Make your own Screensaver

                           by Sue

                Especially for Jenny Perry!

Jenny asked me how to turn a picture of her cat Donut into a
screensaver. Hmm. Wallpaper would be easy, but I'd never made a
screensaver. Time to go onto the internet and see what programs
are available.

I went onto zdnet which is my usual source for utilities and found
a number, most of which were shareware or demos of commercial
programs. I really wanted to find a freeware one because it would
allow unrestricted use. The one which I picked was PicSaver which
sounded just what we wanted. It was a download of under 400K.

PicSaver consists of 3 files, the main ones being PicSaver itself
and an HTML file which gives minimal explanation.  Installation is
very easy, just copy all the files into a suitable folder eg
C:\ProgramFiles\myPicSaver, then right click on PicSaver.scr,
select Install and follow the prompts. It will then be one of the
screensaver options when you open the Display Properties window.

You simply copy any pictures you want to use into the same folder
- they must have JPG or BMP extension. The Settings button lets
you choose the colour of the background or apply a texture, the
colour and width of the frame and its shadow, how long the
pictures take to appear, whether they are displayed randomly,
whether they fade in and/or out and the way in which they are
displayed - like an album page or stacked one on another.
According to which mode you choose, you can also decide how many
album rows and columns you want, for instance or, if choosing
stacking, if the pictures will be scaled to the same size and if
the screen will be cleared after a certain number of pictures have
been displayed.

I really liked the fade in, fade out, stacking mode with the
default grey background. The pictures appear gradually, overlaying
each other and as a new one appears, all lower pictures lose a
certain amount of definition. For a freeware program it's most
impressive.

Well, Jenny, I hope this is what you wanted! For you and anyone
else who wants to try it, you can download PicSaver from www.
zdnet.com/downloads/stories/info/0,10615,76425,00.html or the
SynTax site - follow the prompts from www.syntax2000.co.uk or send
me 4 first class stamps if you haven't got net access for a copy
on disk.










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