whelan@donald.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Jerry Whelan) (09/30/90)
There are a number of programs for the X window system that will perform some action in the background (or root) window such as bounce a ball around or 3d wire-traced polyhedron (ico I believe does this). Anyways such programs eat cpu cycles, however a similar program for MS Windows might be interesting. A lot of simple computer animation seqences are actually color cycling (anyone remember the waterfall on the Atari ST?) with no redrawing involved. It seems to me that given a BMP file designed for a color cycling system, one could have a simulated animated root window without placing a particularly large load on the cpu. Has anyone taken a look at this possibility already? What sort of performance delays does cycling a color pallete under MS Windows invoke? Anyone with an SDK wanna try? Anyone have a nice 1024x768x256 picture that color cycling will animate? I figure one would need a 256 color system, otherwise you'd be pretty limited in what you could do. Those of you who have played with fractint have probably seen some really nice color-cycling animation, but I'd hate to have one of those in the background, too hypnotic... -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- whelan@ (uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu || uhccux.BITNET || nextsrv.wslab.hawaii.edu)
LAIH@QUCDN.QueensU.CA (Hubert Lai) (10/01/90)
Part of the commercial package FirstApps by hDC is a function to use animated wallpaper. Is this what you want?
altman@sbstaff2.cs.sunysb.edu (Jeff Altman) (10/02/90)
hDc First Apps does allow for a small desktop animator that runs in the background. However, it is so small it is really a waste. It would be nice if their screen savers could run as the desktop pattern, and then move to the foreground after a specified period of time. - Jeff (jaltman@ccmail.sunysb.edu)
cgordon@vpnet.chi.il.us (Gordon Hlavenka) (10/03/90)
> There are a number of programs for the X window system that >will perform some action in the background (or root) window such as >bounce a ball around or 3d wire-traced polyhedron (ico I believe does this). >Anyways such programs eat cpu cycles, however a similar program for MS >Windows >might be interesting. I have such a program (no, I didn't write it). It's called FUSE.EXE, and it runs a QIX-like thing around on the WIN30 wallpaper. It's interesting, and although it does eat a few cycles, it's not too terrible. I don't think this program uses color-cycling, though. The only drawback seems to be that there is no 'OFF' switch; you can't open a dialog box to it, and it doesn't leave an icon anywhere. I got it from the SLO-Bytes BBS at (805) 528-3753. ----------------------------------------------------- Gordon S. Hlavenka cgordon@vpnet.chi.il.us Disclaimer: Yeah, I said it. So what?
CHarding@massey.ac.nz (C.R. Harding) (10/05/90)
>> There are a number of programs for the X window system that >> will perform some action in the background (or root) window such as >> bounce a ball around or 3d wire-traced polyhedron (ico I believe >> does this). Anyways such programs eat cpu cycles, however a similar >> program for MS Windows might be interesting. > I have such a program (no, I didn't write it). It's called FUSE.EXE, and it > runs a QIX-like thing around on the WIN30 wallpaper. It's interesting, and > although it does eat a few cycles, it's not too terrible. I don't think > this program uses color-cycling, though. The only drawback seems to be that > there is no 'OFF' switch; you can't open a dialog box to it, and it doesn't > leave an icon anywhere. Recently posted to comp.binaries.ibm.pc was a program called STARS.EXE which provides a background of stars slowly radiating outwards from the centre of the screen (ie forward view of spacecraft in flight). If you click the mouse anywhere on the background (ie anywhere that isn't a window of some sort) it pops up a control menu that lets you set the speed of the stars' movement (Stop, Warp, or Impulse Drive) and also provides options that will run COMMAND.COM or Notepad etc. Unfortunately it appears to have been written for Windows 2.xx as it also provides a menu option that runs the MSDOS Executive (rather than file manager or prog manager). However, a groovy little program! -- Craig Harding C.R.Harding@massey.ac.nz Massey University BBS: +64 63 551342 3/12/24 New Zealand "I keep telling him there's only one g in crzjgrdwldiwdc"
jmerrill@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Jason Merrill) (10/05/90)
In article <1050@massey.ac.nz> CHarding@massey.ac.nz (C.R. Harding) writes: >Recently posted to comp.binaries.ibm.pc was a program called >STARS.EXE which provides a background of stars slowly radiating ... > >Unfortunately it appears to have been written for >Windows 2.xx as it also provides a menu option that runs the MSDOS >Executive (rather than file manager or prog manager). However, a >groovy little program! You can change the programs that STARS.EXE runs if you have an editor such as the Norton Utilities; the names in the menu and the associated commands are ASCII text in the program. However, the replacement commands must be the same length... And STARS is NOT a Wi2 program; if you try to load it in Real mode it pops up a dialog box saying "Requires Standard or Enhanced mode to run". -- Jason Merill jmerrill@jarthur.claremont.edu