                           Bitmaps.SCR Version 1.0a
                        a Windows 3.1+  Screen Blanker
                   written in Visual Basic 3.0  Oct 01 1993

          Copyright 1993 by Dave Charbonnet and DCI Computers Inc

Work (504) 899-5663 Fax (504) 891-1872 & LAST Resort my Home (504) 866-2120

Quick Install Notes:
To setup this program just copy the 3 Files (Bitmaps.scr, Bitmaps.txt and
Bitmaps.exe) to your Windows Directory.  Make sure you have a copy of
VBRun300.DLL in your windows\system (or windows) directory.  Have Windows
running in 386 Enhanced Mode and SETUP Display for a Super VGA Mode of
640x480 by 256 Colors. You should have at least a 386 40 Mhz CPU and 4 Megs
of RAM (The minimum computer sold these days.)  This program requires a
computer that runs windows 3.1+ WELL.  Have some good 256 color full screen
bitmaps in your windows directory (or a directory you specified in the setup
routine). Set the Screen Saver (in Windows-ControlPanel-Desktop-Screen Saver
section) to Bitmaps by DCI.  Disable any other Screen Saver that may be
running.  Read this Help File and the Help Screen (Shift H when Blanker
/Picture Show is running to see help file)  If you need more quality bitmaps
or VBasic Runtime give me or my bbs (or Compuserve etc) a call.

              USAGE NOTES: (Installation & Setup Notes Below)

When this Screen Saver is running moving the mouse horizontally or hitting
a key other than specially assigned keys should stop the screen saver and
return you to the windows application that was running before the Screen
Saver was called.  It does not start from a DOS Program.

When the Screen Saver Starts it beeps 1 time in case your near bye and
wish to stop it.

                     Special Key Assignments and Functions
                      (Use When Screen Saver is Running)

Shift H  HELP.   Quick Help Reference to these Special Keys Not as
         informative as this documentation file.  Hit any key to hide Help
         Screen.  Hit Alt V or V to View Full Documentation (This File)

+        Next Pic and Pause.  Display the Next Bitmap without waiting for
         the Delay Time to Expire.  Also Pauses the Screen Saver/Picture
         show until you hit P or space to Un-pause it.

-        Previous Pic and Pause.  Display the Previous Bitmap without
         waiting for the Delay Time to Expire.  Also Pauses the Screen
         Saver/Picture show until you hit P or SPACE to Un-pause it.

A        About (About the Author and his business

Shift B  Batch View (Thumbnails).  Small View of 12 Pics.  Left Mouse Click
         on a picture's thumbnail to Switch to Full View of it and Pause
         (Hit P or space to Unpause). Click on a Picture to activate the
         menu in batch view you can then rename, copy, paint, show a Picture
         and more. Double click also shows the picture.  Loading the
         Thumbnails can take quite a while on a lot of computers (Take 14
         secs on my DX-50 and over 35 secs on a 486SX-33) so I guess VBasic
         is kind of slow at some+ things.

Shift C  Copies the shareware Version of this program to the specified
         floppy so you can share it with others!

Shift D  Delete current Bitmap.  Deletes Current Bitmap. For Bitmap
         Maintenance. Be Careful as this DELETES the Bitmap File! This can
         be turned off by editing Bitmaps.INI PWord=ND

Shift E  Manually Switch to Another Directory to display Bitmaps there.

G        G Pics. Switches Path Back to Default BMP directory specified in
         your setup (Shift G does the Same thing and so will space bar
         when R or X is Running)

Shift I  ScrIpt List.  List all script files (*.BMS = BitMap Script) found
         in your default bitmap directory. Pick one and it will start
         showing the BMPs Specified in that file.  Thus this provides
         another method (rather than having to organizing your BMPs into
         separate directories) of displaying just certain bitmaps. This file
         you can create with a text editor and each line must contain the
         complete File name with path to a bitmaps you want shown Example
         (C:\Windows\Earth.BMP) if you want to show just certain Bitmaps.
         If you have a file named Default.BMS then it will be used rather
         than the programs default you set in the setup box. However when
         running a script you can not Jump from Next to Prev Pics of List
         current Picture Set. When in Script Mode an Alternate Bitmaps Path
         Key like G, Shift R, Shift X) will end the Script Mode.  Esc or
         Shift I again will cancel and hide the list box.

