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Thank you for Checking out SRO's BPLAY SCREENSAVER

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B-PLAY is SHAREWARE.  If you use it for an extended period (like 30 days) 
you are expected to register.  The $10 (+$2 sh/h, +$4 outside continental 
US) registration fee can be sent to:                       
		     
			SRO SYSTEMS 
			P.O. Box 5028
			Blue Jay, CA 92317 

Or you can register on Compuserve's shareware registration forum.  Just
"GO SWREG".  B-PLAY is ID# 5293.
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REQUIREMENTS
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The file SSBPLAY.SCR is a Windows 3.1 screensaver written in Visual Basic.  
It is designed to run on any 100% IBM compatible PC with a 486 or better 
processor, at least 4 meg of ram and a 256 color VGA or SVGA video card. 

For best results (with the transition effects), you need a VERY FAST, 
(32bit, 2meg VRAM) true color video card!
 
THIS PROGRAM REQUIRES VBRUN300.DLL TO BE IN YOUR WINDOWS\SYSTEM DIRECTORY, 
THIS FILE IS TOO LARGE (398K) TO FIT ON THIS DISK.  IF YOU HAVE ANY RECENT 
VISUAL BASIC PROGRAMS, YOU PROBABLY HAVE IT ALREADY.  OR YOU CAN UPLOAD IT 
FROM MOST BBS's.  

DISCLAIMER
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Due to the variety of software and harware that may be present on a user's 
PC, SRO SYSTEMS makes NO WARRANTEE NOR GUARANTEE OF ANY KIND.  SRO SYSTEMS 
will not be held responsible for anything that might happen due to the use, 
or misuse of this software.  
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DESCRIPTION
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The B-PLAY Screensaver is a convienient way to play a slideshow from windows 
screensaver control using a selected sequence of bitmaps.  

Features in this version of B-PLAY are : 

* WAV audio playback.     
* MIDI file playback.
* Multiple text overlays.
* Improved password protection.
* Playback list with no size limit.
* 30 GREAT transition effects!

Bitmap Slide Show (.BMP & .WMF files)
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BPLAY's purpose is to create a slideshow using your own bitmap or metafile 
graphics.  You can set BPLAY to: "SHOW ONE IMAGE", which will display just
the file you select in the file list box.  "SHOW ALL", which will display 
all the files in the selected directory in sequence.  Or "PLAY FROM LIST", 
which lets you create a list using any bitmap image on your system.  BPLAY 
can display ANY BITMAPS of any size and color up to 1024 x 768 true color 
in the Windows RGB format (If your display can't show that many colors, 
Windows dithers them).  Older PC's will be slow in switching between very 
large images, so I recommend using fairly small 16 color images to start.  
You can create the images in most paint programs (such as PC PAINTBRUSH).  
B-Play also allows OVERLAY (see below), where your message is superimposed 
on the image.  You can individually set the message, font, size and color 
of the text for every slide you want to overlay.

Bitmap files can be found on any online service.  Good sources are in the 
COMPUSERVE and AMERICA ONLINE graphics/images forums.


WAVE AUDIO SUPPORT
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B-PLAY features WAVE audio playback.  To play audio files, an audio device 
driver must be enabled in Window's "control panel \ drivers" setup screen.  
Any soundcard will work, as will Microsoft's PC Speaker driver (PC Speaker 
driver WILL hog the system and slow video playback).  Options allow .WAV 
files to playback at the beginning of a slideshow, or repeat once for each 
slide.  BPLAY can also cycle through all .Wav files in a given directory.  

MIDI FILE SUPPORT
---- ---- --------
B-PLAY also features MIDI file playback.  You can select whether the midi 
file loops at the end, or (for small midi files) repeats with each slide.  
	
This feature supports only GENERAL MIDI (.MID) format MIDI files.  To play 
MIDI files, an MCI MIDI device driver must be enabled in Windows "control 
panel\drivers" setup screen, AND a MIDI compatible sound card must be setup 
to receive the MIDI information.  

TEXT OVERLAY
---- -------
BPLAY allows you to overlay text onto graphics while running a slideshow.  
BPLAY will overlay one message onto the image (if "SHOW ONE" is selected, 
or a different message/font/color for each image (if "SHOW ALL", or "PLAY
FROM LIST" are selected).  Text overlay will allow any number of messages 
to be displayed up to the number of pictures selected for viewing. There 
is no practical limit to the amount of text in each message (32K max). . . 
however if you had two hundred messages with two hundred charachters each, 
the overhead to store just the text is 40K bytes - not including the space 
needed to store the font/size/color settings for each message.   So if you 
don't want to suck memory out of your system, and like the screensaver to 
load fast, it might help to keep the overlays to fairly short captions if 
you're going to display a lot of images.  NOTE : The overlay messages are 
stored in a separate file from the playback list.  They are NOT attached 
in any way to the images chosen.  That means if you delete or move pictures 
after you set your messages, the messages will be out of sequence. 

TRANSITION EFFECTS
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BPLAY now has over 30 great effects to create transitions between images in 
your slideshow including : SLIDE, ROLL, PUSH, REVEAL, STRETCH, BLINDS . . .
You can select effect, speed, and quality individually for each image, and 
have the option to view, or blank the OLD image while the effect occurs.  

Transition effects are extremely processor intensive, and take over all
your PC's functions while running.  Thus, a mousemove or keypress will 
not kill the screensaver until the transition is finished.

NOTE :  For best results, transition effects should be used only with images 
	of the same size and color depth, with very similar color PALETTES. 

PALETTES
Effects are optimized for true color mode, but will usually work (depending
on your video driver) in other modes.  In 256 color mode, when two images 
are on screen at the same time (whether you can see both or not), Windows 
may run out of colors to assign to the (visible) image.  While the visible 
image will have "color priority" and usually display correctly, transition 
effects can cause images with over 236 colors to be displayed incorrectly.  
The best way to keep the "palette bleeding" to a minimum is to use bitmaps 
that use common or similar color palettes.  While we can't really get into 
the details here, most good image editing programs have the ability to load, 
edit, and remap palettes and will explain the process in their manual.

* * An EXCELLENT shareware image editor is "Paintshop Pro" (current vs 3.0) 
by JASC, Inc.  You can find it on almost any online service.


PASSWORD PROTECTION
-------------------
The password protection feature on BPLAY has been re-written to improve
security (now it actually works), and add encryption.  Do NOT forget your 
password, you WILL have to re-boot!


KNOWN BUGS
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You might run into a know (and unsolved) bug which exists in this
version of B-Play.  With many video cards, transition effects do
NOT function in HI-Color (64K) mode.  The rest of the program
will work fine, as it does in all other video modes tested which
include 16 color, 256 color and True(16M) color modes.

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Please contact us if you are interested in:        

A) Registering B-Play           B) ZPLAY Animation Screensaver      
C) Feedback, comments           D) Custom Raytraced Images/Animations

You can reach us at:    
			SRO SYSTEMS 
			P.O. Box 5028
			Blue Jay, CA 92317

			Fax (909) 337-0575

Email:                  CIS : 75604,3535
			AOL : SROSYSTEMS

We answer ALL mail/faxes/email within one day!


	      ENJOY . . . .
					       SEAN
