NOTE: THIS PROGRAM REQUIRES VBRUN300.DLL, NOT NECESSARILY INCLUDED WITH IT. SEE SECTION V. FILES BELOW FOR DETAILS. WinWall Plus 1.3 Windows Wallpaper Manager/Changer/Editor Print this file for easy program instructions. If you are upgrading from an earlier version, see HISTORY.TXT for features that have been added or changed. See the file FORMATS.TXT for information on the graphics formats recognized by WinWall Plus and the pros and cons of using them as Windows wallpaper. ©1992-1993 All rights reserved By Don Bradner Arcata Pet 600 F Street Arcata, CA 95521 Compuserve address 76130,1007 Contents of this file: I. Program Description II. Program Requirements III. Installation IV. Getting Started V. Files that make up WinWall Plus VI. Troubleshooting VII. Obtaining wallpaper images VIII. Registration and distribution I. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION. WinWall Plus is a program for organizing and displaying Windows 3.1 wallpaper files. With this program you can easily maintain a collection of wallpapers, automatically change them at an interval you select, and use image formats (GIF, PCX, TGA, TIF and .JPG) that would otherwise not be usable by Windows as wallpaper. GIF and PCX provide compression of 256-color images, and .JPG provides compression for 16-million color images, thus saving disk space. WinWall Plus has editing features and file conversion routines built in, which allow you to change images to suit your wallpaper needs. You can crop, resize, stretch, rotate, mirror, flip, and adjust brightness and contrast. Wallpapers may be tiled (small images displayed in multiples to fill the entire screen) or not, individually determined. Each non-tiled wallpaper may be precisely positioned anywhere on the screen, not just centered (the Windows default). Multiple sets of wallpapers called "queues" may be built, with easy changing of queues. A wallpaper may appear in more than one queue. Most program configuration items are maintained with the queue. All of the images installed in a wallpaper queue may be displayed simultaneously in "thumbnail form" for easy maintenance. A single image selection my be previewed on the main screen before deciding to edit it or make it the current wallpaper. Changing interval may be as short as 6 seconds (0.1 minutes) for "slideshow" effect, or as long as 999.9 minutes. If an active application is maximized (shown full screen), the program timer will be suspended so as to avoid annoying screen jumps when the wallpaper changes. This generally means that screensavers (which typically use the whole screen) will suspend the program. When adding files there is a "preview" option in the dialog box. If you do not recognize a file name, you may use this option to view a thumbnail of the image before choosing to load it. There is an additional option to have the icon "disappear" when the program is running. If you select this option and then need to access the program to make changes, open the group where you have installed WinWall and double-click the icon. Instead of starting another copy of the program, the running version will be restored. Full documentation is included in the form of a Windows Help file. When you desire help, press your F1 function key for context-sensitive help, or press the help key if you are in a file dialog box. II. Program requirements. WinWall Plus requires an IBM compatible 286 or better, running Windows 3.1, with at least 4 megs of RAM and VGA or better graphics. Manipulating large images may require 8 megs or more of memory, and more is always better. A monitor and video card capable of 256 colors is recommended for viewing of photographic images. If your monitor/card setup is capable of true color (16 million colors), WinWall Plus will handle files with that color depth. Generally, such cards will perform best at 32,000 or 65,000 colors rather than 16 million, and it is unlikely that any quality will be lost. Some operations require a mouse. Graphics files can be quite large, particularly with true-color, so a large hard disk is recommended. WinWall Plus will require about 1 meg for installation. III. Installation. If you obtained WinWall Plus by downloading it from a computer Bulletin Board (BBS) or another online source, one necessary file may not have been included. You will need a file called VBRUN300.DLL, which is almost always available from any source that would have WinWall Plus. On BBS systems the file will usually be called VBRUN300.ZIP or VBRUN3.ZIP. If you obtained the program on disk, the file should be included and may be called VBRUN300.DL_. If it is missing, contact the supplier of the program. Registered versions obtained from the author should always include VBRUN300. To install WinWall Plus, insert the disk in your computer and choose File/Run from the Program Manager. Enter A:Setup