Twilight II Manual Twilight II Twilight II version 1.99 is currently regarded as BETA software-- while it has been tested by a number of people, it is not guaranteed to have been tested with every init, desk accessory, application, or control panel. Thus, some untested interactions may occur and cause problems. Such problems may include, but not limited to, crashes, bad printouts, lockups, or the like. Further, a nice installer program has not yet been written, forcing you to manually copy files to install it. As such, you are using this program at your own risk. If you notice problems. Please also see this manual's section of known quirks/problems before installing and before reporting anything. For the best online communities, drop by http://delphi.com for the Apple II community there. [And it's free if accessed via a cookie-supporting web browser, or you can pay $35/year for telnet access and file downloads.] _________________________________________________________________ Table of contents * Section 1.0: Overview * 1.1: Starting Out * 1.2: Vital Information & System Requirements * Section 2.0: Installing Twilight II * 2.1: Activating Twilight II * Section 3.0: Reference * 3.1: Key Concepts & Terms * 3.2: Compatability * 3.3: Using Twilight II * 3.4: The Setup Window * 3.5: Info on various modules * Section 4.0: Other Information * Section 5.0: Frequently Asked Questions and Answers * 5.1:I'm in a GS/OS desktop-based program by the screen won't blank while the program is busy. Why not? * 5.2: No matter what I do, Twilight II will never blank on its own; I must always move to a blank now corner. What is going wrong? After installing Twilight II, my computer sometimes crashes or hangs for no reason. Why? * 5.3: How come after Twilight II background blanks during printing, my printout turns all black? * 5.4: What does "Unknown error $0120" mean? * 5.5: When the Twilight II icon appears during startup, the computer beeps and then the icon is crossed out. What is happening? * 5.6: When I run my telecommunication program with Twilight II installed, some of my incoming characters are lost. Why does this happen and how can I fix it? * 5.7: Twilight II's WatchCursor option does not work in one of my programs. What is wrong? * 5.8: What does Error $0201 mean? * 5.9: Cool Cursor Control Panel (CCCP) is forcing background blanks or causing problems * 5.10: Some modules aren't using TrueType Fonts * Section 6.0: Thanks & Credits * Section 7.0: About DYA & Twilight II distribution policies _________________________________________________________________ Section 1.0: Overview Twilight II safeguards your valuable monitor from phosphor burn-in, an irreversible condition that occurs when the same image has been left onscreen for so long that it becomes permanently etched into the monitor glass. Twilight II presents an elegant solution to this problem, automatically protecting your screen by changing the image being displayed in many different selectable ways after you do not interact with the computer for a specified amount of time. Twilight II works with all GS/OS desktop programs (such as the Finder, AppleWorks GS, GraphicWriter III, Platinum Paint and many others); program switchers such as The Manager and Switch-It!; all text screen-based programs (such as ProDOS 8 gems like AppleWorks classic and ProTerm 3, and GS/OS text based programs like Orca/Shell and GNO/ME); and also with other programs such as Publish-It! Our goal is to make the best featured screen saver possible, enabling you to use your computer more productively. Twilight II has been in the making for over two years and this represents an enormous amount of effort of many different people. . _________________________________________________________________ Starting Out Before attempting to use Twilight II, please at least glance through this section first so that Twilight II is installed properly and you have a general idea of what is happening. This will save you much time in the long run. Twilight II employs the concept of screen saver modules. When it is time to blank the screen so that burn-in does not occur, in a GS/OS(tm) desktop based program Twilight II will use the currently selected module (or a randomly selected module if several are selected.) Each module is responsible for the effect performed when the screen is blanked (e.g. Fireworks, Mountains, Snow, etc.) It is your choice which modules you want to install -- if you want to install them all, or install some or none of them. If you choose to install no modules, however, the screen will always be made pitch black when it is time to blank and no special effects or animations will be possible. The only advantage to not installing all the modules is that Twilight II will take up less space on disk. Twilight II also is able to run all Phantasm effects through a Twilight II module called PhanTom. If you are a Signature GS owner upgrading to Twilight II, you can still use all your old effects! _________________________________________________________________ Vital Information Manual Terminology and Conventions Keys on the keyboard are referenced in italics by the name printed on them (e.g. Shift, Option, J, etc.) The Open-Apple key is referred to as the Command key. Names of disks, files, and directories (folders) on disk are printed in italics. Keyboard equivalents, where available, for controls and buttons on screen are listed to the right of the titles of the controls. Steps to follow are indented and numbered. For example: 1. Purchase Twilight II. 2. Use the Installer for easy installation onto your system. 3. Never worry about screen burn-in! Note: Important or special information appears in boldface notes such as this. System Requirements To use Twilight II you need: * An Apple IIGS * System 6.0 or 6.0.1 * Two 3.5" Floppy drives or one 3.5" drive and a hard disk drive. [Hard Drive strongly recommended, as a full installation of all modules and addon graphics is about 2.4MB] * A minimum of 150K RAM free for use by Twilight II. (A good indication of how much memory you have available can be obtained by selecting "About the Finder..." and noting the display of available memory.) If less than 200-250K is free as reported by the Finder, many modules may have reduced performance or be unrunnable. While 1.125 megabytes of total RAM might suffice on a stripped down system, to best use Twilight II, 1.5 megabytes of memory or more is recommended. The more desk accessories, fonts, inits, control panels, and system sounds you use, the less free memory will be available for use by Twilight II. _________________________________________________________________ Installing Twilight II Twilight II v1.99 is distributed as a set of 4 .shk files: the Base distribution (core CDev, documentation, icons, etc), Modules 1 (all but 5 of the modules), Modules 2 (the 5 biggest modules), and addon graphics used by several of the modules. While only the core CDev is needed, you'll see the most by installing everything. First, if you have previously installed Twilight II v1.0 or 1.1, your setup options are not saved in a compatible format, and will have to be redone. Delete the Twilight.Setup file from your disk in the old modules folder before continuing. While the modules directory, the core CDev or the addon graphics are not required to reside on your boot disk. The core CDev should be installed to the boot disk if you want to have Twilight II automatically usable after boot. Copy the 'Twilight.II' control panel to the cdevs folder inside the system