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-
- Desktop Themes
- v1.86
-
- Copyright 1999 Jonathan Potter / Left Side Software
-
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- This program is distributed under the Shareware concept. The Shareware system lets you
- trial a piece of software before deciding whether or not to pay for it. It results in
- lower priced software for all users, as the costs of distribution are far less than
- traditional commercial channels. It also results in higher quality software, as users
- are able to evaluate software before buying.
-
- Therefore, Shareware authors depend upon your honesty and support in order to survive.
-
- If you like and use Desktop Themes, please consider registering. The fee is only $US15,
- and entitles you to free technical support, and free or discounted upgrades when new
- versions become available. It encourages us to continue to develop this program, as well
- as create new high-quality software.
-
- Please see http://www.lss.com.au or email jpotter@lss.com.au for more information.
-
- You can register online by credit card at http://www.lss.com.au/register.htm
-
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-
- Welcome to Desktop Themes!
- --------------------------
-
- The "Desktop Theme" concept was introduced by Microsoft with their Plus! pack for
- Windows 95. A Theme is a collection of wallpaper, pointers, sounds, colours, fonts and
- screensavers, all bundled together into a convenient package. It enables you to
- completely alter the appearance of your desktop in one step, without having to tediously
- alter all the settings manually. The term "theme" is used because the items of a theme
- are usually all related in some way (eg, a particular band, a type of car, etc).
-
- There are literally thousands of Themes available on the net, and most of them can be
- downloaded for free. Some good places to start looking for Themes are Tucows FreeThemes
- (www.freethemes.com) and Winfiles.com (www.winfiles.com). There are many other Theme
- sites; a list of some of them can be found in the Desktop Themes program itself.
-
- The problem with the Microsoft Theme solution was that the user was required to buy the
- expensive Plus! pack in order to be able to use Themes. The Microsoft solution was
- also very unfriendly to use, and did not enable you to easily modify a Theme or create
- your own. We at Left Side Software created the "Desktop Themes" application to address
- the need for a reasonably priced, user-friendly and, above all, powerful Theme solution.
-
-
-
- Installing the Desktop Themes software
- --------------------------------------
-
- The Desktop Themes program is distributed as a ZIP file; if you are reading these
- instructions it is likely that you have already unzipped the file. If not, you will
- need a Zip program like WinZip (http://www.winzip.com) to extract the Desktop Themes
- files.
-
- The Desktop Themes program is very easy to install, as it consists of just a single
- executable (.exe) file. The easiest way to install it is to use the supplied Setup
- program. Simply double-click on Setup.exe and follow the instructions provided.
-
- If you are confident using Windows Explorer, you can easily copy the
- "Desktop Themes.exe" program to your Program Files directory, and create a shortcut
- in your Startup menu.
-
- If you used the Setup program, it will automatically open this readme file for you.
- Please read it carefully before using the software, as the answers to most questions
- can be found in here.
-
- When you are ready to run the Desktop Themes program, simply select it from the
- Start menu, or double-click on its icon. If this is the first time you have run a
- Themes program, it will ask you to select a location to store Theme files. This is
- explained in more detail later; for the moment, just accept the default location by
- clicking OK. You will then be ready to start using Themes!
-
-
-
- Quick Guide to Using Themes
- ---------------------------
-
- The Desktop Themes program will be discussed in detail later on; if you are a new
- user, or just want to get running quickly, you should read this section first.
-
- Most Theme files are distributed in ZIP format, and so you will need a Zip program
- like WinZip (http://www.winzip.com) to access them. If you are not using WinZip,
- make sure the Zip program you do use supports long filenames (this is crucial).
-
- Using Themes with the Left Side Software Desktop Themes program is a four step
- process.
-
- 1. Download
-
- The first step is to Download the Theme you want to use. As we said before,
- there are thousands of themes available, and hundreds of theme sites on the
- net. If you are a beginner, we suggest you start with http://www.freethemes.com
- as this service has one of the largest themes collections available. We can't
- give you detailed instructions on how to actually download the Theme here, as
- it will depend on which web browser you are using, but generally all you
- need to do is to click on the link to the Theme Zip file, and the download
- should start automatically. If you are asked where to save the Theme file you
- are downloading, we suggest you store it in a temporary folder. To create a
- temporary folder easily (if you don't already have one), simply right-click
- on the Windows desktop and select New -> Folder.