Shift L  List.  Displays the List Box so you can jump to a particular
         picture using the keyboard Up and Down Cursor Keys, and hit Enter
         to view the one selected OR use Mouse and Click on Picture to
         display.  To get rid of the List Box and continue the show Hit
         Shift L Again.  Hitting Esc key or Right Mouse Button will hide
         the list box, but leaves the screen saver in Pause Mode. Hit Shift
         P or Space to UnPause when Paused.  You can hit Alt D to Delete a
         Selected file and Alt N or Alt R to Rename it from List View.  Alt
         C to Copy it to a Floppy.

Shift M  Message Toggle.  Toggles Message On/Off so you can leave a message
         on the screen as to where you are or whatever.

Shift N  reName Bitmap.  Rename the current bitmap to another name. For
         easier Bitmap Maintenance.  This function can be disabled by
         editing Bitmaps.ini setting PWord=ND

Shift P  Pauses Picture Show till Shift P or Space is Hit again.  Toggles
         Pause ON & OFF  NOTE: Mouse Move does not stop SCREEN Saver when
         it is in Pause Mode.

Shift R  AlteRnate Bitmaps. Switch to Showing Bitmaps in directory specified
         in Alternate Bitmap Path of Setup and PathR in bitmaps.INI

Shift S  Setup. Runs internal Setup Routine to Configure this Program to
         your specifics and stores these settings in the bitmaps.ini file.
         Also allows unregistered version to be immediately registered.

Shift T  sTretch Toggle.  Toggles Stretch mode so pictures that are not full
         screen size will be stretched to full screen.  BUT When stretched
         you will loose resolution and display speed.  It is best to use
         bitmaps that exactly match you screen size and NOT Stretch them.

Shift W  Wait Delay.  Changes delay (for this session only) the Delay
         (actually the length of time each picture slide is displayed).
         0 - 100+ Secs.

Shift X  3rd Alternate Bitmaps. Switch to Showing Bitmaps in directory
         specified in 3rd Alternate Bitmap Path of Setup and PathX in
         bitmaps.INI

Shift Z  Toggle Secure Mode. Turns On or Off Secure Mode Immediately.
         Until you hit the Shift Z key again!  Most all other special keys
         are turned off while in secure mode.  Security is not complete as
         I have not found a way in Visual Basic to turn off special Windows
         keys like Ctrl Esc and more.


Shift Space:
         Menu Toggle. Displays & Hides Menu (When not in secure mode).
         From this Menu you can perform Most but not all ie No Alternate
         Bitmaps Paths (Shift R & Shift X) can be selected from this Menu
         just from the Keyboard when saver is running.  You do not have to
         hit Alt and underlined Letter on Menus to access that menu just
         the Letter itself will do.  You can copy bitmaps to floppy. Pause
         is on while in Menu Mode. To Exit Menu Mode hit Esc, or Space or
         Shift Space again


                                 MISC TIPS
Make sure your video cards and Windows is Setup for a Super VGA 256 Color
mode.  This Program was mostly tested at the resolution 640x480.  For best
results use bitmaps that are exactly 640x486 usually having a size of
308,280 bytes.  Put all the bitmaps you want displayed in a separate
directory (IF they are mixed in with the small tile style bitmaps (ie the
ones supplied with windows) than those will also be displayed, which is not
what most user would desire as they make poor pictures.  Use this programs
Setup Routine (in Windows Control Panel Desktop Screen Saver SETUP or Hit
Shift S when it is running) to Set the Path to the directory containing the
bitmaps you wish displayed.  You can have 3 separate bitmap Paths if you
desire to show different sets/styles of bitmap/pictures at different times.
The 2 alternate set of bitmaps are displayed/toggled when you hit Shift R &
Shift X while this screen saver is running.  The location of these default
paths and other defaults are set in Setup (Shift S when Running) and stored
in the file bitmaps.ini installed in your windows directory.  If you edit
bitmaps.ini directly remember to put a \ at the end of the path like in
C:\WINDOWS\. Also in Setup you can set the Stretch to Screen option to 1 or
0.  If 1 Bitmaps will be stretched to fill the screen which will also slow
down their display and will cause loss of picture quality.

This screen saver works only while windows and windows programs are running
not when DOS applications are running not even if a DOS app icon is selected,
hopefully Microsoft will add support for Screen saver activation within DOS
apps someday.  If you need more good quality scenic bitmaps they are
available from me at above address or phone number or by calling my BBS
(504) 891-1888 2400 N81 usually busy.