folder on your boot disk. [In GS terms, '*' is your boot disk, so that above folder is *:System:CDevs:] This base distribution also includes an optional 'T2.Icons' file which can be copied to the icons folder of your boot disk if you want. Also included is a 'T2.Clock.Font' file which can be copied to the *:System:Fonts folder. That is a font which includes very large numbers and a colon suitable for use in the Fading Clocks module. As it only contains those characters, it is quite small. You may pick your own font to use instead, should you choose. Also included in the base distribution is a Spectrum XCMD by Ewen Wannop which is an update to the 'TwilightII' XCMD which shipped with Spectrum 2.1. You do not need Spectrum to run Twilight II; this is just an update to provide better control over it. [If a version of Spectrum later than v2.1 is already on your system, this XCMD should be on there, and you do not need to install it. Having not owned Spectrum prior to v2.1, I do not know and cannot say when XCMDs were first supported. You should contact Seven Hills Software for an upgrade to at least version 2.1] Read the documentation contained in the 'SpectrumXCMD' folder in this distribution, and copy the XCMD from that hierarchy to the XCMDs folder under the Addons directory where you installed Spectrum to. Next, pick a place for the modules to be installed to. Modules 1 is currently 731K when uncompressed, and Modules 2 a further 607K on disk. All modules used by Twilight II must be present in the same directory to be usable. The recommended place for this modules path is *:System:CDevs:Twilight: -- simply decompress the two modules .shks into the CDevs folder on your boot disk. However, if you choose to place the modules elsewhere, you will be required to tell Twilight II where you located it later with the Setup:Advanced Options screen. Modules can be added to, deleted from, activated or inactivated using quality GS/OS file manipulation programs, such as the Finder. Do NOT use a copy program from ProDOS 8 like Copy ][+, or files and/or disks will be corrupted. The addon graphics take up to 1027K on disk, and are used by Fish, Globe, Movie Theater, Toast, and YouDrawIt. While Movie Theater can play animations already present on your system, and Globe can manually animate part of the screen, the other 3 of those modules require graphics arranged in certain places, and will not be usable without at least one picture file designed for them. You do not need to place those graphics on your boot disk, but you will need to manually set up each of those modules to use the directory you chose. If you decompress the gshk to *:System:CDevs:Twilight:, Fish, Globe, and Toast will automatically recognize the picture files, and be able to run without any setup required. [There may be additional setup items you may still want to investigate, such as the ability to use random files from the directory for that module's pictures.] Finally, after installing all of these files, you should reboot to be able to use Twilight II, though you can also use the method of double-clicking on the 'Twilight.II' CDev from the Finder to manually install it after boot. If your modules are not installed to the default location on your boot disk, you will need to select 'Setup', then 'Advanced Options' from the top menu in the setup window, and then the 'Set It' button for alternate module path. A reboot is required for your alternate module path to be recognized, sorry. Using Sound Patcher Sound Patcher is a simple program included in the base distribution that allows you to harmlessly modify the Sound control panel that comes with System 6 to allow the assigning of specific sounds to "Screen Blanking" and "Screen Unblanking" events. This patch is not required to run Twilight II, but it may add to your enjoyment of the package. Twilight II generates these events whenever the desktop or text screens blank or unblank, with only two exceptions. First, when you preview a module by clicking "Blank Now" from the main window, these sounds will not be generated. Also, the sounds will not be played when you are running a ProDOS 8 program and the text screen blanks. Using Sound Patcher is easy. Just follow these steps: 1. Start up your Apple IIGS as you normally do. 2. Launch the Sound.Patcher program, from wherever you instructed the Installer to put it, or from directly off the T2.Install disk. "Patch..." from the File menu will automatically be chosen, and the following window will soon appear. 3. Locate the Sound control panel in the CDevs folder of your boot disk, select it, and click open. In a few short moments, the operation will be complete. You can now open the Sound control panel and assign sounds to your new Twilight II events. After using the Sound Patcher program, you do not need to keep it around on disk-- its work is done. _________________________________________________________________ Activating Twilight II The System 6 Control Panel desk accessory must be always installed for Twilight II to operate, with no exception. If Twilight II was copied to the System:Cdevs folder of your boot disk: Twilight II will be automatically activated during boot and ready to use after you restart your computer. For future reference, you can prevent Twilight II from loading by holding down the Control key when you start the computer. This will be visually indicated by a red 'X' being drawn over the Twilight II bootup icon. If the Control Panel was not copied to the System:Cdevs folder of your boot disk: You will have to manually activate Twilight II each time you boot your computer. You can do this by double-clicking from the Finder the Twilight.II control panel icon wherever you chose to install it to. This will also open the main Twilight II window at the same time. Note: After Twilight II has been activated, you must keep the disk it is on write enabled for Twilight II to function correctly _________________________________________________________________ Opening the Main Window At any time after Twilight II has been activated, to open the main Twilight II window, follow these steps: 1. Choose the Control Panels item from the Apple Menu. 2. Click the Twilight II icon to select it. 3. Click the Open button. Alternatively, if the "Install T2 NDA" option is on, you can simply select the Twilight II item from the Apple menu. As a shortcut, you can also press Command-Control-T, Command-~ or Command-` to open up the main window. (These equivalents are only available when not already in use by the application running when you press them. _________________________________________________________________ Reference This section describes every aspect of Twilight II in detail. If you have any questions about a particular feature, the answers are probably here. Once you have familiarized yourself with a few concepts, using Twilight II will become largely intuitive. Refer to this section when any questions arise. There are a few frequently used terms and ideas that will benefit you by familiarizing yourself with. You might want to quickly glance over a few concepts presented in this section before fully experimenting with Twilight II. _________________________________________________________________ Key concepts and terms When your Apple IIgs has not been used (interacted with) for the amount of time specified in Setup:Options, Twilight II blanks (animates or moves around) the screen to protect your monitor from permanent phosphor burn-in, a condition that occurs when the same image has been left on