-
-
- 2. Extract
-
- If the Theme you just downloaded is in Zip format (most of them are), you will
- need to extract the contents of the Zip file before you can access it. We suggest
- you use WinZip (www.winzip.com) for this purpose; if you use another Zip program,
- make sure it supports long filenames. Please follow the instructions for your
- particular Zip program to extract the Theme file; again, we suggest you extract
- it to a temporary folder. Neither the zipped file or the extracted contents of the
- Theme are required to be saved permanently by you.
-
-
- 3. Install
-
- The third step is to Install the Theme that you have just downloaded. In the
- context of Desktop Themes, to "Install" a theme means to copy the various
- components of the Theme to your Theme Storage directory. Installing a theme
- does NOT actually cause your desktop settings to be changed; all it does is
- make a permanent copy of the theme files so that you can then go on to use
- the theme. The Theme Storage directory defaults to "C:\Program Files\Plus!\Themes"
- for historical reasons; unless you have a good reason, you probably shouldn't
- change this.
-
- To Install the Theme, you need to run the Desktop Themes program. When the
- Desktop Themes interface appears, click on the "Install" tab at the top of the
- window. Then, click on the Browse button to bring up the Open File dialog.
- Navigate to the temporary folder that you extracted the Theme into, and select
- the Theme file to install. When you have found the Theme, click the OK button
- to close the dialog, and then click the Install button to install the Theme.
-
- Once you have installed the Theme, you are free to delete the Zip file and the
- files that you extracted from it. These are no longer required by Desktop Themes.
-
-
- 4. Apply
-
- Once you have installed a Theme, you can then Apply it at your leisure. We use
- the term "Apply" to mean actually changing your desktop configuration to use the
- new Theme. A Theme MUST have been installed before it can be applied.
-
- Again, you need to be running the Desktop Themes program. Click on the "Theme" tab
- at the top of the window if you are not already on this page. Next to the words
- "Current Theme" is a drop-down list, which contains a list of all the Themes you
- have installed on your system. Click on the drop-down list, and then select the
- Theme that you want to use. When you click on a Theme, the drop-down list should
- disappear, and the Theme preview below should change to reflect the new Theme
- (the wallpaper and the desktop icons are displayed in the preview).
-
- At this point, you can use the "Display", "Sounds" and "Pointers" tabs at the top
- of the window to preview the individual theme components.
-
- On the right of the "Theme" page is a group of checkboxes labelled "Active Components".
- These checkboxes allow you to control which elements of the Theme will be used when
- you click the Apply button. For example, you can choose to use the Wallpaper and Icons
- of a Theme but to leave your existing Sounds and Pointers intact. If you want to
- use all the components of the theme you have chosen, simply select all of the checkboxes.
-
- When you are ready to use the new Theme, click the Apply button in the bottom-right
- corner of the Desktop Themes window. After a few seconds you should find that your
- desktop looks radically different. Enjoy!
-
- If you obtained the Theme that you want to use from a CD rather that from the Internet,
- you can usually skip step 1 and possibly step 2 above.
-
- One frequent question our users ask us is "How do I get my system back the way it was?".
- Luckily, Desktop Themes automatically makes a backup of your system settings when it is
- first run. No matter how many different Themes you install and apply, you will always be
- able to return to your original configuration.
-
- To restore your settings, click on the "Current Theme" drop-down list again, and look for
- a theme labelled "My Original Settings". If you select this Theme you should see the preview
- window change to display your original wallpaper. Simply click the Apply button, and your
- original configuration will be restored.
-
-
-
- The Desktop Themes Interface
- ----------------------------
-
- Desktop Themes has a small, but highly functional user-interface. The tabs along the top
- of the window provide access to different areas of the program (known as "pages").
-
- Theme
-
- The Theme page shows you a preview of the currently selected theme, giving you a
- good idea of how your system would look if you applied the current settings. You can
- click on the image of the 'recycle bin' icon to toggle it between empty and full.
-
- This page is where you select a Theme from the ones that you have installed. The
- "Current Theme" drop-down list contains a list of all Themes that you have installed.
