README.md

Description

this shows you the correct way to make screen savers in vb.

More Info

Submitted On	2001-08-11 19:54:32
By	MudBlud
Level	Intermediate
User Rating	4.8 (19 globes from 4 users)
Compatibility	VB 5.0, VB 6.0
Category	Coding Standards
World	Visual Basic
Archive File	How to mak244678112001.zip

Source Code

How to make screen savers.

Application Title:

A Windows screen saver is nothing more that a regular Windows executable file that has been renamed with the .scr extension. In Visual Basic, when you are making the executable file, you will need to set the Application Title in the Make EXE dialog box. This Application Title MUST be set to "SCRNSAVE title", where title is the text you want displayed in the Control Panel screen saver dropdown box.

Command Line Arguments:

When Windows starts up a screen saver it calls it with the "/s" argument, and when it wants to Setup the screen saver it uses the "/c" argument.

Screen Saver Running?:

You must tell windows that the screen saver is running. if you dont windows will run your screen saver more than once if you leave your computer long enough. To do this you call:
SystemParametersInfo(SPI_SETSCREENSAVEACTIVE, 0, ByVal 0&, 0)

Hiding the cursor:

When you make a screen saver you want to hide the cursor right? after all, your suppost to be idle why would you need one, it just makes your screen saver look bad. So to hide it you use ShowCursor:
ShowCursor (True) shows it and HideCursor (False) hides it, easy huh!

When do i go back to windows?:

When you move the mouse or hit a key the screen saver should close....ok
you can detect these by _mousemove events and _keypress events.
Also you need to call:
SystemParametersInfo(SPI_SETSCREENSAVEACTIVE, 1, ByVal 0&, 0)
so windows knows that it can load a screensaver again.

Now to the source code!!!!