screen for too long a time. Types of Screen Blanks There are two distinct types of screen blanks: Background Blank The screen is made entirely black (i.e. no special effects or animations are run) and the program you were using continues running. So if you were printing or copying files when the screen blanked, the printing or copying will not be interrupted. Background blanking is used all the time in text mode-based programs. Foreground Blank The screen is blanked using the effect module(s) selected (one of those selected is picked and run), and the program you were in stops running. Because foreground blanking takes control of the computer, if you were printing or copying files when Twilight II kicked in, the printing or copying would be interrupted and would not continue until the screen was unblanked (i.e. a key was hit, the mouse moved, etc) Foreground blanking is not available in programs that use the text screen; foreground blanking is only used in desktop based programs that run under GS/OS. Note: You can have the best of both worlds in regards to background versus foreground blanking. See Options: Watch Cursor in the next section. _________________________________________________________________ Compatibility Twilight II is very AppleTalk and AppleShare friendly. It can be run off a network without interference with network communication. Also, when a server shuts down, Twilight II will not crash or hang. Being very stable, Twilight II should not interfere with any applications. The screen can be blanked under the few different types of programs listed below. Mouse screen corners can be used in all of the types of programs below. However, corners assigned to foreground blank now will only work in desktop-based programs. Also, when corners are used in other than desktop-based programs, you must position the mouse exactly in the corner to achieve the desired result. We are investigating workarounds to make this easier for the future. Desktop-based Desktop-based programs run under GS/OS and are easily identified by the standard Apple menu bar, interface look and feel. Examples include: GraphicWriter III, Platinum Paint, AppleWorks GS, Finder, Installer, GS Shrinkit, Foundation, Switch-It, and many others. Twilight II is most flexible under such programs -- both background and foreground blanks are possible. Text mode-based Text mode-based programs can run under either GS/OS or ProDOS 8(tm). The classic desk accessory menu that appears when you press Command-Control-Escape is an example of text mode, as are Applesoft Basic, AppleWorks Classic, ProTerm, the Orca/M shell, GNO/ME, and many more. In text mode based programs, Twilight II will automatically perform a background blank when the computer has not been interacted with for the amount of time specified. Foreground blanking is not possible, so you will never notice any special effects being performed by Twilight II in text mode based programs. Low-Res, High-Res, and Double High-Res Mode-based ProDOS 8 programs such as Publish-It!, use the low-resolution, high-resolution, or double high-resolution graphics modes can also be blanked by Twilight II. When it is time to blank, Twilight II will clear the screen to black in the background, thus allowing the program running to continue. No special effects will be performed in these programs, in order to ensure full compatibility. _________________________________________________________________ Using Twilight II Each time Twilight II is opened, you will see a window similar to the picture at the bottom of this page. The Main Window Changes made to Twilight II's main window will not take effect until the window is closed. For example, if you make Twilight II temporarily inactive, these changes will not take effect until the main window is closed. Unfortunately, at times, this logic can be somewhat confusing until you adjust to it. For instance, if you previously had the Fireworks module selected and then you open up Twilight II, select Cyclone, and move to a foreground blank now corner, the screen will blank using Fireworks, not Cyclone, because the module change does not take effect until the main window is closed. List of Installed Modules The names of all the modules currently installed in the Twilight folder will appear in this list. Modules currently selected as toggled on will have a small box to the left of their name. Two modules will always be present in this list (even when the Twilight module folder is empty) because they are internally built in; their names are italicized to denote this. These modules are Background Fader and Foreground Fader. Background Fader is special because it always does a background blank (allowing the program running to continue after the screen has been set to blank by Twilight II) when the time to blank has elapsed, instead of blanking in the foreground (where the program running would be interrupted until the screen is unblanked.) For this reason, Background Fader is also underlined. Foreground Fader will also make the screen black, but like all modules (other than Background Fader) it will interrupt the program running with Twilight II blanks the screen in a desktop-based program. Note: Any modules in the list that appear dimmed (gray and not selectable) all the time are not compatible with your version of Twilight II. Contact DigiSoft Innovations for information on upgrading to the latest version of Twilight II. About Module Command-? This button gives information on the currently selected module and displays the current version of Twilight II. About information is not available in 320 mode programs, the selected module is internal (i.e. italicized), or the setup window is open. When about module is not available, the button will be dimmed or will produce a warning alert when clicked. Blank Now Command-B Blank now gives you a preview of the currently selected module's special effects. Previews are not available of the Background fader. Setup Command-S Clicking on the setup button will open the Twilight II setup window which allows you to configure how each module operates to suit your tastes. Not all modules support being set up, but most do. You can set up each module independently of every other-- so when you change the setup of one module, the setups of the other modules aren't lost. In addition, if you boot your Apple IIGS off a multi-user AppleShare(R) network, each user can have their own, independent set of Twilight II preferences that don't interfere with anyone else's! Setup data under normal conditions is saved in a file called Twilight.Setup in the Twilight module folder. (If you are on an AppleShare network, it is saved to your user folder on the server.) Setup is only available in 640-mode desktop programs. When not available, the setup button will appear dimmed or will produce a warning alert. If setup is clicked when a module that supports setup is selected, then Twilight II will directly open the setup screen for that module. Otherwise, the setup window will be opened up to the corners screen. Purge Twilight II Command-P This button allows you to quickly remove Twilight II from memory. After selecting this, your computer will behave as if Twilight II was not installed (as if you held down Control during boot to prevent Twilight II from loading, or if Twilight II was not installed in your boot disk's CDevs folder at all). This option only affects memory-- Twilight II is not deleted from your disk. To reactivate Twilight II, you can either reboot, select the Twilight II icon from the Control