Digital Photo Fantasy contains a set of Windows screen savers, wallpaper files and personal calendar management tools. The original objective for Digital Photo Fantasy was to create screen savers using photos from national parks in the United States and this resulted in the Nature’s Desktop - The Grand Canyon. Since I am also a Moody Blues and John Denver fan I felt the need to create screen savers to fill these niches as well.

Each Digital Photo Fantasy setup contains the following components:

• a set of from 12 to over 100 full-color, high-resolution images of the selected topic;

• a random wallpaper selection function that will automatically select a random wallpaper file from the list of installed wallpaper files whenever you start Windows;

• a screen saver function;

• a desktop utility for customizing your personal setup which includes the following:

• a wallpaper selection function;
• a location setup function;
• a personal calendar management function;
• an image database maintenance function;
• a screen puzzle to drive you nuts.

Digital Photo Fantasy titles are provided free of charge but the author encourages a donation to the wilderness preservation society of your choice. Some good candidates for these donations are:

• The Grand Canyon Trust
• The Nature Conservancy
• The Wilderness Society
• The National Parks and Conservation Association (NPCA)
• The Windstar Foundation
• PLANT-IT 2000

The CPU chip contained in the PC on which Digital Photo Fantasy is to be installed should be at least equivalent to an Intel 486 processor and should have an operating speed of at least 33 MHz. A Pentium processor with a speed of at least 90 MHz is preferred. Digital Photo Fantasy has not been tested on 386, 286 or lesser processors.

The video monitor connected to the PC on which Digital Photo Fantasy is to be installed should be of the Super VGA variety (256 colors) and should not be run in a mode which yields less than 600 horizontal by 480 vertical pixels. Running the monitor in the highest resolution mode possible is preferred.

The PC on which Digital Photo Fantasy is to be installed must be running Windows 95 or Windows NT. It is possible that it may work under Windows 3.1 or Windows 3.11 (Windows for Workgroups) if you have the necessary components for running 32-bit applications but I have no way of testing this.

The complete installation of Digital Photo Fantasy will require approximately 50 megabytes of disk storage on your hard disk. This is only if the entire complement of bitmap images is installed. The minimum installation requirements are about 3 MB for the Digital Photo Fantasy executables and databases and another 3 MB for the Windows and Visual Basic support libraries (DLL, OCX, … files). Some of these support libraries may already exist on your system depending on what other applications you have installed. Each bitmap image that you install will require approximately 100 K bytes.

To install Digital Photo Fantasy you must first obtain a copy of one of the self-extracting Zip (GCSCRSAV.EXE, MBSCRSAV.EXE or JDSCRSAV.EXE) that contains all of the installation and setup components. You should place this file in a temporary directory and then execute it to have it explode out the files necessary to complete the installation. After the installation setup components have been extracted from self-extracting zip file you should execute SETUP.EXE to complete the installation.

Note: Each of the self-extracting zip files for the various versions of the package are virtually the same, with only a couple of files, the DIGITFAN.INI file and the initial start-up image, being different. You do not need to download all three zip files if you want all three versions.

When you start SETUP.EXE to begin the installation process you will first receive the following warning screen:

If you have any other applications open you should close them before proceeding with the installation.

The installation procedure will then ask you to verify the drive and path in which Digital Photo Fantasy should be installed. The default drive and path is C:\Program Files\Digital Photo Fantasy and it is recommended that this not be changed. Once the installation drive and path have been specified the installation process will continue. After you have done this you should press enter or click on the "OK" button. To abort the installation process at any time click on the "Cancel" button.

When the installation is complete you will see the following alert box:

The installation process described above will install only the basic Digital Photo Fantasy application. The images themselves are not installed by this procedure and can only be installed once the application itself has been installed. To install the bitmap images please refer to the section that describes Digital Photo Fantasy Location Setup function.

To start Digital Photo Fantasy simply double-click on " Digital Photo Fantasy" icon in the " Digital Photo Fantasy" program group. Once started you will see a window similar to the following:

The image displayed will be that of the wallpaper file that is currently selected for the Windows desktop.

If this is the first time you are running Digital Photo Fantasy you will want to specify the setup for your location. To do this you should select Window and Setup from the menu. After you have done this you will see a window that looks like this:

You should specify the name of your location in the Location box. The pull-down list associated with this box contains the names of all state capitols along with most other major cities in the United States and Canada. Selecting a city from this list will automatically set the latitude, Longitude, Offset from GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) and Time Zone for that location. If you do not select a city from the list you will need to supply this information manually. The N/S Latitude field should be "N" for locations north of the equator and "S" for locations down-under. The E/W Longitude field should be "E" if you are specifying longitude east of the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, England or "W" for west. The Offset from GMT is the number of hours your location is ahead of GMT. Time Zone is a non-validated text field used to represent the time zone of the location. Clicking the "Daylight Savings" check-box automatically toggles the location between standard and daylight savings time and adjusts the Offset from GMT and Time Zone accordingly. The information from these fields is used for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset and moon phase calculations on the calendar.

