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RoxBlanker III -- Copyright 1992 Sleepless Software  All Rights Reserved
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This software package and all files and data included with it
is/are copyrighted material. Nothing contained herein may be
reproduced or distributed without the express written consent of
the copyright holders except for the following special case;
Permission is hereby given by the copyright holder(s) to
distribute copies of this software package provided that the
copies distributed are in exactly the same form as originally
received and provided that no net profit or gain of any kind is
made by any party involved in the transaction.
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RoxBlanker III -- Documentation
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Author     : Joe Hitchens
Created    : December 11, 1991 (or thereabouts)
Last update: Wed,  8 Apr 92
Version    : 8.4.92

RoxBlanker III is a fancy screenblanker program. It blanks the
screen by running animation files which were created with a
program called Roxanne. It is based on the original RoxBlanker
which was launched by SleepyCron at idle time. This version is
a standalone version that does not require SleepyCron.
But get SleepyCron anyway, because it's way cool.


RoxBlanker should be run by your startup-sequence something like this:

     cd roxfiles:
     run >nil: roxblanker file1.rox file2.rox file3.rox (etc.)

When the system becomes idle (about 4 minutes of inactivity), one of the
.rox files given on the command line will be picked at random and
animated as a screenblanker.

To make RoxBlanker exit, you must ^D or ^C it.  You may have to
use the 'break' command to do this.  See your Amiga documentation
on how the use the CLI 'break' command.

To force the program to blank immediately, use 'break e'.
This is useful for testing the blanker to make sure it can
load all of the .rox files you gave it ... just do this:

    1> roxblanker file1.rox file2.rox (etc.)

Note that 'run' was not used. Type ^E to cause a blank over
and over until you are sure you have seen all the .rox files.
Then you can run it in the background from the startup-sequence
normally.  You have to type ^E and release both keys VERY QUICKLY,
because if you don't, the screen will blank and then instantly
unblank when the program detects your 'key release'.

RoxBlanker will stop blanking when the mouse is moved or a
key is pressed.

Remember, the .rox files have to be specified with an absolute
path, that's why you need to 'cd' to the directory ... so you don't
have to type dh0:dir1/stuff/roxfiles/roxfile1.rox for every argument.

There are two magic keywords which you can use.
     1. TIMEOUT
     2. VERSION

To specify the blanking interval in seconds use the TIMEOUT keyword
like this:

    1> roxblanker timeout 300 a.rox b.rox (etc.)

In this example, the screen will blank after 300 seconds (5 minutes)
of mouse and keyboard inactivity.

To get a precise version number for your copy of RoxBlanker, use
the keyword VERSION like this:

    1> roxblanker version a.rox b.rox (etc.)

RoxBlanker will then print out something like this:

   RoxBlanker III -- Copyright 1992 Sleepless Software All Rights Reserved
   Last update: Wed,  8 Apr 92 14:21:19
   Version  8.4.92
   Timeout: 240 seconds

This tells you, down to the second, when your copy of the program was
compiled.



RoxBlanker DOES use up a certain amount of chip ram when it
blanks.  It opens an intuition screen of up to 5 bitplanes (I don't
think any of the .rox files here are more than 3) and 2 more bitmaps
of equal size to the first screen (for double buffering).
So if you are tight on memory, RoxBlanker could have trouble
blanking.  If your machine always has very little free memory
available, RoxBlanker may not work out for you.

I plan to make it possible for RoxBlanker to blank the screen with
NO additional memory so that if it DOES have trouble running the
Roxanne animation it will still blank.
There is not yet any control of input handler
priority, or wild cards for specifying many .rox files.
Register your copy of RoxBlanker according to the shareware
information provided to let me know if you think these
(or other things) are important to you.

How to reach me by mail:

  Joe Hitchens
  45 North Main
  North Salt Lake, UT  84054

How to reach me by phone:

  (801) 359-5514  or
  (801) 292-2190

How to reach me by email:

  jhitchen@magna.math.utah.edu
  or
  joe@vixen.uucp
  or
  joe@olga.uucp
  or
  ...!uunet!iconsys!caeco!olga!joe




j.h.
April 8, 1992