WWPlus32 version 3.01 ©1992-1997 All rights reserved _______ By Don Bradner ____|__ | (R) Arcata Pet --| | |------------------- 600 F Street | ____|__ | Association of Arcata, CA 95521 | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| MEMBER Internet: dbirdman@arcatapet.com http://www.arcatapet.com Compuserve: 76130,1007 America OnLine: DBirdMan AOL Forum KeyWord: ArcataPet The online help file is the primary documentation for WWPlus32. This text document is meant primarily to get you started. Contents of this file: I. Program Description II. Program Requirements III. Installing WWPlus32 IV. Getting Started V. Files and Uninstalling VI. Troubleshooting VII. Obtaining images VIII. Getting future upgrades IX. Purchase and distribution X. Notes for users of WWPlus (16-bit) XI. ASP Ombudsman Statement I. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION. WWPlus32 is a program for organizing and displaying Windows 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, PNG .ICO and .JPG) that would otherwise be unusable by Windows as wallpaper. GIF, PCX and PNG provide compression of 256-color images, and .JPG provides compression for 16-million color images, thus saving disk space. 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). Non-tiled images may be resized on-the-fly to full screen or a user-set dimension. A universal gamma correction option allows for display-time lightening or darkening of images. Multiple sets of wallpapers called "queues" may be built, with easy changing of queues. A wallpaper may appear in more than one queue. Some program configuration items are maintained with the queue, others are "Global." Queues may be specified as command line options, and the .QU2 extension may be associated with WWPlus32 to allow the program to start by running the queue from Explorer icons. 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. An uninstall program and log are created when the program is installed, making removal of the program easy. WWPlus32 contains functions which can read and right the .GIF format, which contains compression technology covered by U.S. Patent No. 4,558,302, owned by the Unisys corporation. The author of WWPlus32 has obtained a license from Unisys, and pays a royalty on each registration, to use this technology. The following statement is required by that license: "Use of this software is permitted only to the extent reasonably required to determine whether to purchase the software. "After payment is made, use of this software is limited to use on only a single personal computer or workstation which is not used as a server. An additional payment is required for each use on another personal computer or workstation. "Only a single copy may be made of this software solely for backup or archival purposes. The software may also be transferred to a single hard disk. "Any use of this software in violation of the above is not licensed. "For information concerning licensing the LZW compression and/or decompression capability, please contact: Unisys Corporation Welch Licensing Department - CISW19 Township Line & Union Meeting Roads P.O. Box 500 Blue Bell, Pennsylvania 19424" II. Program requirements. WWPlus32 requires an IBM compatible 486 or better, running Windows 95, or Windows NT, with at least 12 megs of RAM and VGA or better graphics. Recommended: Pentium 90 with 16 or more megs of RAM and accelerated graphics adapter. Some operations require a mouse. Graphics files can be quite large, particularly with true-color, so a large hard disk is recommended. WWPlus32 will require 3 megs for program installation. III. Installing WWPlus32 To install WWPlus32, run the included setup program. If the program is on a floppy disk, you can use File/Run in the Program Manager and type a:\wwpsetup or b:\wwpsetup, whichever drive is involved. You can use the same technique to run setup from a directory on your hard drive by supplying the full path, such as c:\temp\wwpsetup. Alternatively you can use Explorer to find the files and double-click on WWPSETUP.EXE. Windows 95/NT-4 users can use the "Add/Remove Programs" item in the Control Panel to find and start WWPSETUP. At the end of the setup operation you will be given the option of adding WWPlus32 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. IV. Getting Started. Double-click the WWPlus32 icon to start the program. The first time that the program starts it will be a full program window. Click the "folder" icon at the left end of the icon bar, and then browse for image files to add to the wallpaper queue. There will be normally be images in your Windows directory, and you may have others which you have obtained. If the images are small ones which you would like to have "tiled," check that option in the dialog. After you have selected OK in the dialog, you will see the files listed in the queue. Double-Click one and see it become your wallpaper. In later sessions, once images have been added, the program will start as an icon. Instead of a normal icon you may choose to place any or all of 4 functions in the taskbar tray; Use the Tasbar Tray Icons item in the Preferences menu. When you move your mouse pointer across the toolbar icons and some other screen elements a small "Tool Tip" will appear to give you a better idea about what the icon does. You may turn these captions off when you no longer need them, via the Preferences menu. There are a number of options for how an image may be displayed. Look for these topics in the help file: Tiling. Resizing Wallpaper to fit Screen. Adjusting Wallapaper Placement. Gamma Adjustments. There are a number of items in the Wallpaper and Preferences menus that affect the way the program operates. V. FILES AND UNINSTALLING. When WWPlus32 is installed, a program (UNINSTAL.EXE) and a data file (INSTALL.LOG) are placed in the WWPlus32 directory. The following information is provided to aid in removing the program in case those files are lost or damaged. Files distributed with WWPlus32: WWPSETUP.EXE This file contains all of the program files. Running it will install each of the files where they belong, and will also produce a record and program that can be used to uninstall this package. README.TXT This text file, which explains the program. It is placed outside