Blanker Version 5.3รก All rights reserved. Copyright (C) Peter Wansch, 1995 July 8, 1995 Vienna, Austria BETA RELEASE ============ This is a beta release. Please direct all bug reports, comments and suggestions to: Peter Wansch Hagenbachgasse 37 A-3423 St. Andrae-Woerdern AUSTRIA e-mail: p.wansch@ieee.org phone: +43 2242 32124 fax: +43 2242 31113 Thank you very much for testing Blanker. IMPORTANT INFORMATION ===================== Blanker supports full screen DOS sessions using a DOS client program called DBLANKER.COM. DBLANKER.COM is copied to your MDOS directory during installation and the line @DBLANKER X is appended to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file (X stands for the blank time in minutes in DOS sessions). To disable DBLANKER in a DOS session, type DBLANKER 0 at the command prompt. To re-enable DBLANKER type DBLANKER X (where X is the blank time) at the DOS prompt. Due to the limitations of DOS and the way some DOS programs are written, DBLANKER might not work with some DOS programs. DBLANKER also monitors only your keyboard in DOS sessions. Since the Operating System/2 runs DOS sessions as separate tasks which have to share resources like CPU time, blanking in DOS sessions may occur later than anticipated when system load is high. To enable full screen WIN-OS/2 support start a WIN-OS/2 full screen session. Open the Control Panel Desktop settings and select the Blanker screen saver module. The Alarm clock functions are only available when the information window is displayed. The External modules list on the Modules page in the Settings notebook displays the name of all installed modules. Enabled modules have a dot displayed to the left of the name. When the screen is blanked Screen Blanker chooses one of the enabled modules. To enable or disable a module select it on the list and choose Configure. To change the settings of the information window move the mouse pointer inside the information window and press the right mouse button to display the information window pop-up menu. Please read the help chapters on Launch keys and objects or on screen capturing if you want to use these features. INSTALLATION ============ To install Blanker open a full screen or windowed OS/2 session and type INSTALL at the prompt. Make sure that the LIBPATH and PATH statement in your CONFIG.SYS file include the directory where Blanker is installed. The default password is PASSWORD. Blanker is Shareware. Please read the registration notice in the online help. To use Blanker 5.3 you must have REXX support installed. WHAT'S NEW ========== Audio CDs can now be assigned to modules and played in either repeat or shuffle mode. The playback volume can be adjusted. WAV files can now be assigned to modules and played and the playback volume can be adjusted. You can now enter and use a supervisor password. The Launch keys dialog lets you create program objects with object ids. A calendar has been added to the Alarms dialog which shows you the days on which the selected alarm becomes active. A new module has been added (Funky). The installation program has been improved. -- Full Screen DOS support has been added. Alarms can now also be set on a monthly basis as well as on a specific date. A command to lock the desktop without blanking the screen has been added. 3 new modules have been added (Baloon, Slide show, Zoom). An Enable or Disable button for external ScreenSaver modules has been added to the Modules page in the Settings notebook. The installation program has been improved. -- The DPMS suspend mode is now supported for VESA compatible graphic adapters. Full Screen WIN-OS/2 support has been added. KNOWN PROBLEMS ============== Some screen capture functions are not possible when using the standard VGA display driver. You will receive error messages like "Unable to copy window" or "Unable to copy part of screen". This is a bug in the OS/2 VGA driver. Full screen DOS support does not work correctly with all DOS programs. Problems have been encountered with MS-Word for DOS 5.0 and DOOM where the screen was not blanked. DEVELOPING EXTERNAL BLANKER MODULES =================================== The archive BSSDEV.ZIP contains a description of how to develop external Blanker modules and the source code for BOUNCE.BSS. External Blanker modules are the 32-Bit counterpart of Deskpic modules. If you have developed an external module, please get in contact with me if you want it to be included in upcoming versions of Blanker. COPYRIGHTS ========== OS/2, Operating System/2, WIN-OS/2 and Workplace Shell are trademarks of IBM Corp. DPMS.EXE are copyright of Siegfried Hanisch and Peter Wansch. ScreenSaver is copyright of Siegfried Hanisch. Deskpic is copyright of John Ridges. DBLANKER is copyright of Larry Board and Peter Wansch. The modules AQUARIUM, EYES, FIRE, MELT, PUZZLE, SPHERES, STRING and WALL are copyright of John Ridges. The module RAIN is copyright by T. Alex Beamish. The modules SMARTIES and OS22BOUN are copyright by Delboy. The module SWARM is copyright by Patrick J. Naughton and John W. Cocula. The modules BLANK, FLAME, HOPALONG, IMAGE, LIFE, PYRO, QIX, ROTOR, SWARM and WORM are copyright of Patrick J. Naughton and Michael Lenzen. The modules EXTERNAL, STICKS, TV, RAUPE are copyright of Olaf Koch. The module HOPOK is copyright of Michael Peters and Olaf Koch. The poem 'raupe' on which the module RAUPE is based is copyright 1985, 1990 by Luchterhand Literaturverlag. All rights reserved. The module BOUNCE is copyright of John Ridges and Peter Wansch. The module TREK1 is copyright of D. Howell. All other modules are copyright of Peter Wansch. All modules except the modules (C) by Peter Wansch are distributed in this package free of charge.