or B:Setup as appropriate and follow the prompts. At the end of the setup operation you will be given the option of adding WinWall Plus to your Startup Group. Doing so will cause the program to start whenever you start a Windows session. This is the recommended procedure; you can always delete the icon from the group at a later time if you wish. NOTE: Setup will not run if any other program is using VBRUN300.DLL or any other library file used by the program, including recent versions of WinWall or WinWall Plus. An error message will be generated, and you must end all such applications before retrying the installation. To be safe, it is best to have only Windows running before installing WinWall Plus or any other program. Keep this in mind for the future, particularly if you have WinWall Plus running as a hidden Icon - you should end the program before installing other software. IV. Getting Started. If you did not choose the option to install the program in the Startup Group, you should install the program icon in a different Program Manager group (such as Accessories) to make access easier. Open the group that you want to add the program to, and choose New from the File menu. Select Program Item, and then browse for the program. It is WWPLUS.EXE in your Windows directory (unless you selected a different directory/path during the setup process). You do not need to select the Run Minimized option, since the program automatically does that after the first time. Now you will need one or more wallpaper images to use with the program. These files may be located in any directory on any drive, but management will be simplified if you place them all in one directory. A directory named WALLPAPR is recommended, either as a root directory on your C: drive or a subdirectory under the \Windows directory. Windows comes with a few wallpapers in .BMP format. If you do not have any other images, you can make some simple drawings with Windows Paintbrush and save them as either .BMP or .PCX files. For further information on obtaining images see section VII below. Double-click the WWPlus icon to start the program. The first time that the program starts it will be a full program window. Once you have one or more wallpapers installed, the program will start as an icon, which you may double-click at any time to show the main window. If you have chosen the hidden icon option, the program will not be visible when started. Simply start it a second time; the first instance will become visible and the second will end itself. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with the program elements on screen. If you press the F1 key, a help file will be displayed, and you may graphically choose different program elements to see an explanation of their function. Now click the Add button (or choose Add from the Wallpaper menu). Use the dialog box to browse for images in any of the supported formats. If you do not know from a file name what the image looks like, click the preview button and you will see a small representation of the image. The size of and number of colors in the image will be shown below the image. When you have a desired image, click OK. The path and filename will appear in the Wallpaper Queue. Click once on the listing to "select" it. Now click the "Make Current Wallpaper" button to view the image as a wallpaper. If it displays as you would wish, go on to add additional wallpapers. If you would like to change the way the image is displayed, you have many options to choose from, a few of which are explained next. 1. Positioning. If the image is not a full screen image you may want to change the place where it appears on your screen. Select the image in the Wallpaper Queue, and then choose "Position Wallpaper" from the Wallpaper menu. You may now move the image around by dragging it with your mouse. Place the mouse cursor over the image and press the left button down. Holding the button down, move the mouse and the image will move with it. When the image is where you wish, release the button. Now you may set the position by either pressing the Enter key or double-clicking the image. If you want to abort the positioning, press the ESCape key. The coordinates of the upper left corner of the image will show in the X and Y boxes at the bottom right of the program screen (you may directly alter them if you wish). From now on whenever the image is displayed it will be in the set position. 2. Tiling. If a wallpaper image is small, you may wish to "tile" it. This will make the image appear many times to fill the screen. You may adjust the position of the first image in the same manner described above; all other images will orient to the first. To make an image tile, select it in the Wallpaper Queue and click the "Tiling" switch to the on position. Tiling may be turned off in the same way. The position of the tiled image will also be influenced by the X and Y coordinates: The first image will follow the setting, and all other copies of the image will orient to the first. 