- Select a Theme from this list to preview, apply or edit it.
-
- As well as the Themes that you have installed on your system, the drop-down list
- contains four other entries, which you can select and treat just like any
- other Theme:
-
- (current settings)
-
- This refers to the current configuration of your desktop, that is, the
- settings currently being used by your computer. You can select this "Theme"
- at any time to return to your current configuration.
-
- (initial settings)
-
- This refers to the settings that were being used by your computer when
- you ran the Desktop Themes program. You can use this to return to the
- initial settings, which allows you to undo any changes you have made
- with the Apply button.
-
- (windows defaults)
-
- This is a built-in Theme containing the default Windows 95 configuration.
- If your settings get hopelessly confused and there seems to be no way out,
- you can always use this Theme to go back to the very beginning.
-
- My Original Settings
-
- This is a real Theme file that is created automatically by Desktop Themes
- the first time that the program is run. Using this Theme, you will always
- be able to return to your original settings, no matter how many changes you
- have made in the meantime. If you make changes to your configuration that
- you want to make absolutely permanent, you can save over this Theme using
- the "Save As" button.
-
- To the right of the drop-down list is a button marked "Save As". This function
- allows you to save the current settings to a new Theme (or over the top of an
- old one). When you click the "Save As" button, a file dialog will open,
- prompting for the name of the new Theme to create. This function is only
- designed to save Themes for your own use. If you want to create a Theme that
- you can give to other people, you need to use the "Distribution" function of
- the Edit page.
-
- Using the "Active Components" checkboxes, you can select which Theme components
- you want to use, and which you want to leave untouched when you Apply the theme.
-
- At the bottom of the "Active Components" checkboxes is a button labelled
- "Set As Random Options". The Desktop Themes program has the ability to change your
- desktop Theme randomly every time you start the computer (there is a checkbox on
- the Miscellaneous page which you use to turn this feature on).
-
- Use the "Set As Random Options" button on this page to select which Theme components
- you want to be randomly changed; make your selection by turning on or off the
- "Active Components" checkboxes, and then click the "Set As Random Options" button.
-
- At the top-right is a button marked "Save Preview Image". If you are creating
- a theme to give to other people, you might want to use this feature. It lets
- you save the theme preview image as a bitmap file, which you can then send to
- other people or display on your web page. This function only supports saving
- as bitmaps, but you can easily use other software to convert the bitmap file to
- a gif or jpg format file.
-
- At the very bottom of the Desktop Themes window are three buttons. These buttons
- are available from any of the pages, not just the Theme page. The OK and Apply
- button have very similar functions; they both will take the currently selected
- Theme, and apply its settings to your system (subject to your selection in the
- "Active Components" list). Unlike the Apply button, the OK button will also close
- the Desktop Themes program after it has made the setting changes.
-
- Use the Cancel button at the bottom of the window if you want to exit the
- Desktop Themes program without changing any of your system settings. The Cancel
- button does NOT undo the effects of pressing the Apply button; it simply prevents
- further changes from being made. If you want to undo changes you have previously
- made, use the (initial settings) or "My Original Settings" options in the
- "Current Theme" drop-down list.
-
-
- Display
-
- The Display page allows you to preview the "display" elements of the currently
- selected Theme. These elements include the wallpaper, desktop icons, screensaver
- and startup/shutdown screens. Select the element you want to look at from the
- list on the left-hand side, and it will be displayed in the area on the right.
-
-
- Sounds
-
- This page lets you preview the sounds of the currently selected Theme. Although
- Desktop Themes can adjust almost 20 different sound settings, not all Themes will
- be configured to change all possible sounds. Only sounds that are actually affected
- by the currently selected Theme will be displayed in this list. To preview a sound,
- select the appropriate entry from the list, and click the play button (right-facing
- arrow button). Click the stop button next to it to interrupt the sound.
-
-
- Pointers
-
- The Pointers page lets you preview the Theme's mouse pointer images. The operation
- is much the same as the previous two pages; simply select the pointer you want to
- see from the list, and it will be displayed in the area on the right.
-
-
- Miscellaneous
-
- This page contains several options that you can use to control the operation of
- the Desktop Themes program, or to make changes to your system that are not
- directly linked to a Theme.
