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Tom Simpson 2000-07-26 03:14
I found a bug with the ultramon screensaver utility. If I use a screensaver that was built using a Flash projector on my Windows 2000 machine, Ultramon just blanks both monitors out. The screensaver might or might not run, and there is no way for me to get back to the desktop without hitting CTRL+ALT+DEL and then logging off and on (the task manager is hidden by the black overlay when I select it).
This happens on Flash screensavers made with at least 3 types of screensaver building tools I tried. A sample screensaver to test with is at ftp://ftp.ea.com/pub/ea/misc/alice/cheshire.exe .
Tom
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Christian Studer 2000-07-26 04:26
Hello Tom,
it's the same on my system. The good news: Cheshire works just fine with the latest pre-beta build of UltraMon Screen Saver 2.0.
You can download the pre-beta 1 build for Win2000 here:
http://www.realtimesoft.com/files/UltraMonSaverW2K.zip
Important: this file is for Win2000 only, it will NOT run on Win98. I haven't fully tested it, but it has been running without problems on my system for the last week. I don't have a Win98 version yet, but this will be included in UltraMon beta 1 (August 12).
You will need to run the Flash screen saver on the primary monitor, and not in preview mode. Let me know what you think of the new multi-screen saver feature (note that screen savers on secondary monitors need to have a live preview feature, all Microsoft screen savers included with Windows have this).
Regards,
Christian Studer
http://www.realtimesoft.com
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Tom Simpson 2000-07-31 11:49
Yep, that works fine! I'd suggest a bit of a UI tweak to the settings for Ultramon though... instead of two pulldowns I'd have one line for the primary montior and a pulldown to choose a screensaver and a line below that for the secondary monitor and a pulldown to choose the screensaver. As it stands now you get the feeling that you can only have the screensaver on one monitor at a time. This isn't the case, but that's the feeling I get from the UI. I whipped up a gif of what I think it should look like, check http://www.randar.com/ultramon.gif . It doesn't take that much more room and it seems much clearer than the original dialog.
What does the "preview mode" do? Any thoughts to adding context help to the dialog?
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Christian Studer 2000-08-01 04:37
Thanks for the suggestion. One problem is that if you have more than 2 monitors, you'll end up with one huge dialog... I have posted a redesigned UI which takes care of this, see http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/uipreview.htm. The monitor on the dialog will show a preview of the currently selected screen saver, just like the Windows screen saver dialog. One problem is that you don't see all screen savers at a glance, but let me know what you think.
Regarding the preview mode: a screen saver can run in two modes:
- in preview mode, it creates a preview in the little monitor of the Windows screen saver dialog. Not all screen savers have a full-fledged preview mode, some just show a logo or black background.
- in screen saver mode, the screen saver covers the primary monitor or all monitors if it is multimon-compatible.
To enable multiple screen savers, UltraMon runs the screen saver on the primary monitor in screen saver mode and the screen savers on secondary monitors in preview mode. This is necessary because otherwise all screen savers would run on the primary monitor. There are two reasons you can choose preview mode for the primary monitor:
1) it enables you to run multi-monitor screen savers on only the primary monitor
2) if you want to run multiple instances of one screen saver, you may have to use preview mode because some screen savers exit immediately if they detect another instance of themselves when running in screen saver mode
Christian Studer
http://www.realtimesoft.com
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Tom Simpson 2000-08-02 22:20
I like the tabbed interface... much nicer design! Good to have the explanation of the preview mode, I didn't understand the mechanics of getting the dual screensavers to work.
Tom
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Christian Studer 2000-08-03 04:20
OK, I'll go with the tabbed interface. Should be ready for beta 1.
Christian Studer
http://www.realtimesoft.com
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