___________________________________
Documentation by David Richard and Andrew Welch
Special thanks to Gayle Haarr
©1995-6 by Ambrosia Software, Inc.

Welcome to Eclipse 3

Flying toasters and exploding rabbits are fun for a while, but perhaps you’re getting a little tired of using a screen saver that takes up huge amounts of disk space, devours memory, slows down your Macintosh, and causes inexplicable crashes?

Or perhaps you’re using one of the many unsupported, slightly buggy, feature-starved shareware screen savers? If either is the case, we have the screen saver for you.

Introducing Eclipse 3: a lean, mean, 100 percent PowerPC native screen saving machine that works great on 68K Macs as well. To eliminate the problem of extension conflicts, we designed Eclipse 3 as an application so that it retains the benefits of extension-based screen savers while avoiding their propensity to cause problems. After all, a screen saver is supposed to save your screen, not crash your machine.

Unlike some other screen savers, Eclipse uses very little memory and processor time to do its job. Thus, Eclipse will never slow down your Macintosh. However, even with Eclipse’s svelte form, it offers all of the useful features you could ever want in a screen saver, presented in an elegant and straight-forward user interface.

Moreover, Eclipse doesn’t merely dim the screen; it displays the current time floating on the screen, graphics (PICTs, JPEGs and GIFs) and QuickTime™ movies from a folder full of choices. You can select the graphics and movies to be displayed by dropping them into the Eclipse Graphics folder. In addition, Eclipse offers such conveniences as password protection, and you can customize its extensive feature set any way you like.

With apologies to a certain brewer, our slogan is “Eclipse: Less filling, saves great.”

About this Manual

This manual assumes that you are familiar with the Macintosh and its basic operation. If you need help using the mouse, choosing from menus, or working in the Finder, please consult the Macintosh User’s Guide that came with your Macintosh.

This manual is designed to be used in different ways:

If you don’t like to read manuals...
Go directly to Chapter 3, Getting Started. This chapter briefly describes how to get Eclipse up and running in under five minutes. Chapter 3 also includes a brief summary of Eclipse’s features. The “Go To” icon below will take you straight there.

If you prefer step-by-step instructions...
Chapters 4 through 8 provide a detailed description of all of Eclipse’s features. We recommend that you also read Chapter 3, Getting Started. Along with instructions on how to begin using Eclipse, Chapter 3 also gives important information on upgrading and a brief summary of all of Eclipse’s features.

To use this manual as a reference...
See Chapter 2, Table of Contents. Subheadings list the main points covered in each chapter. Click the “Go To” icon below and you will be taken to the Table of Contents chapter.

Navigating this Document

To scroll a page up and down...
• Use the scroll bar on the right side of the window
• Use the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard
• Use the Page Up and Page Down keys on your keyboard

To move between chapters...
• Use the scroll bar along the bottom of the window
• Use the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard
• Select an item from the “Chapters” menu

Three types of icons help you along your way...

1.) The Blue “Go To” buttons are found in the Table of Contents and elsewhere. Clicking on one of these transfers you to the indicated chapter.

2.) A “Print” button is found at the bottom of each page. By clicking this button, Eclipse prompts you with a dialog box listing the chapters in this manual. Any or all of the chapters can be printed from this dialog box. 

3.) The “Quit” button is also found at the bottom of each page. “Quit” will exit this manual, returning you to the Finder.