3. Altering the image. You may perform a variety of editing functions on an image by selecting it in the Wallpaper Queue and then clicking the "Edit" button. The first time you do this, press the F1 key when the editor is visible and browse through the help file for explanations of the editing functions. When you have a few images installed, set the timer to an appropriate interval and turn it on (if it is not already on). From the wallpaper menu, click on the "Queues" item, which will present two options: Change Queue and Save Queue. Select "Save Queue" and choose a file name and directory to save the queue configuration file in. A Wallpapr directory is suggested. Use an 8-or-less character descriptive name, with a .QUE extension. The .QUE extension is the only one allowed - if you use something else you will not be able to load it later. You do not have to put an extension on; the program will add it if you don't. Once you have everything the way you want it, minimize the program window (click the down arrow at the upper right of the program window) and leave it running as an icon. If you are not expecting to make changes immediately, you may wish to make the icon disappear by selecting that option before you minimize it. Remember that you can always get the program back by opening the group where it is installed and double-clicking the icon. Preferences: There are some items which you can set to affect the way the program operates. These are found as a Preferences submenu under the Wallpaper menu. The first is "Change Wallpaper at Startup." If this is not checked, the wallpaper will be whatever was displayed prior to the program startup. The second is "Special 'Change Wallpaper' Icon." If this menu item is checked the minimized program icon will be replaced with a miniature form that can be used for instant changes of wallpapers. This form will initially appear at the bottom right of the screen, but will "remember" any change in its location which you may choose to make. Click on the form to change icons, or use the spacebar if the form is active (top bar highlighted). Double-Click the form to restore the main program window. This option has no meaning if the hidden icon option described above is in use. The third preference is "Display Order," with the choices being Random or Sequential. The fourth is "Default Origin," which is where WinWall Plus will position your wallpapers unless they are individually specified. The fifth preference is "Monitor Com Ports." Because a wallpaper change would likely disrupt a data transfer by modem, you may choose to have WinWall Plus monitor a com port to which the modem is connected. When WinWall Plus detects a Data Carrier signal at the selected port the timer is disabled. Choose ports 1 through 4, or None. The default is None. If you choose a port that has a serial device other than an modem attached, such as a printer, you may get unpredictable results. Preferences are saved with a queue. If you create a new queue, all preferences will be whatever they were in the most recent queue unless you change them. V. Files that make up WinWall Plus. The files are compressed on the disk. They are listed here with their compressed and uncompressed names. If you remove WinWall Plus from your system, be careful about deleting any file with a .DLL or .VBX extension, since it might be used by another program (save a copy just in case). The setup program only copies a file to your disk if it does not find the file already or if this file is newer. Compressed File Name Type and where installed WWPLUS.EX_ WWP.EXE Program, Windows directory WWPLUS.HL_ WWPLUS.HLP Helpfile, Windows directory WWPLUS.IN_ WWPLUS.INI Data file, Window directory SETUP.EXE Setup Program, not transferred SETUP.LST Used by Setup SETUPWWP.EX_ SETUPWWP.EXE WinWall Plus Setup, Windows directory CTL3DV2.DL_ CTL3DV2.DLL Library File, Windows\System directory IMK.DL_ IMK.DLL Ditto JPEGIO.DL_ JPEGIO.DLL Ditto KNIFE.VB_ KNIFE.VBX Ditto MHCM200.VB_ MHCM200.VBX Ditto MHCOMD.VB_ MHCOMD.VBX Ditto MHRUN300.DL_ MHRUN300.DLL Ditto SETUPKIT.DL_ SETUPKIT.DLL Ditto VER.DL_ VER.DLL Ditto WWPLUS.DL_ WWPLUS.DLL Ditto WWP_REG.KEY Registration key, Windows directory ***Note: WWP_REG.KEY included only with registered versions. README.TXT This file (Not installed to hard disk) HISTORY.TXT version history ditto FORMATS.TXT explanation of graphics formats ditto VBRUN300.DL_ VBRUN300.DLL Library File, Windows\System directory ***note: VBRUN300.DLL may not be included if the program was obtained from an online source. It will have to be obtained to run the program and the setup program. From on-line sources, it is usually VBRUN300.ZIP