Although the software is basically nice I have several reservations.

1. Every time you start the program my firewall pops up telling me x:\Program Files\Common Files\Thraex Software\AutoUpdator\AutoUpdator.exe wants to contact the internet, which I obviously disallow. There is no option to disable this behaviour as is customary in well-behaved software. I, for the moment, had to rename the file in order to get rid of that. I prefer that over having my firewall blocking it by default just in case I would start it while having my firewall temporary disabled. I very much dislike such behaviour in software and I know I'm not the only one. It would probably have no detrimental effect on the software's functioning to delete this directory with that file.

2. At start-up it always maximises itself and it doesn't 'remember' its last exit size/location as it should.

3. The Add Animation window is annoyingly small causing the need to use a scroll bar when I have a huge screen that would allow a much bigger dialog window which would allow me to select an animation without having to use a scroll bar. I don't understand why developers don't understand this should be done differently.

4. When saving the screensaver it would save me a lot of clicks if there were a few buttons selecting the directory where the .scr file should be saved. "\Windows\system32" would be one for instance since that is where screensavers usually reside. Another would be a user-definable default path which you should be able to define in some options window. I mean... really... no 'Options' or 'Settings' window?

5. The created screensaver's animation stutters even when CPU use is modest and my 3D accelerated graphics card can handle animated screensavers which seem to be much 'heavier'.

6. I wanted to use the "Import image" option to add an image of the moon that I wanted to drift slowly across the sky. Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to set a fixed level where the motion should occur resulting in the moon crawling over the foreground objects in the bottom of the screen or wherever it likes. This option should be added.

7. It would be nice if you could constrain certain animations to certain areas of the screen. Also a few more animations would be nice. Butterflies and hopping and pecking birds for instance. For such birds an area constraint would be necessary.

So: Nice... but still with ample room for improvement.

Ben  –  13 years ago  –  Ritieni questo commento utile? sì | no (+31)

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Needs a means to preview what you are going to use... like the thumbnails or filmstrip in Explorer. Due to my work, I have hundreds, which DO preview in the various apps that I use. Elsewise, it's quite good!

Lou  –  13 years ago  –  Ritieni questo commento utile? sì | no (+21)

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It is a great program.But I'd like to add sound to the screensaver.

Geek Hillbilly  –  13 years ago  –  Ritieni questo commento utile? sì | no (+20)

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I really liked Animated Screensaver Maker last time it was on GOTD, but then after spending a few hours creating screensavers with it, I was *very* disappointed to find out they wouldn't run on most of the other PCs I tried them on -- so a quick word of warning: Before you spend a lot of time/effort, make a screensaver out of one of the samples & make sure it works where you want it to. One other note is that at least without install, testing one of the samples in another OS, it did not stretch to wide screen.

That out of the way, you import your image into Animated Screensaver Maker, apply FX, optionally add sprites that follow a path you set, & create a screensaver. An easy way to start is with a Windows wallpaper image, since there are so many available showing water or coastlines that you can add a quick ripple effect to, & that'll let you see how the app works.

Installation adds the program's folder with 11 files at ~8.6 MB. Samples are stored in a sub-folder of My Documents, an 11 MB file [common_res.dll] is added to Windows' system folder, while "Animated Screensaver Maker Uninstaller.exe" is added to the Windows folder itself. Finally the "Thraex Software" folder is added to Common Files -- it contains their Auto Updater. Registry changes aren't too bad. In XP [not 7] it registers "jpg;.jpeg;.jpe;.jfif;.bmp;.png", and in both Windows versions Activate.exe adds the license key to the User section of the registry -- if you have more than one profile set up, you'll probably want to install & activate in each one of them today, assuming you like & keep the software. All told I think the Thraex updater adds 2 keys, there are 4 new shell keys, one key for uninstall, & once you run activate, 2 User keys for the app itself. It would install but not run, throwing an error in both XP & 7 VMs [Virtual Machines] -- I suspect it has graphics hardware requirements to run, & stricter requirements to run well, as like I mentioned, screensavers would not run on every PC.

mike  –  13 years ago  –  Ritieni questo commento utile? sì | no (+16)

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ATTN wtfisthis - please let us know the make and version number of your virus scanner so we can all avoid it. Thank you.

(hint: false positives are not helpful)

tman  –  13 years ago  –  Ritieni questo commento utile? sì | no (+11)

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