Screen Saver Control 1.61

Help contents

Description
License agreement
Description of the available commands & options
Command line options
Credits

1. Description ^

This is a small utility that allows deactivate or activate both screen saver and monitor power off with a simple click. It can launch the screen saver or power off the monitor immediately (with option of assigning global hot keys for it), and have the option of preserving screen saver and power off configuration even if it's changed by other programs. All the program commands are accessible from the taskbar icon menu.

See Changes.txt for the changes history.

2. License agreement ^

This software is freeware either for personal or comercial use, so you can use it for free without any type of additional licenses. For inclusion in any distribution made for profit (software compilations, CD's...) you must contact the author for authorization.

This software is provided "as is", WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. The author declines responsibility for any damages arising out of the use of this program.

You can redistribute this software for free, as long as you don't charge any money for the software itself, and only if you use the original package (you can download it from the AMPsoft web site at http://www.ampsoft.net/).

3. Description of the available commands & options ^

Menu & Toolbar commands

In the toolbar there are available the following items, corresponding to the File and Tools menus:

Activate managed items: Activates the items selected (screen saver and/or monitor power off).
Deactivate managed items: Deactivates the items selected (screen saver and/or monitor power off).
Deactivate managed items for: Deactivates the items selected (screen saver and/or monitor power off) for the selected amount of time. After that time the managed items will be activated again. Useful if you want to have the monitor always active only for a while, e.g. during a presentation.
Restore initial values: Restores the values of the screen saver and monitor power off configuration present at program start. This restore changes made either by Screen Saver Control or other programs that have changed the configuration after it was started. This also stops the automatic preservation of the activate/deactivate state (see Preserve selected values in the General Options).
Launch the screen saver: Launches the screen saver immediately, or activates the Continuous screen saver mode. See Use continuous mode in the General options for more details.
Power off the monitor: Powers off the monitor immediately, or activates the Continuous monitor power off mode. See Use continuous mode in the General options for more details.
Show Display Properties: Show the screen saver configuration tab of the Windows Display Properties.
Exit: Exits the program completely (closing the window will left the program active but with only the taskbar icon visible).

Screen saver & Monitor power off options

Manage screen saver: If not checked, the screen saver configuration is not changed by the program. This affects the Activate, Deactivate and Restore buttons, and the Restore initial configuration on exit and Preserve current configuration options.
Hot key for launching the screen saver: Assings a global hot key for the Launch screen saver command. This hot key works even when the program window is not active.
Manage monitor power off: If not checked, the monitor power off configuration is not changed by the program. This affects the Activate, Deactivate and Restore buttons, and the Restore initial configuration on exit and Preserve current configuration options.
Hot key for powering off the monitor: Assings a global hot key for the Power off the monitor command. This hot key works even when the program window is not active.

General options

Restore initial configuration on exit: Restores at program exit the values of the screen saver and monitor power off configuration present when the program was started. This restore changes made either by Screen Saver Control or other programs that have changed the configuration after it was started.
Preserve selected configuration: Maintains the values set by the Activate and Deactivate commands while Screen Saver Control is active, even if other programs make changes to it. You can stop the preservation of the values using Restore initial values.
Update Windows configuration: Save the changes made to the screen saver and monitor power off configuration. Otherwise the changes are discarded after Windows is restarted.
Start with Windows: Executes the program at session start (as taskbar icon).
Use continuous mode: Activates continuous mode for Launch screen saver and Power off the monitor commands. In this mode, the screen saver or monitor power off will be activated at the specified timeout until the mode is finished by pressing the OK button of the continuous mode window. This mode guarantees that screen saver or monitor power off will be enforced even if some event cancels them (accidental mouse move, configuration changed by another program, etc.)

Taskbar icon options

Double-click action: Selects the action that will be performed when the taskbar icon is double-clicked.
Single click action: Selects the action that will be performed when the taskbar icon is clicked.

Also, depeding the of the state of the screen saver and power off configuration, the taskbar icon can show four different icons:

Normal monitor icon (program icon): Both screen saver and monitor power off are enabled.
Bright monitor icon: Both screen saver and monitor power off are disabled.
Partial covered monitor icon: Only the screen saver is enabled.
Dark monitor icon: Only the monitor power off is enabled.

4. Command line options ^

Screen Saver Control supports several parameters for command line operation. These parameters are:

"-screensaver": The program executes the Launch screen saver command and then closes.
"-poweroff": The program executes the Power off the monitor command and then closes.

You can also use the "-quiet" parameter for starting the program without showing the main window.

5. Credits ^

Windows XP Themes support provided by the Windows XP Theme Manager, by Mike Lischke

Thanks to all the people who emailed me with suggestions and bug reports.

If you have any suggestion, find a bug, etc., send me an e-mail.