or VBRUN3.ZIP. If the program was obtained on disk then the file should be included; if not, contact the source of the disk. If the file is obtained separately, it must be installed in your Windows\System directory BEFORE you run setup. If the program is obtained on disk there may be images included, usually in an \images directory. These are not installed by the program. There may be a Rights.TXT file with the images to establish their usage rights. Files created by WinWall Plus All of the following are in your Windows directory and should not be moved. WWPLUS.INI This data file holds a list of the images that you have selected as wallpapers, as well as all of your program settings. WWPLUS.BMP This is a "temporary" file that WinWall Plus uses to translate non-standard images so that they can be used by Windows. It is destroyed and recreated each time the wallpaper changes unless the new image is a .BMP file. WWPLUS.TIF This is a multiple image file that is used to speed the display of thumbnail images. WinWall Plus also creates some other temporary files with .TMP extensions. Under normal use, the program will clean these up when it exits. If the program crashes, it will clean them up the next time it is run and then exited normally. VI. Troubleshooting. If you receive a message which says something like "Unable to install VBRUN300.DL_" during the program install, it means that you have a version of WinWall Plus that originally included the VBRUN file but it is not present. You can solve this two ways: copy VBRUN300.DLL to the directory where the rest of the distribution files are and rename it VBRUN300.DL_, or else use a text editor (such as Windows Notepad) to edit the file SETUP.LST. Remove the listing for VBRUN300.DL_ and save the file. The VBRUN file will still have to be located in your Windows\System directory, but the setup won't try to reinstall it. If you receive a Windows error about a "SUB OR FUNCTION NOT DEFINED" which crashes the program, it usually means that you have an older version of one of the files in your path. The most likely culprit is MUSCLE.VBX, which is used by a lot of programs. WinWall Plus installs this file in your Windows\System directory. If an older version is in your Windows directory, it may not have a necessary function, and will be loaded ahead of the System version. Delete older versions of the file and try again. The most common problems with WinWall Plus occur when the WWPLUS.INI file becomes corrupted in some way. If you are having problems, try deleting this file (located in your Windows directory) or renaming it. The program should run OK, but all of your settings will be lost and have to be reentered. If you have followed the recommendation of saving the Queue file, you may rebuild the WWPLUS.INI file to the condition of the last saved queue by selecting "Queues - Change Queues" from the Wallpaper menu. ANSWER NO when prompted to save the current settings, then load the queue again (or a different one). USERS THAT ROUTINELY CHANGE DISPLAY COLOR-DEPTHS SHOULD PAY PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO THE FOLLOWING ITEM: If you are using a display of more than 256 colors, and you have a wallpaper loaded that is true color (16 million colors), if you then change display drivers to a 256-color driver, Windows will not load. If this happens, you should run setup from the DOS prompt within your Windows directory, change to a 16 color driver or a true color driver, and reload Windows. Clear the wallpaper and then proceed to change to the 256 color driver. Alternatively you may use the DOS Edit function to edit your WIN.INI file and delete the wallpaper file reference. If you are using the Thumbnail option to look at all of your installed files, and it does not appear to show them all in proper order, then the thumbnail file has become corrupted. Simply choose the "Build new display" option from the File menu on the thumbnail screen. If you have an image that WinWall Plus will not display, it may be in a format that cannot be used. There are some variations of .GIF and .PCX that are known to make problems for WinWall Plus. If you can load them into another image editing program you may be able to save it in a usable format. WinWall Plus expects image file names to match their formats. If you have a .BMP image but give it a .GIF name, the program will not be able to read it. Speed vs compression: Compressed files will take noticeably longer to load than uncompressed (.BMP). .GIF files provide the greatest amount of compression, and take the longest to change. .PCX files provide moderate compression with faster change. During the change, there will be a short few seconds when the computer will "hang" and you must wait for the completion. If you are working on something critical, you may wish to turn off the timer so