-
- Use large icons
-
- This option lets you toggle your desktop icons between normal size (32x32)
- and large size (48x48).
-
-
- Window animation on minimize/restore
-
- This option lets you turn off the annoying (to some) window animation features
- of Windows (where you can actually see a window open or close, etc).
-
-
- Select a Random Theme on startup
-
- This enables the Random Theme Changing function of Desktop Themes. If this
- switch is turned on, Desktop Themes will automatically select a new Theme at
- random, from your list of installed Themes, every time you start your computer.
- You can control which parts of the Theme are used with the "Active Components"
- and "Set As Random Options" function on the Theme page.
-
-
- Warn about missing files when installing
-
- Quite often, Themes you download from the net will have one or more files
- missing. This is usually the result of nothing more than the Theme author
- forgetting to include all components of the Theme when they created the
- Zip file for distribution. Screen savers seem to get left out the most, but
- you may also find references to sounds and pointers that just aren't present.
-
- By default, when Desktop Themes notices a missing file during the Theme Install
- process, it just silently ignores it and carries on. A missing file isn't
- particularly serious, and more often than not you won't even notice that it
- isn't there.
-
- If you would like to know exactly what is going on when you install a Theme,
- however, just turn on the "Warn about missing files when installing" switch.
- You will then be shown a list of all missing files (if any) after the install
- process is complete.
-
-
- Show icons using all possible colors
-
- This switch enables the display of 256 color icons on your desktop. By default
- Windows only displays icons in 16 colors, which means you are probably missing
- out on a large part of the Themes you install. If your video card supports it
- (and most do, these days), you should turn this option on.
-
-
- Stretch desktop wallpaper to fit the screen
-
- There are three options a Theme has when it comes to displaying the wallpaper;
- Center (the default - centers the image in the middle of the screen), Tile
- (useful for very small images), and Stretch (stretches a small image larger
- to fill the screen, and a large image smaller to fit entirely on the screen).
-
- It is up to the Theme author which option they use when they create their
- Theme. Most themes are designed for 800x600 or 1024x768 screens. If you have
- the same size display as the Theme author, then their choice about how to
- display the wallpaper is probably fine for you. However, if you have a very
- large display (or even a very small display), you may find that usually the
- supplied wallpaper is the wrong size. In this case, you will most probably
- want the wallpaper to be stretched to fit your screen.
-
- If you turn this switch on, the wallpaper image will always be stretched for
- your display, and the setting in the Theme will be ignored.
-
-
- The other option in the top section of the Miscellaneous page lets you select
- the language you want to use. Desktop Themes currently supports English and
- German (Deutsch). Click on this drop-down list to select another language;
- the display will be instantly updated to reflect your choice.
-
- The center section of the Miscellaneous page contains the "Path to Themes"
- field. This text field contains the current path (location, in other words)
- that installed Themes are kept in. This defaults to "C:\Program Files\Plus!\Themes",
- to be compatible with the Microsoft Themes system. When you ran Desktop Themes
- for the first time, it may have asked to you specify a Theme location, and so
- the path displayed may be different. In any event, this field on the
- Miscellaneous page lets you change the Theme storage location. You may
- want to do this, for example, because the current drive is getting to full.
- Click the Browse button to open the 'Browse for Folder' dialog, and select
- the new location. You can store Themes anywhere on your system, however be aware
- that any old Themes you had installed will no longer be easily accessible.
-
- Changes made to all of the preceding options (except for the language selection)
- will not take effect until you press the Apply or OK button at the bottom of the
- Desktop Themes window. Because doing this also applies the current Theme settings
- to your system, you should make sure which Theme you have selected before doing this.
- If all you want to have changed is the Miscellaneous options, just select the
- (current settings) Theme from the drop-down list on the Theme page before clicking
- Apply or OK.
-
- At the bottom of the Miscellaneous page is a button labelled Update. Click this
- button if you have changed the location on your system where the Desktop Themes
- program is located. This is because Desktop Themes makes entries in the system
- registry that refer to the location of the Desktop Themes program. Several functions,
- including the automatic Uninstall function, may fail if the Desktop Themes program
- can not be located. Therefore, if you do move it to a new location, make sure you
- click the Update button on the Miscellaneous page before you do anything else with
- the Desktop Themes program.
