be activated by moving the mouse pointer to the Music Icon and clicking while the pointer is on the icon. 3. "Space" - Music toggle. This key will toggle music on an off if is selected and playing when the screen saver runs. 4. "N" - Note icon. This key will toggle the note icon that appears in the top left corner of your screen when midi or wave music is selected. When the N key is toggled, the note icon will appear and disappear. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PICTURES SUPPLIED ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Most pictures supplied with this program are clips taken from pictures provided by Ben Van Der Belt of Holland. One picture "Family1.bmp" is a scanned image from a family photo album. Ben Van Der Belt's address.... Herderlaan B 3851 BD Ermelo The Netherlands Email: ben.vd.belt@tip.nl FAX: 31 341 56474 --------------------------------------------------------------------- REGISTRATION INFORMATION --------------------------------------------------------------------- How much? -- $10.00 The unregistered version of BOUNCER may be freely distributed as long as the program and original archive is unaltered. You may not distribute this program with any picture, midi, or background pattern file that is not in the original archive. If any picture, midi, or background pattern file is altered, changed, or substituted, you may NOT distribute the altered program. No wave file is supplied with the original program, and no wave file may be added to any distributed version of this program. The REGISTERED version of this program will allow you to show up to 999 pictures. All 7 messages will be available, the registration reminder will be eliminated, and you can use the GIF picture format for your pictures. You will also be abel to install pattern sets needed for making backgrounds. These background sets are available from Accidental Software. See Pattern Sets below for more information. How to register. BOUNCER is converted to the registered edition with a Key Code (received from Accidental Software). Entered your key code into the program to convert it to the registered edition. You can purchase a Key Code from Accidental Software for $10.00. You must provide us with your Registration ID number. Your Registration ID number can be found by selecting the Registration menu choice from Bouncer III You can print a registration form as an option from the Registration menu that appears. NO DISK WILL BE SENT, YOU WILL RECEIVE A KEY CODE THAT CONVERTS YOUR PROGRAM TO THE REGISTERED EDITION. We can accept Visa or MasterCard: Call 1-800-771-6746 or 1-760-247-2804 E-mail: bouncer@accidental.com FAX: 1-760-247-6819 If you prefer, you can send us the registration form via the US mail. Enclose your payment, and we will send your key code to you. Send to...... Accidental Software 13245 Skiomah Rd. Apple Valley, Ca. 92308 Contact Accidental Software for site licensing information. --------------------------------------------------------------------- UNINSTALL --------------------------------------------------------------------- If you decide not to use this screen saver, you can remove all the files for this program from your hard disk. Remove the following...... 1. Bouncer.scr - location - Windows directory 2. Bouncer.exe - location - Windows directory 3. Bouncer.ini - location - Windows directory 4. Bouncer directory and subdirectories - location - Default is "C:\BOUNCER", if you selected a different drive and or directory when the program was installed, use that path. --------------------------------------------------------------------- TROUBLE SHOOTING --------------------------------------------------------------------- If during the process of making a screen background, the screen turns white with only a small image of the background pattern at the top left of the screen, the background has NOT been properly made. If the above occurs, delete the background just made and reattempt the process of making the background again. --------------------------------------------------------------------- TECH SUPPORT --------------------------------------------------------------------- Accidental Software:Voice 760-247-2804 Fax 760-247-6819 Email support@accidental.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- DISCLAIMER --------------------------------------------------------------------- This product is distributed "as is". All warranties, either expressed or implied, as to the software quality, performance, or fitness for any particular reason are disclaimed. You will bear the entire risk of relating to the quality and performance of this product, and will, in no event hold ACCIDENTAL SOFTWARE liable for any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damage resulting from the use of this software.