that the wallpaper will not change. Alternatively, Maximize the program that you are working on, and the WinWall Plus timer will be suspended until the program is reduced to less than full screen size. Note for users of compressed disk programs (Stacker, DOS 6 DoubleSpace, etc): There is no space advantage to using compressed file formats with compressed drives (other than JPEG - see the FORMATS.TXT file). You will lose the speed without gaining space, since your compression program cannot further compress a .GIF file. Use .BMP in this case. If you have chosen a wallpaper file with more colors than your display can show there will be significant delay while the program changes the color depth. If you intend to use the image regularly you should edit the image to lower the color depth to match your display. VII. Obtaining wallpaper images. Any image that can be displayed on your computer may be used as wallpaper. If you regularly use Computer BBS systems or online sources such as Compuserve, Genie, America Online, etc. you will find a wealth of images that can be downloaded. These images are usually in the .GIF format to reduce download time. If you obtained this program on disk, there may be images included, usually in an \images directory. A RIGHTS.TXT file may be included in this directory describing the user's rights to the images included. You may use Windows Paintbrush to create images, or other similar programs. By far the greatest enjoyment of WinWall Plus will come if you can use photographs that you own or have taken. If you have a scanner, or know someone who does, you may scan the photographs and convert them into usable images. Many independent computer stores offer scanning services, as do some print/copy services. The latest method is Kodak Photo CD. Most Kodak dealers can take your slides, negatives, prints, or undeveloped film and have them returned as high-resolution images on a Photo CD. You will need two things to use these images: A CD-ROM drive that is capable of reading the Photo CD format (many will not) and software to read the .PCD format and convert it to a format usable by WinWall Plus. Future versions of WinWall Plus will probably directly support .PCD (good reason to register!). Some CD-ROM drives that cannot read Photo CDs can have simple firmware upgrades; consult your vendor. Kodak sells several software packages that will read the format; the simplest is called Photo CD Access, and lists for $39.95. Many image and paint programs are starting to have Photo CD support as well. VIII. Registration and Distribution. WinWall Plus is shareware, and may be registered for $15. A convenient form for registration is included below and in the Help file (and may be printed from there). Until you register, there will be a startup screen asking you to register which you will have to respond to. When you register, this annoyance will go away. Otherwise, this version is complete and un-crippled in any way. Commercial use: WinWall Plus may be used commercially, as long as there is a registered copy for each computer/terminal that is using it. The author is willing to discuss customization of the program for commercial/large scale application, including use as presentation software. You may freely distribute WinWall Plus as long as no fees are charged for the program, and all necessary files are included. If you are a registered user, do not distribute the file WWP_REG.KEY, which identifies you as the user (This identification shows up in the "About" box). The author is very interested in feedback from users. Please feel free to make contact at the address shown at the beginning of this file with any comments/questions/problems. WinWall Plus Registration Form Version 1.356 Send this form with $15 to: Don Bradner Arcata Pet 600 F Street Arcata, CA 95521 Name: __________________________________________ Mailing Address: __________________________________________ __________________________________________ City & State: __________________________________________ Phone number (Optional) ( )______________________ If you wish, you may pay with a credit card: Card type: _VISA _MasterCard _AMEX _Discover Card Number: ___________________________________ Expiration Date: _________________ Signature: _______________________________ Disk Size wanted: _5-1/4 _3-1/2 To help the author please answer the following (optional) Where did you get WinWall Plus: __BBS or on-line service Which one?______________________ __Software service Which one?___________________________ __Friend __Other ____________________________________ Were any image files included? __yes __no Tell me what you like about WinWall Plus: _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Tell me what you would like me to add or change in WinWall Plus: _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________