Screensaver
A screensaver (or screen saver) is a
As well as computers, modern television operating systems, media players, and other digital entertainment systems may include optional screensavers.
Purpose
Screen protection
Before the advent of
Screen-saver programs were designed to help avoid these effects by automatically changing the images on the screen during periods of user inactivity.
For CRTs used in public, such as ATMs and railway ticketing machines, the risk of burn-in is especially high because a stand-by display is shown whenever the machine is not in use. Older machines designed without burn-in problems taken into consideration often display evidence of screen damage, with images or text such as "Please insert your card" (in the case of ATMs) visible even when the display changes while the machine is in use. Blanking the screen is out of the question as the machine would appear to be out of service. In these applications, burn-in can be prevented by shifting the position of the display contents every few seconds, or by having a number of different images that are changed regularly.
Later CRTs were much less susceptible to
Modern usage
While modern screens are not susceptible to the issues discussed above, screensavers are still used. Primarily these are for decorative/entertainment purposes, or for password protection. They usually feature moving images or patterns and sometimes sound effects.
As screensavers are generally expected to activate when users are away from their machines, many screensavers can be configured to ask users for a password before permitting the user to resume work. This is a basic security measure against another person accessing the machine while the user is absent.
Some screensavers activate a useful background task, such as a
History
Decades before the first computers using this technology were invented,
Opposite his chair was a stereovision tank disguised as an aquarium; he switched it on, guppies and tetras gave way to the face of the well-known Winchell Augustus Greaves.
The first screensaver was allegedly written for the original
By 1983 a
The
of a computer.In 2015 the screensaver "Event listeners"[10] of van den Dorpel became the first work of art that was purchased by a museum (Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna) using the cryptocurrency bitcoin.[11]
Modern graphics technologies such as 3D computer graphics have allowed a wide variety of screensavers to be made. Screensavers with realistic 3D environments can be programmed and run on modern computers.
Underlying architecture
Screensavers are usually designed and coded using a variety of programming languages as well as graphics interfaces. Typically the authors of screensavers use the
Microsoft Windows
If the system detects inactivity lasting longer than the time specified in the control panel, check if the active program is a simple program (and not another screensaver) by sending the "WM_SYSCOMMAND
" message with the "SC_SCREENSAVE
" argument. If the program calls in response the standard system function (DefWindowProc
), the screensaver defined in the control panel screen runs.
A Windows screensaver is a regular
With no parameter – shows the Settings dialog box or do nothing.
ScreenSaver.scr /s
Runs the screensaver.
ScreenSaver.scr/p
or/l
<HWND>
Previews the screensaver as child of window. <HWND>
(presented as unsigned
ScreenSaver.scr /c
Shows the Settings dialog box, modal to the foreground window.
ScreenSaver.scr /a
<HWND>
Changes password, modal to window <HWND>
. Windows 95 screensavers must handle it.
macOS
Under macOS, screensavers are regular macOS application bundles with the .saver
file extension.[13]
Internally, the screensaver must define a class that is subclass of ScreenSaverView
. The new class must be assigned as NSPrincipalClass
in the xcode project, so that when the screensaver is launched by the system, this class gets instantiated.
Atari
As one of the first screensavers appeared in
Considerations
Monitors running screensavers consume the same amount of power as when running normally, which can be anywhere from a few watts for small LCD monitors to several hundred for large plasma displays. Most modern computers can be set to switch the monitor into a lower power mode, blanking the screen altogether. A power-saving mode for monitors is usually part of the power management options supported in most modern operating systems, though it must also be supported by the computer hardware and monitor itself.
Using a screensaver with a flat panel or LCD screen not powering down the screen can actually decrease the lifetime of the display, since the fluorescent backlight remains lit and ages faster than it would if the screen is turned off and on frequently.[14][15] As fluorescent tubes age they grow progressively dimmer, and they can be expensive or difficult to replace. A typical LCD screen loses about 50% of its brightness during a normal product lifetime. In most cases, the tube is an integral part of the LCD and the entire assembly needs to be replaced. This is not true of LED backlit displays.
Thus the term "screen saver" is now something of a misnomer – the best way to save the screen and also save electricity consumed by screen would simply be to have the computer turn off the monitor. Screensavers displaying complex 3D graphics might even add to overall power draw.[citation needed]
Entertainment
At least one screensaver, Johnny Castaway, told a humorous animated story over many months.[16] The ability of screensavers to divert and entertain is used for promotion, especially to build buzz for "event-based" products such as feature films.
The screensaver is also a creative outlet for computer programmers. The
Microsoft Windows
On older versions of
On August 5, 2006, the BBC reported that "free screensavers" and "screensavers" respectively were the first and third most likely search terms to return links to malware, the second being BearShare.[17]
By launching the "bubbles" screensaver executable through the bubbles.scr /p65552
command-line parameter, it runs as
See also
References
- ^ "OKthePK - Screensaver". www.okthepk.ca. Retrieved 2022-09-18.
- ^ Einstein@Home Screensaver | Multi-Directional 2.07, retrieved 2022-09-18
- ^ Phillips, Gavin (2020-01-24). "How to Fix Screen Burn-In on TVs: Plasma, LCD, and OLED". MUO. Retrieved 2022-09-18.
- ^ SETI@home screensaver | Enhanced 5.27, retrieved 2022-09-18
- ^ Screensaver (Inventor of) by Robert Heinlein from Stranger in a Strange Land Archived March 18, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 9780441790340.
- ^ Chin, Kathy (1983-04-11). "Z-29, a new computer terminal from Zenith Data Systems". InfoWorld. p. 13.
- ^ Walter, Derek (29 December 2015). "How to Set Up Android's Daydream Screensaver". Tom's Guide. Retrieved 14 December 2021.
- ^ Hoffman, Chris. "5+ Cool Uses for Android's Daydream Mode". How-To Geek. Retrieved 14 December 2021.
- ^ [https://sammlung.mak.at/en/collection_online?id=collect-372479 MAK Collection Online: Event Listeners by van den Dorpel
- ^ [https://www.artnews.com/art-news/market/mak-vienna-becomes-first-museum-to-acquire-art-using-bitcoin-a-harm-van-den-dorpel-3995/ MAK Vienna Becomes First Museum to Use Bitcoin to Acquire Art, a Harm van den Dorpel
- ^ "INFO: Screen Saver Command Line Arguments". Microsoft.
- ^ "ScreenSaverView - ScreenSaver | Apple Developer Documentation". developer.apple.com. Retrieved 2018-09-25.
- ^ "CBC.ca | Quirks & Quarks | Dinosaur Speed Demon Dawn at Vesta Chivalrous Crickets Hybrid Humans Science Fact or Science Fiction: Fluorescent Lights". www.cbc.ca. Archived from the original on 28 October 2011. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
- ^ "When to Turn off Your Lights".
- ^ Emrich, Alan; Wilson, Johnny L. (January 1993). "The Misadventures of Johnny Castaway". Computer Gaming World. p. 16. Retrieved 5 July 2014.
- ^ "Warning on search engine safety". BBC News. 2006-05-12. Retrieved 2010-06-07.
- ^ "How to run Screensaver as Wallpaper in Windows 11/10". 18 March 2019.
- ^ "Run screensaver as wallpaper in Windows 11/10". 29 October 2023.