-
-
- Install
-
- The Install page is the interface to the Desktop Themes Theme installation routines.
- Remember from the Quick Guide at the start of these instructions that the term
- "Install" in this context refers to the act of copying the Theme files into
- permanent storage on your system. It does not cause any changes to be made to your
- system configuration.
-
- Use the Browse button to find the Theme that you want to install. If you followed
- the Quick Guide, you will have previously downloaded and unzipped the Theme file to
- a temporary directory. When you click Browse, an Open File dialog appears. Use this
- to navigate to the temporary directory, and select the Theme file, and click Open.
- You can also drag and drop the Theme file from a Windows Explorer window onto the
- Desktop Themes window.
-
- When you have selected the Theme you want to install, click the Install button. You
- will be asked for confirmation, and then the install process will begin with no
- further input from you. If you have the "Warn about missing files when installing"
- option turned on in the Miscellaneous page, you will be warned at the end about
- any missing files that could not be installed. Otherwise, you should see a
- message saying that the theme installation was successful. If you then click on
- the Theme tab at the top of the Desktop Themes window to go back to the Theme page,
- you should find your newly-installed Theme available in the drop-down list.
-
- Unlike the older versions of Desktop Themes, the new version automatically installs
- Themes into sub-directories within the Theme Storage directory. This is designed to
- keep your Themes folder nice and tidy. One other change that has been made is to
- make the install routine much more intelligent when it comes to finding the files
- to copy. There should no longer be any problem installing some "malformed" or
- "badly designed" themes, which you occasionally come across on the net.
-
- The bottom section of the Install page lets you uninstall (remove) Themes that you
- have previously installed. Only Themes that you have installed with Desktop Themes
- can be uninstalled with this function; other Themes that you have manually
- installed will need to be manually removed.
-
- To uninstall a Theme, simply select it from the list and click the Uninstall button.
- After confirmation, the Theme and all of its files will be deleted permanently from
- your system. There is no undo for this action, so be careful!
-
- When Desktop Themes installs a Theme, it also adds an entry for uninstall to the
- Windows "Add & Remove Programs" uninstall list. You can therefore also use the
- "Add & Remove Programs" control panel to remove any Themes you have installed.
-
-
- Screens
-
- The Desktop Theme standard as defined by Microsoft does not provide support for
- startup and shutdown screens (the images that you see while Windows is loading,
- and when your computer is shutting down). However, many Theme authors do provide
- these pictures with their Themes, and until now you have had to install them
- manually.
-
- The Left Side Software Desktop Themes program supports the use of startup/shutdown
- screens with Themes. When you install a theme using the Install function,
- Desktop Themes will look to see whether the Theme author has included startup/shutdown
- pictures. If these can be found, they will also be installed automatically, and
- a permanent reference to them will be included in the Theme.
-
- Unfortunately, this process is not foolproof. If the Theme author has not used the
- standard filenaming convention when they included the startup/shutdown screens in the
- Theme distribution, Desktop Themes will be unable to recognise the pictures. Therefore,
- you can use the function on the Screens page to install the startup/shutdown screens
- yourself.
-
- To manually install startup and shutdown pictures, use the Browse buttons on this
- page to locate the files. The Theme author should have provided some instructions
- with their Theme that indicates the name of the picture files (they are usually called
- logo.sys, logow.sys and logos.sys, but if they are, Desktop Themes would have
- automatically installed them for you when you installed the Theme).
-
- You do not need to provide all three pictures; you can use as many as you want.
- Startup/shutdown screens can NOT just be any old picture file. They must be
- a specific size and format to work. There are programs available on the Internet that
- let you convert your own pictures for use as startup/shutdown screens, but this topic
- is beyond the scope of these instructions.
-
- Once you have selected the pictures you want to install, click the Install button.
- You will probably want to select the "Backup old Startup/Shutdown screens" option as
- well, to automatically create backups of your old images. If you don't, and you don't
- back them up yourself, you will have to reinstall Windows to get them back! Only one
- set of screens can be backed up at any one time, so if you are changing from a second
- set to a third, you should restore your original screens first.
