1st Impression automatically replaces Windows startup and shut down logos each time your system restarts. There is a basic image collection already included with the package and more can be downloaded from various sites around the net. Even better, this software can convert almost any image to the logo format, including digital photos, pictures from the Internet, scanned images, fractal images, 3D renderings, etc. 1st Impression can display multi-line messages which are stored to user-editable plain-text files. With 1st Impression restarting Windows becomes a fun.
Warning:
This software does not work under Windows
NT or Windows 2000.
Privacy statement:
This program does not send any personal data over the Internet, however
if any additional software is distributed with 1st Impression it has its
own installation procedure and privacy policy that you should read.
Installing / Uninstalling
Always check for the latest version of 1st Impression on its home page:
http://www.gromada.com/1stImpression.html
Before installing any new version of 1st Impression it is recommended to uninstall the previous one. To uninstall version 1.30 or newer just start it's uninstall procedure (Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs). To uninstall versions prior to 1.30 do the following:
- Start 1st Impression from its program group
- Click "Options"
- Click "Restore original logos"
- Confirm the operation
- Close the "Options" dialog by clicking "OK"
- Close the program and start the standard uninstall procedure (Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs)
If you have trouble uninstalling 1st Impression find more in Frequently Asked Questions.
Compatibility With Previous Versions
To convert logos from previous versions to the new format first locate the storage folder used by the previous version of 1st Impression. The default location is "C:\Program Files\Common Files\1stLogos" but this may be different in your installation. Start the new version of 1st Impression, click Add, go to that folder and select all the pictures in it. The image resize mode is not important (just click OK on the next dialog) because 320x400 pixels images are never resized anyway.
Galleries created with 1st Impression version 2.1.2 and newer are fully compatible with this version. Galleries created with 1st Impression 2.0.0 need to be re-created using some newer version of the software.
Windows can display three different logos, depending on its current state. These are:
- Startup, shown when Windows is starting up (logo.sys).
- Wait, while operating system is shutting down (logoW.sys).
- Turn off, when the computer is ready to be switched off (logoS.sys). Many people never see the last one because their machine turns itself off automatically.
Each time your system is restarted 1st Impression changes these logos by selecting random images from the list of candidates kept in its private folder. Note that this program does not "live" in the tray bar and does not constantly occupy your system memory or CPU time. It just changes all logos during the startup and quits.
When 1st Impression is started manually from its program group the program enters the interactive mode where you can change various program settings, add/remove logos, install and create galleries, change text messages, etc.
The following menu commands are available in the interactive mode:
- Image Menu
- Add - Adds new images to the list. To make an image appear as a logo this is the first step to do. Simply click this button and in the dialog that will open select one or more images to be added. You can add images from your hard disk, network drive, CD or other storage device. After you select files you will be prompted to choose the resize mode and file prefix for these images. See Resize Modes for details about that.
- Delete - Removes selected images from the list. It will not delete the original images you added, only their converted copies stored in the application's private folder. Logos deleted this way are not in the Recycle Bin and cannot be restored, but you can create them again from the original pictures with the Add command.
- Rename - Changes the name of the image in the list.
- Choose Position - Sometimes you want to display some logos only at startup or shut down. For example, rocket launching looks great at startup, while sunset is more appropriate for shut down. In this dialog you can choose the desired positions for one or more selected logos. This affects automatic logo changing and the Shuffle command, but has no effect on manual logo changing with the Set command. You can also use F6, F7 and F8 to change these settings for the currently displayed image.
- Change Prefix - Each picture has a gallery prefix in its name for easier grouping. Use this command to change the prefix of one or more selected pictures.
- Set as Logo - Sets the currently selected image to be displayed on Windows startup and/or shut down. You can set a single image to all three positions in just one step. If Automatic Logo Changing is ON, this logo will last only till the next system startup after which it will be replaced with another one (randomly selected).
- Shuffle - Randomly sets all three logos. Use it to manually change all logos when Automatic Logo Changing is OFF.
- Exit - Closes the application.
- Gallery
Menu
- Open - Allows you to choose and open a gallery file and append its pictures to the list of logos. If you downloaded a gallery file from the Internet try searching for it in My Documents or other preferred folder.
- Create - Packs selected pictures into a gallery file. At least two pictures must be selected in the list to create a file. Use SHIFT or CTRL combined with arrow keys or mouse to select multiple pictures in the list.
- View
Menu
- Current Startup Logo - Displays the current "startup" logo.
- Current Wait Logo - Displays the current "wait" logo.
- Current Turn Off Logo - Displays the current "turn off" logo.
- Refresh List - Refreshes the list of images, in case it has been changed by an external application.
- Tools Menu
- Web Sites - Links to web sites featured by this version of 1st Impression.
- Options - Click here for details.
- System Files - Here you can change the physical folders and files used by the application. Do not change anything in this dialog unless there are problems with displaying logos.
- Windows files tab shows the names of the destination logo files used by Windows. Most people don't have to change any of them but if you have installed Windows on the compressed drive then the startup logo location must be changed to point to the host disk. In most cases that means you must change the drive letter, e.g. from "d:\logo.sys" to "c:\logo.sys".
- Storage folder is the name of the folder where logo candidates are kept. Files in this folder are those pictures displayed in 1st Impression's main window.
- Restore Original Logos - Restores original logos that were there before 1st Impression was installed. This is also automatically done during uninstallation.