the main install program so that it is readable before the program is installed. VENDINFO.DIZ, FILEID.DIZ Information files for shareware distributors and online services. These explain distribution rights and allowable methods. Files installed by WWPlus32: Main Program directory files WWPLUS32.EXE, WWPLUS32.HLP, GAMMA.PCX, README.TXT, UNINSTAL.EXE, INSTALL.LOG, WWPLUS32.CNT Windows\System directory files COMCTL32.OCX, IK32.OCX, MFC40.DLL, MSGHOO32.OCX, MSVCRT40.DLL, OLEPRO32.DLL. VB40032.DLL Registered users will have one additional file: WWP_REG.KEY. This file must be in your WWPlus32 directory, and will keep the startup shareware screen from appearing. If you upgrade to a new version of WWPlus32, do not delete this file - it will work with all future versions. Files created by WWPlus32: WWPLUS32.BMP This is a "temporary" file that WWPlus32 uses to translate non-standard images so that they can be used by Windows. It is destroyed and recreated each time the wallpaper changes and the new image is not a .BMP file. It is located in the directory pointed to by your TEMP variable; if you do not have TEMP variable it will be in your WWPlus32 directory. *.QU2 These are queue files used to store information about images in a queue. They do not have to be in any particular directory, but the default is your WWPlus32 directory. WWPlus32 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. Uninstalling WWPlus32: If the UNINSTAL.EXE program and INSTALL.LOG file have been left intact in the WWPlus32 directory, running the program will remove all files that were installed with WWPlus32. The uninstaller does not know anything about the .QU2 files and others created by the program, so those require manual deletion. If the program is manually added to the Startup group rather than via the installer, you must remove it manually. If the UNINSTAL program has been removed, use the file list above to determine which files to remove. VI. Troubleshooting. If WWPlus32 has been working fine, but suddenly will not load, the queue file may have become corrupted. Try starting WWPlus32 from the command line with a new queue selected (one that doesn't already exist). Choose Run from the Program Manager file menu, and type C:\WWPLUS32\WWPLUS.EXE C:\WWPLUS32\TEST1.QUE (if your WWPlus32 directory has a different name, use that instead, and if the test1.que exists, use a different name). If the program starts, try changing the queue to the one you were using before. If it crashes at that point, the best solution is to delete that queue completely. This will not remove the image files, just the index. A related problem can occur if a file has become corrupted and the Change Wallpaper at Startup preference is selected. If that is the next file to be used, WWPlus32 may crash when trying to load a corrupt wallpaper. The cure would be the same as shown above. If you have an image that WWPlus32 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 WWPlus32. There are many non-standard versions of JPEG that will cause problems. If you can load them into another image editing program you may be able to save it in a usable format. WWPlus32 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. 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, America Online, or the internet, you will find a wealth of images that can be downloaded. These images are usually in the .GIF or .JPG formats to reduce download time. If you obtained this program on disk, there may be images included, usually in an \images directory. VIII. Getting future Upgrades. When you register WWPlus32 with the author, you will receive a copy of the latest version and a registration key that removes the startup screen. That key file will work with future versions of the program, so no upgrade fee will be required. Current versions of WWPlus32 can always be found on Compuserve in several forums, including WINSHARE, GRAPHSUP, PHOTOFORUM and EDRIVE. Current versions are also posted to Author's America OnLine forum, KeyWord ArcataPet. The author maintains a current copy available at http://www.arcatapet.com/wwplus32.html. Registered users who do not have online access may get a disk copy from the author for a fee of $5 ($8 non-US). Send a short note indicating your registered status and requesting the latest copy. Please use the same name under which you are registered. IX. Registration and Distribution. WWPlus32 is shareware. Free use is extended to any user for a reasonable evaluation period; this is typically 30 days. If use is continued, the program should be registered with the author. Registration fee is $29.95. California registrants please add $2.17 sales tax, and foreign registrants should include $3.00 for airmail shipping. All funds should be drawn on a US Dollar account. A convenient form for registration is included in the Help file (and may be printed from there). Until you register, there will be an occasional 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. As a registration incentive, the author will provide on request two free scanned images from your original prints or slides, when sent with the registration. Commercial use: WWPlus32 may be used commercially, as long as there is a registered copy for each computer/terminal that is using it. Bulk licensing is available. You may freely distribute WWPlus32 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). X. Notes for users of WWPlus (16-bit version) Users of WWPlus will find a number of differences in this 32-bit version. WWPlus32 contains only wallpaper functions, with no screen saver. A screen saver module is planned, but will be a separate program and is not ready at this writing. The .QUE format has been changed for WWPlus32, and the filenames are .QU2. You may use your existing .QUE files, but when you first use them they will be saved in .QU2 format. The .QUE version is not disturbed and remains usable. WWPlus and WWPlus32 can coexist on the same computer without problems. XI. ASP Ombudman Statement This program is produced by a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members' products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI 49442-9427 USA, FAX 616-788-2765 or send a CompuServe message via CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536