Saviour

Instructions

Saviour provides a screen saving facility. After a period of time without any keys being pressed, or the mouse being moved, Saviour changes the screen to a graphical display to prevent the monitor getting 'screen burn'. Moving the mouse or pressing a key returns to the desktop.

Double clicking on the !Saviour icon installs the screen saver. You can quit it from the Task display window.

It may be a good idea to load Saviour in your boot sequence. The manuals supplied with your computer give details of how to do this.

To configure Saviour, double click on the !Saviour icon with Alt held down. A window opens giving the following options:

Delay: The time delay before the screen saver activates
Completely black: The time delay before the screen goes completely black. This must be longer than the 'Delay' option.
Use ScreenBlanker module outside desktop: Saviour only operates when you are working in the desktop. If this option is selected, the screen will still blank after the delay time if you are outside the desktop (but no display will be loaded).

Click on OK to save the options. These options will now be used every time Saviour is loaded. Clicking on OK also updates Saviour if it is loaded, or loads it if it is not already loaded.

To save memory, Saviour loads the displays from disc when it needs them. For this reason, Saviour is best run from hard disc. If you do not have a hard disc, you could copy Saviour into RamDisc or register it in the resource filing system.

Adding your own displays

Saviour is supplied with a few simple displays. Displays are stored in the directory !Saviour.Savers. When the computer is left alone for the time delay (set in the configure window), one of these displays is chosen at random. In effect, you can choose which displays you want by moving the others into a different directory (or even deleting them if you really don't like them!). If you create any new displays, you must put them in this directory. You can try a display simply by clicking on it.

Displays can easily be created in BASIC. Ideally they should be moving graphical displays with no part of the screen showing the same thing for too long (this is what causes screen burn). The background should be black. The following line should appear at the start of a display program:
LIBRARY "<Saviour$Dir>.Library":PROCsaviour_init

The next line should be included at the end of the main program loop:
PROCsaviour_check

The display program does not need to include error handling routines for its main loop.

For clarification, you may wish to examine some of the displays supplied, Circles for example.

Although written in BASIC, displays can contain assembler and can be stored in application directories. Using application directories is an advantage when you need to include resources such as sprites for your display, and to reserve the right amount of memory with the Wimpslot command.

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