-
- To restore your old startup and shutdown screens after replacing them (only if you
- had the backup option selected), click the Restore button at the bottom of the
- page. This button will only be available if there are backed-up screens present.
-
- Windows NT does not support the concept of startup/shutdown screens, and so this
- whole page is not available when running on an NT system.
-
-
- Edit Theme
-
- This page lets you edit the currently selected Theme, by changing the components
- used. You can also use the Edit page to create a brand new Theme yourself. It does
- not offer any image or sound editing functions, so you will need to create the
- actual Theme components using other software.
-
- The Edit page also has a function known as "Distribution". This is different to the
- "Save As" function on the main Theme page. It allows you to save a Theme with
- generic references to components, that will work on anyone's system. It also copies
- all of the selected Theme components automatically to a directory that you specify.
- The advantage of this is that if you want to create a Theme to give to other people,
- all you need to do is save it using the "Distribution" function, and then ZIP
- (using WinZip or another long-filename compliant zip program) the entire Theme
- directory. You do not need to hunt around all over your system looking for the
- correct files to include. Using this system should totally eliminate the problem
- of missing Theme files described earlier.
-
- The process of editing or creating a Theme is very straightforward. The Edit page
- consists of a tree control on the left and a preview panel on the right. The tree
- control gives you a list of all the possible Theme components, and by selecting
- one you can see the current setting for that component in the preview panel.
-
- Depending on the selected Theme component, the procedure for changing its value
- varies. Colors and Fonts both display a button labelled "Choose" in the preview
- area, and clicking this button opens the appropriate dialog to change the setting.
- Colors have an additional option, "Modify this color in the Theme". You can use
- this to choose which system colors your Theme will modify; if you just want to
- change one or two colors you can turn the rest off and not have to worry about
- setting them.
-
- For Icons, the File field at the bottom of the window displays the filename of
- the currently selected icon file. Icons can be found in many different types of
- files. Pointers and icons (.cur, .ico and .ani) are all "pure" icon files, and
- usually contain only one image per file. Programs and libraries (.exe and .dll)
- can contain more than one icon per file, and if the icon you want to use is not
- the first one in the file you need to use the Index setting to pick the image
- you want. To choose a different icon file, click the Browse button. If you
- do not want to assign a particular icon in your Theme, click the Clear button to
- remove the currently selected icon.
-
- Pointers are selected in much the same way as icons, except that there is no
- Index setting. Again, click the Browse button to select a different pointer file,
- or the Clear button to clear the current selection. Pointers and icons are for
- the most part completely interchangeable; you can use a pointer file for an icon
- and vice versa.
-
- Sounds are also selected in a similar way. The preview area contains a play and
- a stop button that you can use to listen to the currently selected sound. Use the
- Browse button to select a new sound file for the current item, or the Clear
- button to remove the current setting.
-
- Screens is where you can select the startup and shutdown screens for your Theme.
- Startup/shutdown screens can NOT just be any old picture file. They must be
- a specific size and format to work. There are programs available on the Internet that
- let you convert your own pictures for use as startup/shutdown screens, but this topic
- is beyond the scope of these instructions.
-
- You should also be aware that Left Side Software Desktop Themes is currently the
- only Theme solution to support the integration of startup/shutdown screens into a
- Theme. If you distribute your Theme to other people who are not using our Desktop
- Themes software, they will probably have to install your startup/shutdown pictures
- manually.
-
- The Screen Saver and Wallpaper are self-explanatory. For Screen Savers there is a
- Preview button displayed in the preview panel that lets you test the selected
- screen saver. Wallpaper pictures can be in either BMP or JPG format - we highly
- recommend that you use JPG to cut down the size of your Theme. Using a JPG instead
- of a BMP in a Theme can save several hundred kilobytes, which will make your
- Theme quicker to download and therefore more attractive to your potential users.
-
- Wallpaper Settings lets you select how the wallpaper should be displayed. Stretch
- will cause it to be stretched to fit perfectly on the users screen. Center will
- display the picture in the middle of the screen if the picture is smaller than the
- display. Tile is good for very small images that you want tiled to fill the display.
- If the user is using Left Side Software Desktop Themes, then they can override this
- setting using the "Stretch desktop wallpaper to fit the screen" option on the
- Miscellaneous page.
