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Making the most out of your screensaver
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Got a great idea? That's a third of the way towards a cool screensaver. The second third is good graphics/effects/whatever, and the last is making it professional. (In My Opinion, of course. I like originality.)
So what does that entail? What do you have to do? That's what I'm going to tell you here. Also, only ask one question at a time. You can't be taught how to be creative, or how to be a good artist, but polishing up your work is largely a science and is easier to teach.

Important stuff to get right:

1. Set-up Screens
2. Familiarity
3. Tips & Tricks
4. Apply Polish
5. Idiot-proof Installation
6. To Conclude...

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1. Set-up Screens
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Before you even start making the screensaver, you should try and make as many things variable as possible. Things such as the number of goldfish swimming around the screen, how fast things move, clear the screen or grab the desktop. People love customisation, and if you set things in concrete which they want to change they won't be as happy. Sometimes the reasons are for hardware limitations - your 2.7ghz Pentium 4 computer with Brandspankingnew Graphics Card may be able to display thousands of particles but someone with less raw power would be able to make cups of coffee inbetween each frame. Do it where possible.

MMF has the ability to display a frame when you click the 'Settings' button in Display Properties. You must name the frame '_ScreenSaverSetup'. You can pick any size frame regardless of the settings in the app's 'Window' properties. The window displaying it cannot be changed (at design-time).
In this frame you can do whatever you wish to customise your screensaver - I suggest you use the INI object.

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2. Familiarity
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What do I mean about this? Well, getting it to work/look like any other screensaver. Let's use an example of old DOS office suites. There was no standardisation then, so you had to learn how to use each company's app. Now we have Windows, everything is easier, but it's still a lot better to make your set-up screen and other parts of your screensaver fit in with the style. That means System Boxes for true colours and using Windows Controls. No white backgrounds! (You'd think they used a game creator to make it, wouldn't you?)

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3. Tips & Tricks
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Did you know that you could display something different in the Preview window, in Display Properties? And that you can detect when a screensaver is being tested, as opposed to appearing after X minutes? It's all through the commandline - open the examples to find out more.
Something that is quite effective is to flash user/computer-specific information in your screen, such as the user name, or do different things depending on what is loaded, etc. I was informed that DT's Interactive Screen Saver involved fish, and if multiple people were on the screensaver you could see their fish on your screen! You may not want to do this, but keep in mind that interactivity is cool.

It's probably a good idea to include an option where, if the computer is being used heavily, the screensaver either reduces the effect it makes or closes down. My point being that if someone leaves their computer alone with some processor intensive task, they won't want Super Flashy Saver stealing half the power and adding 2 more hours to the time it takes. To do this, you can use an FPS counter and reduce effect if it drops too low.
Of course, make it user-selectable if possible.

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4. Apply Polish
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This involves many things. Yes, many things, such as adding extra features to the screensaver to reward people who watch it for ages, or making sure you spelt everything right Heck, you could always make translations in different languages if you wanted to, and get extra downloads! But remember, this is polish we are talking about, so don't apply too much or you'll dazzle people - i.e. distract them from the screensaver.

A good thing to do is include an 'E-mail me!'/'Visit my website' button so people, looking at your cool work, can see more of the same and get your website extra hits.

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5. Idiot-proof Installation
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Don't zip all of your files and include a ReadMe.txt and expect people to read it. Not everyone knows what to do, unless your target audience are people who do. So use an install program which puts everything in the right place! This is especially important if your screensaver uses external files (outside of the SCR file).
I recommend you use Clickteam's Install Maker, available at the following link:
http://www.clickteam.com/English/installmaker.php

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6. To conclude...
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Give it to friends and family and see what they think of it! Few people can look at their own work objectively, so if you think it's really good... send in the critics.

When you are ready to send it out, put it on the popular screensaver sites if possible (Tucows is a good place). It would be nice to advertise 'Made in MMF', so if it's really popular then people may notice Clickteam more. Of course, if you're not selling it or have MMF Pro you don't have to do this.

Here's an important tip: if it's based on an event, make sure you release it well before that date! I.E. try not to release a Christmas screensaver on the 15th of December - it's too late! (The 9th is perfectly acceptable, however )