Common Problems:

  1. OUT Of Memory Message Box also Error #7 generally caused by;
     Being Short on System Resources as in you have a lot of programs
     currently loaded.  An inefficient Windows Setup which is short on
     Memory caused perhaps by; installing TO MANY True Type Fonts. Running
     in an extremely high video mode, ie more than 640x480 or more than 256
     colors definitely eats up system resources.  Not Running windows in
     386+ Enhanced mode. Not having a decent size (11+Meg) PERMANENT Swap
     File (see Control Panel 386 Enhanced Virtual Memory Section).  Having
     less than 600k free RAM/Memory before starting Windows (ie not loading
     things into high memory.)  Incompatible Bitmaps.  Large bitmaps, be
     sure your bitmaps are not much larger than 308K.  If the program does
     not startup then you may have insufficient memory to start it.  If you
     still are having Out of Memory problems, well it is not my fault
     VBRun300.DLL is so big or that Visual Basic or Windows is a RAM hog,
     but it runs fine on all the 25 various (386&Up 4+Meg 256 Color SVGA
     with PLENTY of BMPs) computers we have on display at DCI.

  2. Super VGA Video Mode should be set to 640x480 x 256 Colors and you
     should have a reliable video card with 512K or more memory

  3. Bitmap Directory and Organization.  Group common bitmaps together
     Don't mix 16 color small bitmaps with 256 Color 640x480 Bitmaps.

By Default this program looks in your windows directory for the bitmaps it
shows.  If it find no initialization file bitmaps.ini there it creates one.
It sets the Bitmaps PathS to your windows directory. If it finds any BMP
files that start with a 1 (like in 1Earth.BMP; and in the BMP we supply)
then it will set the BMP Pattern to 1*.BMP (to avoid showing all the small
16 color ones that come with windows) Run this programs setup (Shift S when
Running) and set the paths and pattern to what you wish.  I usually
recommend deleting all the BMP files that came with windows and just keep
the 256 color ones that you really like; Separate them into separate
directories if you wish to control which set of your favorite BMPs are
shown when and you can easily switch between them.

There is a limited Password feature that allows you to make exiting this
screen saver more difficult.  If you want the password feature on by default
you have to manually edit the bitmaps.ini file and at the end of the last
line (PWord=) add some text that you would enter to stop this program
(No Spaces).  From then on 60 seconds AFTER this screen saver starts it will
not be as easy to stop it.  To Stop it enter your password and hit enter.
Every 20 Characters it clears the KBoard Buffer so if someone had typed 19
misc characters will it was running you would have to enter your password
twice.  To turn on Secure/PWord mode without making it the default (then do
not edit bitmaps.ini or make sure the last line in it (PWord=) has no text
after it.) just hit the key (Shift Z) when the blanker is running and it
will activate this SEMI-secure mode.  Since their is no assigned PWord in
the INI file and I do not want to have to ask you each time for a password
I set it so you just have to hit Shift Z again to turn it off,  When PWord
or Shift Z is Entered Security is turned Off but the screen saver keeps
running and a mouse move or a usual exiting (unused) key stroke will end
the program. When in secure mode most all of the other special key
functions are disabled as it would not be appropriate in a secure
environment to have access to them;  The Only Keys that still work when in
secure mode are; (A) About, (G) Return to Default Pics and Pause Off as well
as Shift Z to turn off Secure mode.

If the Options line in Bitmaps.INI contains the Text ND (Options=ND) than
the Delete & Rename Functions will be disabled so a User can not Delete or
Rename Bitmaps.

If the Options= Line in Bitmaps.INI contains the Text NA (Options=NA) than
the Alarm/Chimes will not beep several times on each Half Hour.
Which is the default as not to many computers seem to have the CORRECT time
anyway.

Most Keyboard commands are used in combo with the shift key to protect
them from the casual user walking by and accessing those feature to easily.
I did not use Alt or Ctrl as Windows uses them for switching around and it
was to easy to switch to other apps and have the screen saver continue
running.

To Exit This Program just Move the Mouse or Esc or Alt or Ctrl or Hit the
Space bar (When not in Pause) or Alt F4 EXCEPT when in Secure mode then hit
Shift Z and one of the pre mentioned keys or if you edited Bitmaps.INI to
include a PWord then Enter That PWord & hit one of the pre mentioned Keys
like Space or Move the Mouse.  If you hit Shift Enter to Exit it shows the
Date & Time and long you were gone.


