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Screens (VERSION 1.0)
Copyright (c) 1998 Ziff-Davis Publishing Company
Written by Neil J. Rubenking
First Published in PC Magazine, US Edition, March 10, 1998.
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About Screens:
Screens lets you schedule screen savers by the day of the week or special dates like
holidays, birthdays or anniversaries. If you installed the marquee screen saver that
comes with Windows, you can use Screens customize the marquee text for these 
special dates. You can also use Screens to quickly enable or disable the 
screensaver, without changing any of your other settings.

Usage:
To install Screens, simply run the INSTALL program. It will install the necessary 
files to a subdirectory on your hard disk, create an icon for Screens in your shell, 
and also put a shortcut in your Startup menu so Screens can activate the 
screen-saver-of-the-day each time you start the system.

When you first launch Screens, you'll see a dialog with a list of screen savers 
down the left-hand side. These are all the screen savers found in your Windows 
and System directories (the same ones found in the Display Properties list). You can 
choose a screen saver from this list and preview it or change its configuration 
settings. The Wait box above the list shows the current screen saver delay in 
minutes. Pressing the Apply Now button will select the highlighted screen saver as 
the system screen saver, and will also apply any changes you've made to the Wait time.

Project files are stored in a subdirectory called "Projects" that is automatically 
created under the directory that holds the SiteSnagger executable. SiteSnagger 
also creates a new subdirectory under the Projects subdirectory with the same name 
as your new project. This new subdirectory will hold all of the HTML pages and 
multimedia files that you snag from a Web site.

You'll note that there is not a (None) selection in the screen saver list like there 
is in the Desktop Display Properties dialog. Instead, at the top left corner of the 
dialog are ON and OFF buttons to enable and disable the screen saver. These buttons 
provide a quick and easy way to turn the screen saver on or off before running, for 
example, a backup application. You don't have to choose (None) and then later 
relocate your favorite screen saver in the list.

The rest of the dialog is occupied by three tabbed pages that let you define screen 
savers for special events, days of the week, days for which no screen saver is 
defined (the default screen saver). To determine the screen saver for the current 
day, Screens first checks to see if it matches any of the special events dates, and 
if found uses that. If not, it checks whether a screen saver is defined for the 
current day of the week. If so, it uses that one. If there's no daily screen saver, 
it uses the default screen saver. Let's look at those three tabs in more detail.


Special Events Screen Saver:
The grid on this page is initially blank, so your first task is to define the dates 
for which you want a special screen saver. Clicking the Insert Date button brings 
up the Choose Date dialog. This dialog lets you choose a date in three different 
ways, each with its own tab: Calendar, Holidays, and Calculated Date.

First, and simplest, you can choose a date from the calendar. If the Annual box 
is checked, the event will recur every year on the specified day and month. 
If the Annual box is blank, the event will occur just once, on the exact month, 
day, and year you selected.

The second tab lets you quickly select a number of standard holidays. Some, like 
Valentine's day, always occur on a particular date--in this case February 14th. 
Others, like Thanksgiving, are defined by month and day of week. Thanksgiving 
is the fourth Thursday in November, which Screens expresses as Nov-Thu #4. 
Easter is a special case, as it can occur on a wide range of dates in March or April. 
When you choose a holiday, the appropriate date code will be inserted in the grid. 
You can also create user-defined events based on month, day of week, and day-index, 
where day-index is first, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or last.

For each special event in the grid, you must define a screen saver. Either drag the 
screen saver from the list at left, or highlight it and press the Add SS to Date 
button. Windows 95 comes with a screen saver called Scrolling Marquee that scrolls 
text horizontally across the screen. If you are using the marquee screensaver 
(identified by the word "marquee" in its name), you can also enter marquee text for 
this event. For example, you might define your anniversary as a special event, add 
the Scrolling Marquee screen saver, and define the marquee text as 
"Don't forget flowers!". 

The Remove Date button removes the currently highlighted date from your special 
events list. You can also select the date and click Delete. The Erase All Dates 
button should be used with caution, as it completely empties the list of special events.

Daily Screen Saver:
At the top of the Daily Screen Saver tab, you'll find a three-column list. The first 
column contains the days of the week, the second column holds the screen saver 
associated with each day, and the third column is labeled "Marquee Text". 
To attach a screen saver to a day of the week, simply drag it from the list at left 
to the appropriate row. If you prefer, you can highlight the desired screen saver 
and then press the Add SS to Day button.

If the selected screen saver's name contains "marquee", you can enter in the cell 
next to the screen saver the text that scrolls across the screen when the screen 
saver is active. For example, if you want to see "I hate work" on Monday, first 
place Marquee in the screen saver column next to "Mon" and then edit the text 
in the Marquee Text column to "I hate work". The Marquee Text column only 
has meaning when you select the Marquee screen saver and is grayed and 
inaccessible otherwise.

To change the screen saver for a day of the week, simply drag a new screen 
saver into place, or highlight the screen saver cell and click the Add SS to Day 
button. Other buttons clear the screen saver for the highlighted day, and clear 
all daily screen savers.

Default Screen Saver:
If Screens doesn't find a special event screen saver or daily screen saver, it uses 
the default screen saver, defined on the Default tab. To select a default screen 
saver, place its name in the one-row grid at the top of the page, then check the 
radio button titled Use the default Screen Saver shown here.

If you prefer, you can use the previously selected screen saver as the default by 
checking the radio button titled Do not change the screen saver. For example, you 
might want to define a Special Event screen saver for the first of each month, and 
use that as the default screen saver on subsequent days in the same month. In that 
case, you'd leave the screen saver unchanged.

Finally, if you like surprises, you can check the box titled Choose a screen saver at 
random. The list from which this choice is made is updated each time you configure 
Screens. If you add or remove screen savers from your system, simply run Screens, 
make any changes you wish (or none!), and click the Close button.

Command-Line Parameters:
Screens accepts three command-line arguments: /C for Choose, /D for Disable, 
and /E for Enable. So far, we've been looking at Screens' main window, which is 
what you get if you don't specify any command line arguments. Most days, you 
won't need to see this configuration dialog--you'll just want Screens to activate 
today's screen saver. The command line switch /C invokes this behavior. 
Since you'll normally want Screens to choose the day's screen saver each time 
Windows starts, the INSTALL program places a shortcut for the command 
"SCREENS /C" in the Startup menu. If you want to prevent Screens from running 
at startup, just move this shortcut to another folder.

Run Screens with the /D parameter to disable the screen saver, just as if you like 
clicked the OFF button in the main window. The /E parameter enables the screen 
saver activation, as if you clicked the ON button. You could take advantage of 
these parameters in a batch file to run a program with no screen saver interruption:

SCREENS /D
START /W PROGRAM.EXE
SCREENS /E

START /W in the second line launches the program and waits for it to terminate 
before letting the batch file continue execution.

Support for Screens:
Support for the free utilities offered by PC Magazine can be 
obtained electronically in the discussion area of PC 
Magazine's Web site. Go to the URL 
http://www.pcmag.com/discuss.htm/ and select the Utilities 
area. You can also access the Utilities discussion area from the 
utility's download page. The authors of current utilities 
generally monitor the discussion area every day. You may 
find an answer to your question simply by reading the 
messages previously posted. If the author is not available and 
you have a question that the sysops can't answer, the editor of 
the Utilities column, who also checks the area each day, will 
contact the author for you.

Neil Rubenking is a contributing editor of PC Magazine.
 Sheryl Canter is the editor of the Utilities column and a contributing editor of PC Magazine.
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