Screensaver preview access granted

This has been a long time blitz limitation and I decided to try and do something about it. 5 headaches and 10 tylenol later, here we are ;)

You can now have the preview window as your canvas:



Download from my Showcase entry

Before you do anything read the readme and source file. The example wont compile at all without following a few steps. To deploy this with your saver you'll need to place vb_pre.exe and vb_pre.bin in the system folder too.

I've included a version of my Flurry GFX demo to show you how to setup your own savers for use with the preview window. I've only been able to test this on three machines so I can't say its bug free, please report anything odd to me. I depend on the Display Properties window class not changing, its the same for 2k/XP, but it might change on 95/98. If a copy of your saver is left open even after closing the disp window then that means the class has changed. I can only find this stuff out through your testing. Hope you find it useful!

Wow, I can't believe no one has commented on this!

Thanks, for the effort you put into this Eikon. There have been many topic threads asking about how to use the preview window in screen saver apps. Just downloaded, I'll let you know if it works on Win98SE.

Cheers,

Andy

The flurry.scr works fine in Win98SE, both as a screen saver and using the preview window.

Thanks Again.

Andy

Great news! Thanks for testing it, i guess the disp class wont be a problem :)

I have a dual monitor setup running Win XP.

The screensaver and preview seem to work OK ingeneral.

The only strange behavior is:
When it goes to create the image in the preview window I can first see the image appear on my second monitor. It flashes on the second monitor and then is in the preview window where it is supposed to be (and gone from the second monitor). From that point it works fine.

I have no problems at all when I switch to single-monitor mode.

I don't have BlitzPlus (only 2D and 3D), and I only spotted this because I'm interested in being able to put an image in the preview window. I haven't looked at the code to see if I can guess at why this happens, I've only run the actual screensaver.

Thanks for the report. The Parent window "bb_pre" is initially created with a ClientWidth(Desktop()) + 1 as its X position so I guess thats how it got over there. Ive released a new version that fixes that problem and has increased performance. The lock file monitoring is much less intensive. Please try the new ver. and let me know how it goes.