Panels desk accessory, or double-click on the Twilight II icon in the Finder. Random Mode Modules listed with a box immediately left of their names (use the Toggle Modules button to turn that on or off) are counted as being usable for the Random Mode of Twilight II. The Background Fader module, due to its nature, is not available to be toggled. When it is time to blank, one of toggled modules will be chosen at random and used. Some modules may behave differently or have special options in random mode. Short Out, for instance, will short the screen to black and then immediately run another random module. Otherwise, it will short the screen to black and delay until a key has been pressed. Modules can be automatically shuffled in random mode after a certain preset amount of time. For information on this, see the Setup:Advanced Options window. Twilight II Active Command-T This control allows you to temporarily turn off Twilight II. The screen will not blank once Twilight II is inactivated in this fashion, but all memory allocated by Twilight II will be kept in use. Toggling this option is the functional equivalent of pressing Shift-Clear until the border color flashes. See Miscellaneous features: Temporary Deactivation for more information on this feature. Note: the status of this option is not saved to disk. The next time you turn on or restart your computer, Twilight II will automatically default to being active again. _________________________________________________________________ The Setup Window The setup window, shown below with the options screen, provides a great deal of flexibility in customizing Twilight II. Three setup screens are built into Twilight II and will always be available: Screen Corners, Options, and Advanced Options. Other setup screens will depend on which modules you have installed. Three controls will always be available at the top of the setup window: Setup The Setup popup control is used to select the module or options to be configured. After a module is selected from the Setup Control, you can make changes to the controls created that will affect the operation of the module. Save Command-S After you have made changes to a module's setup screen, you must click the save button for your changes to be remembered. This takes a little while getting used to, but allows you the flexibility of not saving your changes if you ever mess up. Twilight II can remind you when your new settings have not been saved; see Warning Alerts later in this document. Save will not be enabled (selectable) until you have modified a setup screen. Test Command-T The test button allows you to instantly see how your setup changes will affect a module. Upon clicking test, first your changes are saved, and then a 'Blank Now' of the module being set up is performed. Test is not enabled when configuring the screen corners, options or advanced options. _________________________________________________________________ Screen Corners The screen corners setup screen, depicted below, allows you to give each of the four corners of the screen a specific function. There is a slight delay of a couple seconds before Twilight II will react to the mouse being placed in a corner. Four functions can be assigned: Disabled Twilight II does not behave any differently when the mouse is in the corner. Never Blank Twilight II will never blank the screen when the mouse is in the corner. The cursor will change into a crossed out Twilight II icon to visually indicate this. Foreground Blank Now Twilight II blank the screen immediately using the currently active effect (or randomly from among the toggled modules). The program that was running will be halted and will not resume until it is time to unblank the screen. Background Blank Now Twilight II will immediately fade the screen to black, but the program that was running is not stopped. So if you go to a background blank now corner while copying files in the Finder, the screen will fade to black, but the copy will not stop. With foreground blank now, the copy would have stopped until the screen is restored. Options This setup screen allows you to customize many features of Twilight II. These features are as follows, with keyboard equivalents where available listed with the feature name. Mouse Movement Unblanks Desktop Command-D When this control is unchecked, the mouse will not be allowed to restore the screen after the screen has blanked in desktop-based programs. Menu Bar Box Command-M When checked, Twilight II will flash a small black square in the upper right corner of the top menu bar of desktop-based programs to alert you that it is active. This square might seem to visually appear to interfere with some programs that have many menus spanning across the entire screen, but no permanent damage can ever be caused. Install T2 NDA Command-I When checked, Twilight II will always install a shortcut New Desk Accessory (NDA) item in the Apple menu that will open up Twilight II directly, bypassing the Control Panels desk accessory. Twilight II's handy NDA will have keyboard equivalents of Command-Control-T, Command-~ or Command-`. Each of these equivalents is only available if it is not already in use by the desktop application currently running when the key combination is pressed. Warning Alerts Command-A With this option enabled, Twilight II will alert you when any of the following situations occur: * A setup screen has been modified and the changes have not yet been made. * Blank now has been pressed, but the Caps Lock key is down and the caps lock "lock" option is on. * Purge Twilight II has been selected. * Setup or About module has been clicked in a 320-mode desktop program. * Setup has been clicked and the currently selected module does not support setup. Prohibit Sound Command-P Many modules have sound effects to accompany their effects. While these sounds normally can be toggled on and off in each specific module's setup screen, this option enables you to quickly and easily prohibit sound use in all modules at once. Low Memory Mode Command-L Low memory mode was designed for users with less memory free. With low memory mode on, Twilight II uses 32K less memory than normal. The only disadvantages are that some modules might run slightly slower, and the few modules, such as Impulse 3-D that require a special feature called shadowing to work right will be slightly more likely to produce error messages when run. Beeping Unblanks Command-B Through this option, Twilight II can be told to unblank when your computer beeps. If the screen has been background blanked, in either a desktop-based or text mode-based program, and the application emits a system beep (which may cause a specific sound effect to be played if the System 6 Sound control panel is installed), Twilight II will unblank the screen when this option is on. This option may not work with every program, but virtually all Apple IIGS-specific software should be compatible. Use QuickResponse Command-U Twilight II incorporates a revolutionary new method to detect keypresses without interfering with your computer and the way you use it. However, this technique requires that you must be running a ROM 01 or ROM 3 Apple IIGS (required anyhow for System 6) and an Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) keyboard, such as the detached keyboard that came with your computer. If these requirements are not met, you should not have this option enabled. Caps Lock "Lock" Command-C When checked, the position of the Caps Lock key becomes important, because it 'locks' the