The "Bitmap du Jour" check-box should be used be prevent the random wallpaper selection function from selecting a new wallpaper file every time Windows is started. If this box is checked then the random wallpaper function will only select a new wallpaper file if the date has changed since the last time it was run. More information on how to create a random wallpaper file each day or each time Windows is started is discussed further on in this document.

The "Install screen saver" button will only be enabled if you have not yet installed the screen saver process. If you have already installed the screen saver process the button will be disabled (grayed-out or dimmed) and you will not be able to select it. Once the main Digital Photo Fantasy application is installed you should click on this button to install the screen saver process. When you do this a file called SSDIGFAN.SCR is copied from the directory in which Digital Photo Fantasy was installed to the main Windows directory (usually C:\WINDOWS).

To manually select a new Windows wallpaper file you should select Window and Wallpaper from the menu bar. When you do this you will be presented with a window that looks like the following:

The list will contain the names of all of the bitmaps that are currently installed for your setup of Digital Photo Fantasy. You disk drive and path defaults to the location that was used to install the Digital Photo Fantasy bitmap images. To view bitmap images in the screen window simply click on the file names displayed. To keep the selected bitmap image and return to the main window press the "OK" button. To abort wallpaper file selection and restore the previously selected bitmap image, press the "Cancel" button.

To view the calendar for the current month, select Window and Calendar from the menu bar. The calendar for the current month will be displayed below the bitmap image window.

To view the memos or almanac data for a given date simply click on the date to view. Use the +Year and +Month buttons to move the calendar forward a year or a month at a time. Use the -Year and -Month buttons to move the calendar backwards.

Once a date has been selected a window similar to the following will be displayed:

The date that you have selected is displayed in the title bar for the window. The name of your location as defined in the Location Setup screen is displayed below this and the times of local Sunrise, Sunset, Moonrise and Moonset for this location are also displayed. Below the Moonset time the percentage of full moon is displayed and to the right of this the actual moon phase is displayed.

The text box contains any memos that you have already entered for the given date. The color in which the text is displayed is determined by the color, pull-down list box below the Moon Phase. The color that is selected for the text is also the color that is used for the date on the calendar itself.

When you have finished making changes to the text or color press the "OK" button to write the changes back to the calendar database. Press the "Cancel" button to abort without saving the changes.

To preview installed bitmap select Wallpaper and Preview from the menu bar. When in preview mode Digital Photo Fantasy will cycle through all of the installed bitmap images and display them one by one in the image window, along with the image description and filename.

To terminate preview mode and select the current image you should click the mouse on bitmap image. When you do this the image that you stopped preview mode remains in the image window.

To select the image currently displayed in the image window as the Windows wallpaper file you should select Wallpaper and Select from the menu bar. When you do this a message is sent to Windows to reflect the change and you remain in the Digital Photo Fantasy application.

To view and/or edit the Digital Photo Fantasy image database you should select Database and Images from the menu bar. When you do so a small window similar to the one below will be displayed below the image window.

When the window is first displayed the information for the currently selected image will be displayed. To cycle through the database use the arrow buttons:

To view the images as you cycle through the database, click the View On button. If images are being viewed the name of the button will change to View Off. To disable automatic image viewing, click the button again.

To delete an image from the database, click the Delete button. Note that this does not actually delete the image file from your hard disk, it simply removes the entry from the programs internal image table.

The Add and Update buttons are dimmed out until the program determines that they can be used. If you change the contents of either the filename or the description text boxes or the application drop down list, the Update button will be made available. If you change the contents of the filename text box the Add button will be made available.

To close this window, click the OK button.

To add your own images to the image database, select Database and Add from the menu bar. After doing this the following pop-up window will appear over the main window:

If the new image files are to be added to an existing "application" then select that application from the drop down box. To add a new application, type a two letter code for the new application and then supply some appropriate text for the application group and title. When you press Enter or click the OK button you will be prompted with a file open dialog window, which will allow you to select the images to be added to the image database.

Select the files that you wish to add and click the OK button to complete the operation.

When completed the new application will become the current application and the first image in the image set will become the default start-up image.

