ROMaterial/ROMaterial.iso/readme.txt

Text File | 1993-06-04 | 15KB | 357 lines

                   ROMaterial                                                                                                     Icon Hear-It
                  Version 1.00
                   June 1, 1993

Welcome to ROMaterial!

Please read through this Readme.txt file.  It contains important information
about installation and other information not available when the help files
were created.





            ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !  BEFORE INSTALLING:  ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

If you are using an anti-virus program, such as the one that comes with
DOS 6.0, you may have to temporarily disable it before installing
ROMaterial.  If you receive error messages during install, please check
and make sure that your anti-virus is not active.  After installation is
complete, you can re-enable your anti-virus.  The actual functioning of
Icon Hear-It will not be affected, only the installation.

If your are using DOS 6.0 Double Space, Stacker, SuperStor or any other
hard disk compression software, you may need to have more disk space
available then the installation asks for.  This is because many of the
files included with ROMaterial are already in compressed file format and
will not compress further.  If you receive error messages during
installation regarding decompressing, copying or reading files, you may
have to free up additional hard drive space and try again.

If you are using a screen saver, you should disable it before installing.
If the screen saver turns on during the installation it could
slow down the process considerably.


                    Installation

Hard disk space requirements:

    2 MB of free hard disk space in your Windows directory
        2 MB of free hard disk space for program files
    3 MB of free hard disk space for sound files
    2 MB of free hard disk space for video files


To install ROMaterial, from Microsoft Program Manager or Norton's Desktop
for Windows 2.0 or above:

    1.  click on File...
    2.  then click on Run...
    3.  type X:\INSTALL on the Command Line, type X:\INSTALL
         (where X is the drive letter for your CD-ROM drive)
    4.  follow the on-line prompts.

Towards the end of the install you will be asked if you have Video
for Windows.  Certain files for Video for Windows are necesarry to
run the video screen savers.  If you don't have these files, the
install program will provide them.

                                Icon Do-It Users

Icon Hear-It replaces Icon Do-It during installation.  Since Icon
Hear-It contains all the functions of Icon Do-It plus more, you can simply
erase Icon Do-It from your hard drive.  To do this simply erase all the
files under the Icon Do-It directory, then erase the Icon Do-It directory.
Finally, delete the Icon Do-It icon from the program manager.


                              Icon Hear-It Users


Please Remove Icon Hear-It from memory (by clicking on the Remove
Icon Hear-It menu item) before installing ROMaterial to
avoid any possible conflicts.  Don't forget to remove the Icon Hear-It
icon from the Startup group or from the load line if you have Icon Hear-It
automatically starting.

If you are upgrading from a previous release of Icon Hear-It, your old
sound and icon assignments are stored in a file called IHEARIT.BAK
in your Windows directory.  To restore these assignments, from
File Manager or DOS, erase the IHEARIT.INI file and rename the
IHEARIT.BAK file to IHEARIT.INI.  You may have to exit Windows and
come back in to load the renamed file.



                               DOS 6.0 Users

Please be aware that Memmaker, DOS 6.0's upper memory manager is not
meant to be run with Windows.  If you are loading Memmaker in your
autoexec.bat or config.sys, you may wish to consult your DOS 6.0 manual
about using Memmaker with Windows or switch back to the EMM386.EXE
located in your Windows directory.



                                 Shell Programs

Icon Hear-It is designed to run with Norton Desktop for Windows, versin 2.0
and Windows Program Manager only.  Under other shell programs Icon Hear-It
may not function properly.

Under the Icon Hear-It Options menu choice, a new item has been added that
tells you which shell Icon Hear-It is currently running under.  If this
shell is incorrect, reinstall Icon Hear-It through the correct shell.


                              Norton Desktop Users

Icon Hear-It is fully compatable with Norton Desktop for Windows 2.0
with the exception of customized menu bars.  If you are running a
customized menu bar Icon Hear-It should not be run from the menu bar, but
should be run in the button window.



                    Have Icon Hear-It Start Up Automatically

To have Icon Hear-It start up automatically each time you start Windows, you
can drag the Icon Hear-It icon to the StartUp Group or place the
Icon Hear-It command line in your win.ini file.  The command line should
look something like this:

 load=C:\ICONHEAR\IHEARIT.EXE

The drive letter or directory name may be different depending on where you
installed Icon Hear-It, but the EXE file name should be the same.



                                 BMP Files

There are three different levels of bitmaps included with ROMaterial:
4-bit 16-color bitmaps; 8-bit 256-color bitmaps; and 24-bit 16-million
color bitmaps.  If your monitor, graphics card and video driver only support
16 colors, the other .bmp files will not look good.  Most SVGA cards
come with a floppy disk containing a 256 color driver.  You can install
this driver by going into Windows Setup and following the on-line prompts.
The 16 million color bitmaps are only supported on "True-Color" monitors
and cards.  You should only notice the difference in these bitmaps when you try to
use them as wallpaper.  ROMaterial automatically adjusts the display of the
bitmaps in the other areas.

For more information on video driver installation, please refer to your
Windows manual.


                              Video Screen Savers

If you do not have very much RAM or are running on a slower machine, the
video screen savers and their accompanying sounds may sound "jerky".
Unfortunately, there is no way to compensate for this other than
disabling the sound.  Slower and less powerful machines simply can't
keep up with the demand on hardware when runnning such intensive
videos.




                                Animated Icons

The number of animated icons currently being played, the animation speed
and the number of frames can greatly affect the operation of Windows and
Windows applications.

Other than the maximum animations discussed below, there is no "rule"
for the number of animations you can have running concurrently.
5 animated icons may stress a 286-12 computer with a 256K video card,
but 25 may not stress a 486-33 with a 1MB card!  Icon Hear-It should
not "crash" or lock up your computer even if you do reach your hardware
limits.

Maximum Animations Possible
---------------------------
The number of currently running animations is limited to the number of
available timers. Each icon animation uses one Windows' "timer".
Windows 3.0 has 16 timers and Windows 3.1 currently has 32. Be aware,
however, that many other programs also use timers.  Screen savers,
calendars, clocks and anything else that moves on the screen
without human intervention probably uses a timer.

The cursor animations (Curtoons) supplied with Icon Hear-It, for example,
uses a Windows timer.  If you decide to use one of the cursor animations
this will reduce by one (1) the number of icon animations that you will
be able to run at once.

Icon Animation Speed
--------------------
Basically, the faster you have an animation running, the more system
resources and display memory are being used and the slower Windows may run.
The higher the animation percentage, the faster the animation
will play.  As you add more animations this slowing may become
more obvious.

As mentioned, the amount of RAM and video display memory available as
wel