current state of the screen when it is in the down position. With this option on, if the screen is unblanked, and the caps lock key is pressed down, the screen will never blank until Caps Lock is returned to the up position. Similarly, if the screen is blanked, and the caps lock key is down, the screen will not unblank until Caps Lock is released. This is a very versatile feature. One nifty use is to use Caps Lock to stop the screen from accidentally unblanking. For instance, you might want to watch the snow fill up your desktop. Use this feature to stop you from accidentally restoring the screen (and stopping the snow!) Several game modules may also require you to press Caps Lock down to be able to interact with them. Text Screen Blank Use this option to tell Twilight II which types of text mode-based programs you want the screen to be background blanked in. The following options are available: blank all programs that use the text screen (e.g. Applesoft Basic, AppleWorks Classic, ProTerm, the Orca/M shell, GNO/ME), or only blank GS/OS text mode-based programs (Orca/M and GNO/ME from the above list), or never blank text mode-based programs. DoubleClick Function What double-clicking on a module's name (in the list of modules on the main Twilight II window) will do can be adjusted with this control. Double-clicks can either be ignored, toggled, set to blank now, close Twilight II, or setup the selected module. If you're setting up a module which does not support setup, Twilight II will select the "Screen Corners" setup screen for you. Watch Cursor Twilight II can be set to behave differently when the on-screen cursor (in desktop programs) is a watch. Twilight II can either never blank in these cases; or automatically background blank; or be ignored so that a regular blank occurs (blank normally). This is a very powerful feature. With this option set to background blank, you could be in the Finder and walk away while it's doing nothing, and a normal blank would occur (using the active effect module.) Then you could instruct the Finder to copy some files, and walk away, and automatically since the cursor has turned to a watch, Twilight II will do a background blank so the copy can continue. (Similar situations happen during many other operations such as printing with most programs, or shrinking and unshrinking files with GS Shrinkit.) As you can probably tell, in most instances you will want to leave this option set to background blank. But there are a few special instances when you may want to have Twilight II set to not blank when a watch cursor is on-screen. Some older Apple printer drivers do not like the screen being made blank during printing and will print a constant stream of black after the screen has background blanked during printing. If you notice this happening you will want to set this option to never blank. Minutes Before Blanking This control allows you to set the default number of minutes of no activity that Twilight II will let elapsed before automatically blanking the screen. To change the value, you may either press the up-arrow or down-arrow on the keyboard or click on the little up and down-arrow icons. Setup: Advanced Options This part of the Setup Window contains extra options added since Twilight II v1.1. SHR Corners Active When this options is enabled (checked), the screen corners as set up in the Setup:Screen Corners are honored. When unchecked, that is the equivalent of setting all 4 corners to disabled. Swap Modules Every XX:YY minutes This option lets you force a module change after a specified amount of time in a foreground blank. If there are multiple modules toggled active, and the current one has been active for the specified time, it will exit and another random module from those toggled will be run. Certain modules that do small things like Short Out may exit before the specified time period, and if a module has put up an error message (usually due to lack of memory or inability to find files it wants) will always exit after about 25 seconds. Use Different Module Path This option allows you to set the directory where Twilight II looks for all its modules in. The "(Default)" path is selected by default, and is *:System:CDevs:Twilight: (* is the boot disk). With the 'Set It' button, another directory can be specified. All your modules must reside in the same folder. After changing the module path, you must reboot for Twilight II to recognize it. _________________________________________________________________ Info on various Modules The setup screens of each installed module will vary. Most options are self-explanatory for the most part, but a few modules require extra elaboration. Fish, Globe & Toast These three modules can take GS graphics files ($C1 uncompressed SHR screen image or APF) with specially formatted graphics to animate with. Fish and Toast require pictures with things in the right places to look correct, while Globe can animate part of the screen if it does not have a picture. You should look at the 'FishPix', 'GlobePix' and 'ToastPix' directories and files within from the T2 graphics pack for examples as to how the graphics must be formatted. If you think you can draw, and want to let others view your creations, please send any submissions to nathan@visi.com. MenuWiper Blanker As noted by this module's "About" box, this blanker requires MenuWiper 2.0 from Softdisk Publishing. If not installed, it will do nothing. Movie Theater Movie Theater allows you to display PaintWorks (filetype $C2) type animation files when it's time to blank. This popular file format can be viewed and created with programs with programs such as DreamGrafix, PaintWorks, and Platinum Paint. You should select animations that modify the contents of the screen enough to prevent burn-in. PhanTom PhanTom lets you use all effects from the Phantasm screen saver (part of Signature GS) with Twilight II. Phantasm effect modules have a filetype of "GS/OS Shell application" ($B5, or EXE). Included with Twilight II are a variety of freeware effect modules you can use with Phantom. (All Phantom effect files installed by the procedure outlined previously in the section Installing Twilight II are installed in a folder named Phantom.Effects, in the Twilight module folder.) The setup screen for Phantom has three controls: demo, configure, and select effect. Before blanking with Phantom or using demo or configure, you should select an effect to use by clicking the select effect button or pressing Command-E. 