To select the currently displayed image as the Windows wallpaper file and exit from Digital Photo Fantasy you select File and Exit from the menu bar.

To exit from Digital Photo Fantasy without changing the currently Windows wallpaper file you select File and Quit from the menu bar.

The following procedure will allow you to setup a Windows Startup procedure that will cause Digital Photo Fantasy to select a random bitmap image, from the list of installed images to be used as the Windows wallpaper, each time Windows is started.

1. Open the Startup folder. To do this select Start, Settings, Taskbar, Start Menu Programs and finally Advanced. Expand the Programs entry by double clicking on it. Look for and select the Startup folder. If you do not have a Startup folder you must create one. To do this, select the Programs entry and then select File, New, Folder from the menu bar and enter "Startup" for the folder name.

 

1. To create an entry for Digital Photo Fantasy in the Startup folder, select File, New & Shortcut from the menu bar. When prompted for command line you must supply the directory name and the name of the Digital Photo Fantasy executable image. Assuming you took the defaults at installation time this will be "C:\Program Files\Digital Photo Fantasy\Digitfan.Exe". If you installed Digital Photo Fantasy someplace else then alter this specification accordingly. When prompted for a name for the shortcut, enter "Digital Photo Fantasy".

 

1. Modify the "Digital Photo Fantasy" icon in the "Startup" group to select random bitmaps. To do this, first click on the icon once to select it (don't double-click or Windows 95 will start Digital Photo Fantasy). Next select File and Properties from the menu bar. A "Digital Photo Fantasy Properties" window will be displayed. Select the Shortcut tab, move to the end of the file specification displayed in the "Target" field and type a space followed by the word "RANDOM".

That's all there is to it. The next time you start Windows, Digital Photo Fantasy will run briefly to select a random bitmap image for the Windows wallpaper file and then exit. Please note that the "Bitmap du Jour" setting on the "Location Specific Setup" window controls how frequently a random bitmap will be selected by this procedure. If the "Bitmap du Jour" box is checked, then a random bitmap is only selected the first time you start Windows each day, hence the name. If the box is not checked, then a new random bitmap is selected each time you start Windows.

Before you can use the screen saver functions you must copy the screen saver executable to the master Windows directory. To do this use the "Install Screen Saver" button on the "Location Specific Setup" window (select Window and Setup from the menu bar).

U the alternate mouse button to bring up the Windows 95 popup menu and select Properties and then the Screen Saver tab.

Once "Digital Photo Fantasy" has been selected you can click the "Setup" button to enter setup mode. A window similar to the following will be displayed:

Check the boxes for the screen savers that you would like to have active in the "Active Screen Savers" section. If more than one is active, one from the list will be selected at random each time Windows requests the screen saver to start.

• The "Screen Shuffle" screen saver breaks the desktop down into a grid and continuously shifts the pieces around. The shuffle speed (in seconds) controls how frequently a square is moved.

• The "Bitmaps" screen saver will continuously cycle through the bitmap images that you have installed for the screen saver.

• The Image Descriptions checkbox is used to control whether the descriptions for the images are displayed or not.
• The Date and Time checkboxes are used to cause the current date and/or time to be displayed.
• The Full Size checkbox is used to control whether the images are displayed full size or variable (random) size.
• The Random Selection checkbox is used to control how the images are selected for display. If this box is checked, then the images are selected randomly, otherwise they are cycled through from start to finish in order by image (file) name.
• The Random Placement checkbox controls how the images are displayed. If this box is checked, the images are displayed at random locations on the screen, otherwise the images are centered on the screen.
• The Set as Wallpaper checkbox is used to cause the last image displayed by the screen saver function to be set as the Windows wallpaper when the screen saver terminates.
• The Matte Border checkbox allows you to display a matte around the images.

• The Size (% of image size) field allows you to specify the size (width) of the matte, based on the size of the image.
• The RGB button allows you to select a color to be used for the matte using the standard Windows Color Selection dialog box. You may also specify the RGB components of the matte color directly using the three text boxes to the right of the RGB button. The bar below these text boxes displays the color that is currently selected.
• The Random Color checkbox will cause a random color to be selected for the matte each time a new image is displayed.

• The Time Interval (seconds) field allows you to specify how long each image is displayed before a new image is selected.

• The "Road Runner" screen saver causes an image of the Road Runner (copyright by Warner Brothers Cartoons) to race back and forth across the screen. Occasionally he will stop and blurt out that "Beep Beep" (no sound) that has made him so famous. The speed (in frames per pass) controls how quickly he will move across the screen and the percent stop chance controls how often he stops to beep.

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