screensaver question

[Garrett Hylltun]

On Jul 20, 2006, at 3:50 PM, Revinfo1155 at aol.com wrote:

> Is it possible to create a screensaver with Rev?

On Windows, you'll  be limited to how involved you can get with using  
Rev for screensavers.  First, you need to either hide the windows  
task bar, or be able to make your Rev stack sit above the task bar.   
If you hide the task bar, don't forget to set it back to show before  
you close your saver.  Nothing worse than not putting the task bar  
back.  ;-)

Now, for Windows to interact with your saver you need to setup your  
Rev made app to accept 3 possible command line parameters.

/s  <-- which is windows telling you to run your screensaver now

/c  <-- which is windows telling you to run your configuration (if  
you have one) window

/p  <-- which is windows telling you to  toss up your preview screen,  
which you can't do
     in Rev since it requires the use of Window ID's other than what  
Rev is capable of listing
     and using.  That, and you would need to be able to affix a  
preview window on another
     non-Rev window.  But it's not a major issue as you can still get  
away with the rest of this.
     So basically take in the command line parameter on this, but  
simple close your app and
     do nothing with it on this.  If I ever get around to it, I'll  
make an external for Rev that allows
     the Rev user to at least toss up an image file for the preview  
screen.  But that'll take a while
     since I have no experience with externals for Rev yet.

On the preview issue, you could however, open a preview window when  
this parameter is sent to your app, but it would be a separate window  
from the Windows Screensaver Preview window.  The draw back is that  
the user will have to close your preview window since it's not  
controlled by the Windows Screensaver Preview.

There are more parameters sent with the /p parameter, but they are  
Window ID's, and as I noted above, we can't do anything with those in  
Rev.

And be sure to monitor for any key presses and mouse movement while  
your saver is in use so you can close it down when the user presses  
any key or moves the mouse.  And of course, rename the extension  
from .exe to .scr, then drop it into either the Windows directory or  
the System directory.

Also consider whether or not you want to deal with multiple monitor  
setups.

Be mindful of CPU usage in your repeats.  What's the point of it if  
your saver is totally tasking out the CPU.  I could just picture the  
emails you'd get if your saver burns out a bunch of CPU's.  ;-)

Can't help you for Linux or OS X on this as I've never tried making  
savers for either of them.

Good luck,
-Garrett