'Open' the effect you want to use. be sure you are selecting a valid effect! Then click save to save to save the selected effect. Most Phantom effects do not support configure, so if you click it and nothing happens, do not be alarmed. To preview effects we recommend you use test (or blank now) rather than demo, because some modules may not demo correctly. Roller This module had an annoying beep on entry, plus occasional reports of crashing some systems. I do not have source to it, and have not had time to rewrite it. Thus, it is shipped as disabled in this distribution. If you want to try using it despite the warnings above, you can manually enable it from the Finder just like you would any DA, init, or CDev. SLED (Super LED Message) While there is no official documentation on this module, the 'SLED.Messages' folder included with the SLED module has a number of examples of messages. Play around with them in a text editor to learn what can be done. YouDrawIt! The YouDrawIt module allows you to use any Apple IIGS paint program to design graphics that will be animated when the screen is blanked. Enclosed with the Twilight II distribution are what we feel represent the best assortment of animations previously drawn by average users like yourself! Use them for ideas and examples. (These are part of the Twilight II graphics distribution, and can be installed where you want) There are two types of animation picture files for use with YouDrawIt: normal animation template files (ATF's), and extended animation template files (EATF's.) The only difference is that ATF's allow 14 frames of animation and EATF's allow 28. (Because of this, EATFs can also take up twice as much space on disk). These are standard Apple Preferred Format (APF) pictures-- make sure you tell your paint program to save ATFs/EATFs in APF for use with YouDrawIt. We recommend you use a nomenclature of giving the filenames of ATFs a suffix of ".ATF" and the filenames of EATFs a suffix of ".EATF" to prevent confusion. To set the animation that will be used when it is time for YouDrawIt to blank the screen, click the 'set animation path' button on the YouDrawIt setup screen, or press Command-A. Then 'open' the animation file that you want to use. ATF/EATF file can be located on any disk, with one restriction: they must be on a disk present when YouDrawIt blanks the screen. If YouDrawIt can't find the currently selected ATF/EATF, you will get an error. This won't hurt anything, but an error message is a lot less interesting to watch! Creating your own animations for use with YouDrawIt is a fun and enjoyable experience. Blank versions of these picture templates are included with Twilight II. They have filenames of Blank.ATF and Blank.EATF. To create your own animation, do the following: 1. Load up either of these blank templates into your favorite paint program that supports APF files. 2. Draw each frame in the boxes provided. 3. Fill in the box (using the paint bucket tool or the like) next to the number of frames in your file. You may fill it with any color other than the color that was there to begin with. You can now select the picture file from YouDrawIt. When the screen is blanked, your animation will be run. _________________________________________________________________ Other Information This section contains miscellaneous features, tips and hints not found elsewhere in this manual. Temporary Deactivation To temporarily deactivate Twilight II at any time after loading, press and hold down Shift and Clear (on the numeric keypad) until the border color flashes. Twilight II's overhead will then be minimized and the screen will not blank, but no memory will be freed. (To free memory after loading, you must purge Twilight II.) If you press Shift-Clear you can toggle Twilight II back on. The border will flash a different color to inform you that Twilight II is being reactivated. The colors the border will flash will depend on what color your border normally is. The status of this operation is also reflected by the Twilight II active control on the main window and is not saved to disk. Restoring Default Settings If for some reason you should ever want to restore Twilight II to its default settings, simply delete the Twilight.Setup and Twilight.Data files located in the same folder as the Twilight Control panel. Control-Booting You can force Twilight II not to install itself by holding down Control while the computer is being started. To denote this, a red 'X' being drawn over the Twilight II bootup icon. This feature will only work when you have Twilight II installed in the CDevs folder of your startup disk. For control-booting to work, Control must be the only key held down during startup, and you must hold it down before Twilight II loads. Modules With Sound Effects Due to the architecture of the GS, it is not always possible for some modules (e.g. Fireworks) to always play their digitized sound effects. Whether the sounds play or not depends on what program you are currently running, in the same way that system sounds configured with the Sound control panel do not play all the time. Disabled Modules Any Twilight II module can be made inactive with a utility such as the Finder. After a module has been made inactive, it will not appear in the main window's module list in any way. The icons of disabled Twilight II modules have a red 'X' drawn over them so they are easily distinguishable from the Finder. As the speed of opening up the Twilight II window has been greatly sped up since v1.1, this feature may not be as useful anymore. Random Mode Special Behavior Some modules have special features or behave differently in random mode. Modules such as Headlines, Mountains, String Art and Plasma have options to quit to the next module after one headline, mountain, string art or plasma screen has been generated (when more than one module is toggled only). Short Out and Color by Color will automatically quit to the next module when run with more than one module toggled. Meltdown will quit to the next module after a few minutes in random mode instead of flipping the screen upside down. You can combine these options for some really neat effects! Here are some ideas you can try; these are just a few examples-- the possibilities are endless! * Select Short Out with any other module. If Short Out comes up first, it will short the screen out and then run the next module. For example, select Short Out with String Art. After one string art has been completed, the screen will short out and another string art will be created. * Select Mountains with the Color by Color module. After one mountain screen has been generated, the screen will fade out, color by color. After all the colors have faded out, another mountain scene will be rendered! * Select Plasma and Worms. If Twilight II runs Plasma first, one plasma screen will be drawn, and then Worms will draw over the plasma. Delayed Blanking during Printing When the screen blanks during printing, you may experience a several second delay before the screen is blanked, and before it is restored. _________________________________________________________________ Appendix 1: Frequently Asked Questions and Answers I'm in a GS/OS desktop-based program by the screen won't blank while the program is busy. Why not? Twilight II does everything possible to blank the screen in as many programs as possible. However, due to the design of certain programs and the architecture of the Apple IIGS, Twilight II is unable to blank or animate the screen in all programs all the time. A general rule of thumb, true most of the time, is if you are able to in some way interact with the program you are running, the screen will be able to blank. For instance, the screen can be blanked during printing because you can always cancel the printing with Command-Period; the screen is able to be blanked during copying files with the Finder because you can click the cancel button to stop the copy; the screen can be blanked in the middle of programs such as AppleWorks GS and GraphicWriter III because you can select something from a menu or type a key that the program will recognize. Whenever the desktop program running will recognize your input, Twilight II will usually be able to blank the screen. (Note that in text mode-based programs, the screen is always able to be blanked at virtually any time.) Programmers are encouraged to follow a few simple guidelines to allow the fullest compatibility with Twilight II, so the desktop screen can always be blanked. See Writing Twilight II Savvy Programs in Appendix II for more information. No