Snow for Windows Screen Saver: User Guide

Install/Un install

There is no installer necessary for Snow for Windows. Snow for Windows does not need to be installed or un installed. The program does not require any DLL's or other application dependent things. If you want to remove Snow for Windows you can safely delete the folder with Snow for Windows.

To install the screen saver simply copy or drag the file named "Snow for Windows screen saver" to your "Windows" directory if you use Windows 95/98, or to the directory "Winnt" if you use Windows NT. You can safely delete the screen saver from these directories.

Settings

The Snow for Windows screen saver has it's own settings, separate from the regular Snow for Windows desktop enhancement. You select Snow for Windows as your screen saver by opening the "Display" control panel from the Settings. You then click the tab "Screen Saver", where you can select Snow for Windows as your screen saver. If you click the button labeled "Settings..." you get a special Snow for Windows settings dialog where you can specify your Snow for Windows screen saver settings. Note that the settings for the screen saver are separate from the regular settings, so you can have different settings for the screen saver and the normal Snow for Windows.

Help function

Snow for Windows contains a help function. right-click the mouse on a button or picture, and a button "What's this?" appears. Left-click that button and information is displayed. You can also click the "?" icon in the Snow for Windows title bar, and then click the item you want information on.

Background and mask picture

You can select a picture to be used as the background picture of the screen saver. The file must be a bitmap file, with the extension .bmp, as created with the Paint program. The picture can be displayed fullscreen, centered or tiled. Note that the picture must be the size of your screen for best quality, as scaled pictures usually do not look very good. Snow for Windows cannot presently read .jpg or .gif pictures, but there are numerous utilities to convert .jpg and .gif to .bmp.

Try running Snow for Windows with a picture on the desktop, for example a picture with a forest or snow scenes! Try these sites for nice wallpapers.

Additionally, you can select a picture to be used as the background mask of the screen saver. The file must be a black and white (monochrome) bitmap file, with the extension .bmp, as created with the Paint program. The leaves will build up in the areas you painted black. The mask area you painted black is divided up in rectangles. This costs memory and conversion time. You can specify a limit to the number of rectangles to be used as the mask area. The default is 20000, but feel free to set the number quite a lot higher. If the conversion takes too long, simply make the number smaller.

If you want a single color on the desktop you can make a .bmp bitmap file with the Paint program with the color of your choice. Simply select it with the Picture button, and select the fullscreen option and the desktop will be that color. If you do not specify a picture the desktop is a simple gray.


Rick Jansen, rja@euronet.nl