FYI The Default Bitmaps.INI file  (created in your windows directory when
you 1st run this program) should look like (leave out the comments on the
right) this.
                       =======================
[Bitmaps]              COMMENTS
Path=C:\WINDOWS\       default directory to look for Bitmaps
PathR=C:\WINDOWS\      1st Alternate Dir of BMPs. (FYI2 on my computer it is
                                                   PathR=C:\WIN\BMPR\)
BPattern=*.BMP         *.BMP=ALL Bitmaps 1*.BMP means BMPs starting with a 1
Echo=None              for debuging purposes only
Delay=4                Secs to show ea picture
Size=0                 0 means not to stretch to fill screen
PathX=C:\WINDOWS\      2nd Alternate Dir of BMPs (on my computer it is
                                                  PathX=C:\WIN\BMPX\)
PWord=                 Blank you add Text if you want secure mode/Password
Options=NA             NA=No Alarm/Chimes. Add ND to disable Delete & Rename
                       =======================

                            INSTALLATION NOTES:
             Disregard this Section if it is already Installed!
UnZip It (preferable into a separate directory of its own) and Run the
Install BAT file from DOS without Windows Running! (Type Install & hit
Enter) . This Program Requires the FREE Visual Basic 3.0 Runtime DLL
(VBRun300.DLL) to be in your Windows (or Windows\System) directory. This
file may or may not have been included with the program depending upon the
source you obtained it from. VBRun300.DLL is a 398,416 byte file and if
included on BBS often is redundant and adds immensely to your download time.
Also some versions of this program includes several free quality bitmaps,
but do to download size and speed BBS versions often do not.

Other than the VBRun300.DLL file two other files are required to get this
screen saver running; Namely, Bitmaps.SCR & Bitmaps.Txt.  These files
should be copied to your windows directory.  Running the supplied INSTALL
Program (not supplied from some sources) should put these files in their
proper locations (your windows directory as this is a standard windows
screen saver) or you can do it manually (if you know DOS) i.e.

  COPY B:\bitmaps.scr c:\windows
  COPY B:\bitmaps.txt c:\windows

  COPY B:\bitmaps.exe c:\windows  <== Optional Executable on Request Version

  COPY B:\VBRun300.dll c:\windows\system  (or c:\windows)   <== Required

Then run from Windows Program Manager start Control Panel and then the
Desktop Subprogram. From within Desktop Choose Screen Saver and Scroll
to the one called Bitmaps by DCI. Next select a Delay time for windows
to wait for no activity before starting it.  Finally Run Setup to set
your particulars like location/Dir of your Bitmap Files/Pictures and
Alternate Bitmap Directory, Delay Time you want pictures displayed
before flipping to the next picture. Bitmap File Pattern usually
*.BMP for all Bitmap Files, but some people rename their bitmaps in a way
to differentiate them like 642Earth.BMP for 640x480x256 Color and thus
may prefer a File Pattern of 642*.BMP to display only those such bitmaps
in this Screen Saver.

You can also install the optional bitmaps.exe file so you can start the
Picture Show at will without waiting for Windows to Timeout.  Simple
Add the program to Program Manager by entering in Program Manager
Alt FN Enter (File New Program Item)  Desc=Picture Show
Command=C:\windows\bitmaps.exe. To install this executable version
manually give the DOS command ==>  COPY B:\bitmaps.exe C:\WINDOWS
Naturally use A: If File is on floppy in drive A:  and change C:\WINDOWS
to be the location of your windows directory.  If you ran the DOS Install
routine then forget this as it should have been done for you.


                           REGISTRATION NOTES

Shareware Software. Registration fee of $25 Required if you continue to use
this program for more than 30 Days.  Registration entitles you to the an
upgrade to the Non-Shareware version which removes the annoying copyright
and registration messages on entry and exit of this screen saver, and the
next Version/Upgrade is supplied for Free; plus 6 of my favorite high
quality 640x480x 256 color scenic bitmaps. For an Extra $90 I will supply
you with the source code and tips on how to right a Visual Basic Screen
Saver (not documented by Microsoft).  For $100 you can put as many copies of
the non shareware (GOOD) version on as many computers as you use.  For $200
you can distribute the non shareware/unannoying version with any (AS MANY)
computers as you desire, and you can sell as many as you want for as much
as you want and keep all the money.  Anyone is welcome to GIVE AWAY FREE
as many copies of the SHAREWARE VERSION (the one which says Unregistered
Version in the Setup Window and must include THIS UNALTERED Documentation
file Bitmaps.TXT

* To Register Mail Check to;
                              Dave Charbonnet
                              6042 Magazine Street
                              New Orleans, LA 70118

* For Fastest Service call (504) 899-5663 M-F 11-6 with your Visa or MCard#

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