matter what I do, Twilight II will never blank on its own; I must always move to a blank now corner. What is going wrong? After installing Twilight II, my computer sometimes crashes or hangs for no reason. Why? Several different things could be happening. For some reason, the Twilight.Setup could have gotten corrupted. This might have happened for a number of reasons, such as if you turned off the computer or hit Command-Control-Reset to reboot while the Twilight II main window was open -- be sure to always close Twilight II first! In this case, you should try deleting Twilight.Setup (which is created in the same folder as the Twilight II Control Panel, or your user folder if you are on an AppleShare network) and rebooting. (Note that all your saved setup will be lost and must be reset to your preferences) Another possibility could be that there is a conflict between Twilight II and one of your installed inits, desk accessories (DAs), or control panels. We have tried to minimize and correct all such incompatibilities as possible, but nonetheless some may still exist. To see if there is such a conflict, try starting your computer with Apple's self-booting System.Disk that is a part of System 6. This disk will only have Apple's programs installed. When the Finder comes up, locate the Twilight.II control panel icon and double-click to install it. If the screen will now blank on its own and no problems occur, then you definitely have a conflict between Twilight II and an init, DA, or control panel. The next step is to locate which file is conflicting; to determine this, try deactivating each of your inits, DAs, and control panels and then rebooting. Eventually, you will find the one conflicting with Twilight II. If you suspect that Twilight II is conflicting with a specific program or init, you can control-boot (by holding down control at startup) to stop Twilight II from installing into memory, to see if your suspicions are correct. If you notice Twilight II inhibiting any other programs from working properly, be sure to report this to us so we can work at fixing the problems or creating workarounds. Please report any problems noted to Nathan Mates via email to nathan@visi.com . Any reports given elsewhere may be ignored or worse. Please learn to follow simple directions by the authors. How come after Twilight II background blanks during printing, my printout turns all black? Some older, somewhat poorly written GS/OS printer driver make certain assumptions about the state of the computer during printing. If you are using one of these drivers, you have several options: * change the WatchCursor feature (in Setup:Options) to don't blank. * always move the mouse to a never blank corner before printing * turn on caps lock "Lock" (in Setup:Options) and press Caps Lock before printing * deactivate or purge Twilight II before printing and reactivate or reinstall after the printing is done. * update your printer driver; all drivers from Independence and Harmonie will work fine. Apple kinda forgot to update their drivers for System 6.0.1, so a GUPP patch by Nathan Mates might be the solution - last GUPP release to public was v1.07. What does "Unknown error $0120" mean? The Control Panels window occasionally gives this error if there is a severe RAM shortage. Try freeing up some memory. When the Twilight II icon appears during startup, the computer beeps and then the icon is crossed out. What is happening? Twilight II has encountered a serious error while starting up. Because the error occurred during boot, Twilight II has no way to tell you what happened, so installation and activation are skipped. If you would like a more descriptive error message, double-click the Twilight.II icon from the Finder or use the graphical Control Panels window. Twilight II can often be restored to working order by deleting the Twilight.Setup file in the same folder as the control panel. This will fix many situations, but is not a cure-all. Also make sure the disk Twilight II is on is not write protected. When I run my telecommunication program with Twilight II installed, some of my incoming characters are lost. Why does this happen and how can I fix it? Twilight II 1.0 and 1.1 were not as well behaved in this regards than the current version of Twilight II. If you are using Spectrum 2.x, then use the Twilight II XCMD included with it (or the updated XCMD distributed as part of this package) to turn Twilight II off either whenever Spectrum is online, or when it is running. After installing the new XCMD included in this Twilight II distribution, the options will be available from the Xtras/Options (or Xtras/File Transfer Options) menu. If you choose not to install the new XCMD, you can open an Editor Window (command-E), type this as the first line in the file: "external TwilightII" (no "s), and hit command-- (command plus the minus key just left of the zero key). It is recommended that you choose to 'Inactivate Twilight II while using Spectrum' for best performance.. Ansiterm is handled automatically, and no problems have been reported. With ProTerm, you should use the Shift-clear to manually fix things, or Setup:Options to set Twilight II only blank in GS/OS text mode or never blank text mode at all. The technical cause of this problem is that your system is getting bogged down with too many interrupts. You have too many inits, desk accessories, control panels, etc installed and they're all competing for the same limited resources. This problem is most likely to occur on slower systems with fast modems and lots of inits, etc. installed. Your choices are several: * Try deactivating or deleting some of your least used inits, desk accessories, and control panels. It is hard to tell which of them are most likely to combine with Twilight II to slow down your term program, so you might have to use trial and error. * Temporarily deactivate Twilight II by unchecking the Twilight II active checkbox on the main window (or pressing Shift-Clear) before running your term program. * Purge Twilight II (or hold down Control during startup so Twilight II will not install) before running the term program. * If your term program runs under ProDOS 8, you can probably press Control-Reset directly after launching the program. Twilight II will now be inactive until you quit back to GS/OS. Twilight II's WatchCursor option does not work in one of my programs. What is wrong? This option (having Twilight II automatically background blank or never blank when the cursor on-screen is a watch) only works with programs that use the standard method of displaying a watch. Fortunately, the majority of all programs work just fine. However, there are a few programs that insists on displaying a watch in a nonstandard way (e.g. GraphicWriter II, HyperCard IIGS). Unfortunately, there is no way for you to make these programs work with Twilight II's WatchCursor option. If this disturbs you, we encourage you to contact the publishers of programs such as these and tell them you'd like to seem them fixed. What does Error $0201 mean? In general, this is an out of memory error. If this happens when launching a ProDOS 8 application, this tends to mean that some program as forgotten to release memory allocated in the first 128K of ram, which is required for ProDOS 8 stuff. Some reports have come up that 0201s may occur on their system after using Setup a lot from within UtilityLaunch, but this has been unable to be replicated well enough to find and fix any possible bug in either Twilight II or UL. Cool Cursor Control Panel (CCCP) is forcing background blanks or causing problems Various versions of CCCP could do various things with Twilight II; it has been reported that the cccp from GS+ Magazine V5N3 forces a background blank of Twilight II during printing, even if the Twilight II setup has the wait cursor set to "Don't Blank". Twilight II honors requests from other programs over the setup, sorry. Some modules aren't using TrueType Fonts [Note: the commercial software _Pointless_ by WestCode software is required for a GS to use Truetype fonts at all; see Joe Kohn's Shareware Solutions II at http://www.crl.com/~joko/ for pricing and availability.] Certain modules like Fading Clock and Headlines allow you to specify what font you wish to have things displayed with. It has been noticed that if a TrueType-only font and size (i.e. no bitmap exists for that size) is selected, it will occasionally be drawn as an ugly scaled up 'Shaston' (GS default font) versus the expected TT font. After a few requests for the font, Pointless may give the module a nice font as expected. This appears to be a bug in Pointless, and has not been investigated further as it is only the occasional graphical quirk. Select a font and size for which you have a bitmap if you don't want to be bothered by this. Pointless can render off a font in the style and size you want if desired-- see its control panel menu. _________________________________________________________________ Thanks To... * Joe Wankerl (KFest '92 Debugging sessions, feedback, testing) * Jim Murphy (DataField, help, phone calls, testing) * Derek Young (support, writing some cool modules, KFest, great help at the October Expo!, etc) * Matt Keller (some great art, icons, support, etc.) * James C. Smith (more awesome modules, installer scripts, much more) * Michael Lutynski (testing, support, awesome T2 $C2 made with Animasia 3-D!) * Matt Deatherage & Dave Lyons (answering many questions and/or putting T2 thru its paces!) * Eric Shepherd ("Quotes" module, ideas, testing) * Greg Templeman (lots of bug feedback, ideas, "product champion!") * Marc & Tammy Wolfgram & Collings (more ideas, support, booth sharing at AEE & AEW, great printing and fonts help) * John Pothier (most conscientious! testing) * Nathan Mates (some cool modules!, v1.99/2.0 fixes, 2.0 manual update) * Seth Ober, Mark Ranes, Andy Poly, Chuck Newby (beta test) * Bryan "Zak" (HIG advice too) & Joe Schober (AO Support too) * Steve "Diz" Disbrow (GS+ support) * Jim Mensch (core of "Tiler") * Dan Zimmerman (System 6 support, testing) * Dan Wellman (support, feedback, KFest '92, etc) * Andy Wells (more ideas, testing) * Dino Bagdadi (ideas, testing) * Scott Gentry & Marty Knight (AO support, at one time or another) * Don Zahniser, Aaron Pulver, Eric Shepherd, Dan Krass, Nick Heywood, Ryan Suenaga, Geoff Weiss, Mike Searl, Mitch Spector, Brian Uhreen, Tim Kellers, Tony Ward, Jeff Robertson, Tony Diaz T2 v1.99 beta testing. [Probably left out someone from that list. Sorry!] * you our customers * And anyone accidentally forgotten who helped in this massive undertaking! _________________________________________________________________ Credits... * Twilight II Control Panel: Jim R. Maricondo * Twilight II Manual: Jim R. Maricondo * Color by Color, Cyclone, Drip Drop, Fading Clock, Fireworks, Headlines, Inverter, Life, Mountains, Plasma, Scanner, Scroll, Short Out, Snow, String Art, TunnelVision II, Twilight: James C. Smith * Impulse 3-D, Meltdown, Moire, Spirographics, Strobe, Universe, YouDrawIt!: Jim R. Maricondo * Movie Theater, Phantom: Jim R. Maricondo and Derek Young * Puzzling, Worms: Jim R. Maricondo and Jonah Stich * Dissolve, Kaleidoscope, Static: Derek Young * Tiler: Jim R. Maricondo and Jim Mensch * Quotes: Eric Shepherd * Clocks, Fish, Flames, Globe, LED Message, Minehunt, MiniFireworks, Modern Art, MultiTris, Perspective, Power Grid!, Sharks and Fish, Snowflakes, Spirals, Swirls, Toast, Tunnel Game, Voting: Nathan Mates * Installer Scripts: James C. Smith * DataField Control DefProc: Jim Murphy III * Sound Patcher: Jim R. Maricondo * Version 1.99/2.x Control Panel Update: Jim R. Maricondo * Version 1.99/2.x Control Panel tweaks, bugfixes & manual update: Nathan Mates * Updated Spectrum Twilight II XCMD: Ewen Wannop. Some modules contain material from the Orca/C Run-Time Libraries, Copyright (c) 1987-1989 Byte Works, Inc. Used with permission. This document was originally written, edited and composed using Apple IIGS and Macintosh computers, using a variety of commercial and custom programs. Final editing and page layout for v1.1 manual were done using Aldus PageMaker 4.2. Version 1.99/2.x manual converted to html and text by Nathan Mates. _________________________________________________________________ About DigiSoft Innovations Quality Software Without Copy Protection DYA, which originally stood for "Digital Youth Alliance," was founded in January 1990 to join the efforts of several people to create quality programs for the Apple IIGS. Presently, DYA has faded to two members busily trying to complete their educations. DigiSoft Innovations is a small business formed in January 1992 by DYA, to handle marketing, distribution, and promotion of new DYA products, the first of which is Twilight II. We are a small group of die hard Apple II hacker-enthusiasts who love expanding the known 'limits' of the Apple IIGS in the fields of animation, sound, education, entertainment and productivity. We strive to create high quality products at modest prices. But, producing quality programs requires much time, and if we cannot make enough money to make it worthwhile enough to continue pouring so much time and effort into the Apple IIGS. Twilight II Distribution Policies Currently, Twilight II is in beta format, and I do not want this distinction to be lost from it. Other user groups, etc, please contact me first for permissions. General policies will be: (1) distribute the latest version of everything without modification, (2) no more than $5/disk (US Dollars) and no more than 4 disks total. Twilight II is officially copyrighted freeware. The core CDev and many modules are by Jim Maricondo (some tweaks by Nathan Mates), plus additional modules copyrighted to their authors as listed above in the credits section. It is NOT to be sold. Yes, this is a big change from Twilight II v1.0 and 1.1, but the bottom has unfortunately fallen out of the GS market, due to people's unwillingness to buy things to support the Apple II. To help support the Apple II, please send encouraging notes to Apple II software authors, and respect all author's copyright and monetary policies. If the author asks for a shareware fee, then PAY UP already. It appears than many are not wanting to spend money on their GSs, which is sadly unfortunate. Nobody wanted to buy the next to last ZipGS accelerator from Alltech for almost a year, but when it was gone and no accelerators were available, suddenly the waiting list was almost into the triple digits deep. A special message to all Apple II computer model users If you want things for your computer, you should get them before everything is totally gone. Don't miss out on an offering by waiting until the next day to get it. If you do, it might be gone. Producing new things is about 1% inspiration and 99% presspiration. Those doing new and inovative things for the Apple II computer models are usually doing it as a labor of love for the computer and for the computer users. With the new programmers and new inovative concepts the best is yet to come. Charadriidae - The Piper