PAPERS! v1.00
                     The Random Wallpaper selection program
                                     
                  Copyright (c) 1992, Paragon Consulting Group




   DISCLAIMER:

      Every  possible  precaution has been taken to insure that  PAPERS!  will
   operate  without causing harm to your computer, however, Paragon Consulting
   Group  and  its  employees are not responsible for any damage  directly  or
   indirectly  caused by this program, to the hardware, software or  emotional
   condition of the user.


   FREEWARE:

      With  that  out  of  the  way, on with the program  itself.  PAPERS!  is
   FREEWARE!  This means that you may keep and distribute it with no  cost  to
   you  or  the people/places you distribute it to. However, I would ask  that
   when distributing the PAPERS! archive you include this document with it.


   ABOUT:

      PAPERS!  is  a  DOS based program meant to be run just  before  invoking
   Windows  3.x. When invoked, it will read its configuration file  (discussed
   later), modify the WIN.INI file setting the Wallpaper to a randomly  chosen
   Wallpaper file (from a list of your choice), and exit.

      I wrote PAPERS! because I have a small set of Wallpapers which I like to
   use, but get tired of manually changing them every time I would like to see
   something  different.  I  wanted something  that  would  cause  windows  to
   randomly  select  a  Wallpaper from a list of my  choice.  I  decided  that
   modifying the WIN.INI file just before starting Windows was the best way of
   achieving this goal.


   SETUP:

   Setup is relatively simple. You need three things:

      1) A DOS environment variable pointing to the path where you have
         WIN.INI and PAPERS!.CFG.
     
      2) The PAPERS!.CFG file.
     
      3) PAPERS!.EXE
     


PAPERS v1.00 - Copyright (c) 1992, Paragon Consulting Group             Page: 2



   I will now discuss each of these requirements in turn:


   ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE:

      In  order for PAPERS! to find the various resources it needs,  you  must
   have  a  DOS  environment  variable called PAPERS! defined  before  running
   PAPERS!. The easiest way to make this happen is to place the following line
   in your AUTOEXEC.BAT:

   set PAPERS!=c:\windows

   Note  that  you  would set it to the path where you have your  WIN.INI  and
   PAPERS!.CFG   file.  These  two  files  must  be  in  the  same   directory.  
   Since the WIN.INI  file is  normally  kept  in the \WINDOWS directory, it's
   easiest  to  copy the  PAPERS!.CFG  file  to  that  directory, setting  the
   environment   variable  appropriately.  For  instance, if you  have Windows
   installed in D:\WIN31 then you would place this line in  your AUTOEXEC.BAT:

   set PAPERS!=d:\win31

   and  copy PAPERS!.CFG there. Note that PAPERS!.EXE can reside anywhere, but
   should be somewhere in your PATH for ease of use.


   PAPERS!.CFG FILE:

      The PAPERS!.CFG file is a simple text file containing the full paths  to
   (up  to  100) Wallpaper files. An example PAPERS!.CFG file might look  like
   this:

   d:\win31\cars.bmp
   d:\win31\chitz.bmp
   d:\win31\egypt.bmp
   d:\win31\party.bmp

      You may use any editor which creates straight ASCII files to create your
   PAPERS!.CFG file. Blank lines are ignored, but other than that  the  format
   is  rigid.  Each line MUST be the full path to a Wallpaper file. Note  that
   PAPERS!  will  not complain if the line is bad, but Windows  will  when  it
   tries to use it to find the Wallpaper file.

      Again,  make  sure  you place this file in the path  specified  by  your
   PAPERS! environment variable.


   PAPERS!.EXE FILE:

      This is the program which does the work. How does it work? Pretty simple
   actually.  Upon  starting PAPERS!, the program looks for its  configuration
   file, and if it finds it reads in up to 100 lines from it. Keeping track of
   how many paths it read, PAPERS! then creates a random number in the range 0
   to  PATHS_READ. It then uses this random number to grab the  nth  Wallpaper
   path.  Next,  it  parses  the  WIN.INI file looking  for  the  'Wallpaper='
   variable. If PAPERS! finds it, it will substitute the random Wallpaper path
   for the current setting. It's that simple.


PAPERS v1.00 - Copyright (c) 1992, Paragon Consulting Group             Page: 3


      Since it would be irritating to start PAPERS! manually each time you ran
   Windows,  I  created a batch file that looks like this (call  it  what  you
   like):

   papers!
   win %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6

      Now,  if  you  decide to call the batch file 'WIND.BAT',  when  you  ran
   WIND.BAT,  papers  would  run first, changing the  Wallpaper  to  a  random
   selection, then Windows would run and read the new Wallpaper path  from  the
   WIN.INI file which PAPERS! just modified.


   THERE'S ONE CATCH:

      PAPERS!  does  not  change  the TileWallPaper  setting,  so  it  remains
   whatever  you have it set to. All the Wallpapers I use are GIF's which  are
   the  same size as the desktop, so I always have TileWallPaper off. If there
   is  interest  in  being able to change the TileWallPaper setting  based  on
   which Wallpaper is selected, I will add it.

   THAT'S IT!:

      That's  all  there  to  it. I hope you get some enjoyment  out  of  this
   program.  Please  report any bugs/additions to me at one of  the  following
   places:

   Snail-Mail:
      Ron Cox
      C/O Paragon Consulting Group
      4212 West Cactus Road STE 1110-229
      Phoenix, AZ  85029
      (602) 437-9566

   Electronic Mail:

      Ron Cox
      Paragon BBS
      (602) 938-8288

      Ron Cox
      Chandler C Connection
      (602) 759-7789