Thread: Screensaver

I have a program that I want to turn to a screensaver, where can I find some info on how to do it?

I dont want to use the scrnsave library.

My compiler is MSVC 6.0 and the program is attached.

I decided to do what your doing a while ago and try figure what's happening without using the screensaver library....as soon as I more or less figured it all out, I realised that there was no benefit to doing this without the lib.....the lib does things very effectively and does cut out a lot of the mediocrity......but hell if you want to go down this avenue read on....

There are a few things you need to take care of when not using the scrnsave.lib.....

[list=1][*]Message interaction

Add the following handlers to your win proc

Code:

case WM_SYSCOMMAND:
              if(wParam == SC_SCREENSAVE || wParam == SC_CLOSE)
                 return FALSE;
           break;

		   case WM_ACTIVATE:
			   if(wParam == TRUE)
				   break;
		   case WM_MOUSEMOVE:
		   case WM_LBUTTONDOWN:
		   case WM_MBUTTONDOWN:
		   case WM_RBUTTONDOWN:
		   case WM_KEYDOWN:
		   case WM_KEYUP:
		   
			   
				   DestroyWindow(hwnd);
			
           break;

[*] Multiple instances

Use FindWindow to find other instances of your screensaver, and if the return is not NULL then terminate the app (The system spawns screensavers whenever a certain time elapses with no activity....over time it may spawn loads of screensavers!!)[*] Dialog Interaction

The dialog on the Desktop->properties allows users to chose screensaver, configure them and preview them....

When a screensaver is activated, it has a commandline that controls whether the config dialog should be shown, whether the screensaver should preview as a child of the preview box or whether it should run normally...you need to parse the commandline and act accordingly.....

For example with MyScreensaver.scr...

Code:

MyScreensaver /c

Show the dialog box with whatever toplevel window thats there as its parent.

Code:

MyScreensaver /s

Run the screensaver as normal

Code:

MyScreensaver /p 2546

Run the screensaver in preview mode...the number at the end is the handle to the window that will preview your screensaver.....Parse this string....turn it to a DWORD (and then a HWND)...Get the size of the rect....draw a preview.....
[/list=1]

At this point you might agree with me that this is starting to get to be a pain in the butt.........personally......I will go with the scrnsave.lib from now on !

The reason I want to work it from scratch is I have a library that handles all my window creation, keyboard, mouse, etc.. And I want to add support for makeing screensavers.

You can see the lib here.

Originally posted by Eber Kain
The reason I want to work it from scratch is I have a library that handles all my window creation, keyboard, mouse, etc.. And I want to add support for makeing screensavers.

You can see the lib here.

Fair enough....if you are building a lib like that......

Its not too over the top to do this stuff I suppose....maybe I was in a moaning mood this morning

Hope the info helped anyway....good luck!

I am thinking of making a quick screen saver with OpenGL, does the "scrnsave" library work with that? Where can i access it, and does it have documentation for how to use it? Thanks.