- Help Menu
- Short Manual - Displays this file.
- Debug Info - Creates a list of relevant system and program settings. If you have a bug to report please start this command, then go to your email software or text editor and choose Edit / Paste to insert debug information into your message. That can help us locate the bug.
- About - Shows information about this software.
The Options window contains program settings grouped in several tabs:
- General
- Change logos each time your system starts up - Self-explanatory check box. If you want a new logo during each startup / shutdown enable this option, if you want to change logos manually when you desire, then uncheck this option.
- Message Font - Click the Change button to select desired font, size and style used for writing custom messages over the logos.
- Text Color - The color of the message text. The actual color may vary depending on the colors that are present in the picture.
- Text Background Color - The color of the border around each letter. The actual color may vary depending on the colors that are present in the picture.
- Logo Pick Method - The method used to pick one logo from all that are available. Sequential means that logos are picked one after another from the sorted list. This method ensures that all logos are shown without repeating. Random picks the logo randomly, which means some logos can be displayed several times and some very rarely.
- Message pick method - The first two methods are the same as in Logo Pick Method option above. The last option enables you to show only the first message and ignore all others. This is useful for temporary messages, such as "Don't forget your kid's birthday".
- Startup
- Enable Startup Messages - When checked enables displaying of startup messages, otherwise no text is displayed.
- Text box - Enter the desired messages into this text box. You can have as many messages as you want and each can have multiple lines. To separate messages use the "--" marker (a line containing just two dashes). Don't put this marker after the last message in the list. To stop displaying messages clear the check box above. This text is saved to the "msg-startup.txt" file which can be edited manually in a text editor.
- Shut Down
- Same as Startup, the text is saved to "msg-shutdown.txt".
- Turn Off
- Same as Startup, the text is saved to "msg-turnoff.txt".
- Animation
- Enable Animation - Enables animation effects that are achieved by manipulating several colors in the image palette. Animations can be displayed only on startup.
- Shape - Choose some of the predefined animated shapes. This applies only for animations created automatically with 1st Impression. Specially prepared logos with complex animations use their own animation patterns and colors.
- Color Mix - Defines how two available colors are mixed, can be either cross-dissolve ("smooth scroll") or sharp edge ("vegas style"). This applies only for animations created by 1st Impression.
- Color 1 and Color 2 - Colors that are interchanging in the animation pattern. This applies only for animations created by 1st Impression.
When new images are added they need to be resized to the pixel resolution and color depth used by Windows logos. Also images need to be changed from the standard 4:3 aspect ratio to the weird ratio of logo images. Some resize modes are more appropriate for some pictures, but since computers still have trouble recognizing objects on pictures we leave it to you to choose the resizing method. Available are:
- Show Entire Image - Adds black border vertically or horizontally depending on the dimensions of the image but keeps original proportions. This is similar to the letterbox format used for displaying big-screen movies on TV. Whenever you want to see the entire image without deformations use this mode, (e.g. pictures of persons, cars, buildins and other objects).
- Fill The Screen - Prevents distortions by zooming the central part of the picture and cutting off vertical or horizontal margins. Can be used for displaying landscapes because the picture looks much better when it covers entire screen even if few lines are missing.
- Simple Stretch - The simplest resize method that may produce distortions. However this mode manages both: to cover the entire screen and display whole image. Useful for abstract backgrounds, landscapes and already prepared logos.
When this dialog pops-up the last used mode is already selected so you can just click OK or press ENTER to continue using that mode. If you click CANCEL no images will be added.
This dialog appears only once after you select a block of images, and the selected resize mode is applied to each image selected in the Open File dialog. When you click the Add button again you have a chance to add another block of images using a different mode.
Logo Galleries
1st Impression logo gallery is a collection of pictures and other information
packed into a single file for smaller size and easier distribution over
the Internet. Anybody can create a gallery since the only software required
is 1st Impression (and a source of pictures, of course). For example,
you can turn digital pictures from your vacation into a gallery.
If you have an interesting picture collection and wish to share it with others, simply put a logo gallery on your web site and tell others where to download it. Remember: if any of the images in the gallery are not yours you must have a permission from the copyright holder to use them.
When adding new images, 1st Impression is not limited only to BMP or SYS format - almost all popular image file formats are supported:
- BAY Bayer Image (bay)
- BMP Windows Device Independent Bitmap, 8/15/24bit (bmp,dib,rle)
- GIF Graphics Interchange Format (gif,giff)
- JPG Joint Photographic Expert Group, JFIF 1.02 (jpg,jpeg,jfif,jpe,J)
- PCX Zsoft Paintbrush, 8/24bit (pcx)
- PNG Portable Network Graphics (png)
- PNM Portable Image, 8/15/24bit (pnm,ppm,pgm)
- RAS Sun Raster Image, 8/24/32bit (ras,sun)
- RGB Silicon Graphics Image, 8/24/32bit (rgb,rgba,bw,sgi)
- TGA Truevision Targa, 8/15/24/32bit (tga)
- TIF Tagged Image File Format (tif,tiff)
- XPM X-Pixmap (xpm)
- SYS, Logos are usually distributed as .sys files, but in fact that is a BMP file with the .sys extension
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
The latest update of this file is available on our web site. Make sure you are on-line and click to the link below:
http://www.gromada.com/1stImpression_FAQ.html
END OF DOCUMENT