-
- If you just want to make changes to the current Theme for your own use, then this
- is as far as you need to go on the Edit page. To apply the changes to your system,
- click the Apply button, and if you want to save the changes permanently to the
- current Theme, go back to the Theme page and use the "Save As" function.
-
- However, if you want to distribute your Theme to other people, the last step should
- be to click on the Distribution item in the list. Then, click on the Browse button
- to enter the name of your new Theme and to select the location for it. You should
- select an empty directory for this step.
-
- When you have chosen a location and entered a filename, click the Save button.
- Desktop Themes will then create the Theme file for your Theme, and will automatically
- copy all of your select Theme components to your chosen directory.
-
- When the copy process is complete, your Theme is finished. To distribute it to
- others, all you need to do is to Zip the Theme file and directory, and upload it to
- one of the many Internet theme sites. You must use a Zip program that supports
- long filenames (like WinZip).
-
-
- Sites
-
- The Sites page contains a convenient list of Desktop Theme web sites. To visit one,
- make sure you are connected to the Internet, then select the appropriate site from
- the list and click the Connect button. A web browser window should open and
- automatically go to the chosen site.
-
- This Theme Site list is not exhaustive by any standard; it consists of Theme sites
- that we have found while surfing the web, as well as sites sent to us by the site
- owners. If you have a Theme Site or know of one that you think should be listed
- in this section of the Desktop Themes program, please let us know. There is no
- charge for a Theme Site to be listed here, although we do ask that you mention
- the Desktop Themes software on your web page.
-
-
- About
-
- The About tab displays information about the program and about Left Side Software.
- The "Left Side Software" button will take you to our company home page (provided
- you are connected to the Internet). If you have not yet registered your copy of
- Desktop Themes, there will also be a button that takes you to our online ordering
- page. Please consider registering; the price is low and your support encourages
- the further development of this and other software.
-
-
- Command line switches (advanced users only)
- -------------------------------------------
-
- Desktop Themes supports several command line switches. In practice you will
- never need to use these, but they are listed here for reference.
-
- /s <filename.theme> - Apply the given theme
- /conv <source.jpg> <dest.bmp> - Convert a JPG to a BMP
- /stretch <source> <dest.bmp> - Stretch a BMP or JPG to full screen
-
- For example,
-
- "Desktop Themes.exe" /s "C:\program files\plus!\themes\my_theme.theme"
- - This would apply the settings in the supplied theme
-
- "Desktop Themes.exe" /conv picture1.jpg picture2.jpg
- - This would convert the supplied JPG picture to a BMP
-
- "Desktop Themes.exe" /stretch picture1.jpg picture-stretched.bmp
- - This would stretch the supplied picture to be full screen
-
-
- Copyrights
- ----------
-
- Desktop Themes is Copyright 1999 by Jonathan Potter / Left Side Software.
- Originally based on Desktop Themes in Microsoft Plus! Copyright Microsoft Corp.
- Desktop Themes uses The Independent JPEG Group's JPEG software (v6a)
- Many Themes on the Internet contain copyrighted images and sounds;
- Left Side Software accepts no responsibility for the use of this
- software in the unauthorised distribution of copyrighted materials.
-
- You may freely distribute the Desktop Themes software for non-commercial
- purposes only, providing the contents of the original zip archive,
- including these instructions, are provided intact and unmodified.
- All commercial use including distribution on CD is expressely prohibited
- without authorisation from Left Side Software. We have reasonably priced
- licencing available for commercial use, and can even create custom
- versions for your organisation.
-
- These instructions are Copyright 1999 by Jonathan Potter / Left Side Software.
- All Rights Reserved.
-
-
-
- Release History
- ---------------
-
- 1.86 Feb 2 1999
-
- - Added preview of color settings to the Theme page, and to the
- color section on the Edit Theme page.
-
- - You can now click on the Recycle Bin icon on the Theme page
- preview to toggle between empty and full.
-
- - Added the 'Save Preview Image' function to the Theme page, lets
- you save the theme preview as a bitmap file for web page
- thumbnails, etc.
-
- - Fixed a couple of bugs in the theme installation and distribution
- routines.
-
- - Theme Site list updated, now has 124 web sites listed!
-
-
-