ST Lights by Patrick Dugan.

This program is freeware and designed to do very little.  Its main goal is to create the "main screen" 
scanner lights that appear on the Enterprise.  The lights can make your Windows95 screen look like the
main view screen of the Enterprise.  The lights can be configured in many ways (listed below.)  There
isn't any installation program.  The whole thing consists of the readme file you are reading now,
the STLights.exe file and the mainscreen.wav file.  Just place the files where you want and create
a shortcut to the EXE file.  Note: If you run the program with a small delay it will eat more CPU 
time (Around 47% with a delay of 1 millisecond and 15% with a delay of 500 milliseconds.)  The amount
may vary from machine to machine, but you should be aware that a delay as long as possible is better.

By pressing the right mouse button on the lights you will see two options, one to exit the program
and two to bring up the options screen.  The options screen has many features which I will explain
from the top of the window down.

The "Pattern" group changes the way the lights are displayed.  The lights can move from side-to-side
or from the middle out or from the outsides in or a random display.

The Shape group allows you to use round, square or rectangular lights.

The Alignment group lets you determine if the window is displayed on top of all other windows, no
paticular order at all or stay strictly on the bottom.

The "Up" and "Low" buttons will place the display at the top or bottom of your screen.

The "Font" button will bring up a font dialog box to change the font.

The badge on the right of the screen when double-clicked will bring up an "about screen."

The bank of nine buttons (under the "On", "Off", HighLight", "BackGnd", and "Border") represent the 
color of the lights, highlights, background or window border.  Just experiment with these to 
get the color combo you want.  (The "OOn" means OutSide On and "OOff" means OutSide Off)

The "Size" changes the size of the lights displayed.

The "Spacing" changes how far apart each light is from its neighbor.

The "Width" will cause the lights to display only to the width you
specify and only if the "Full screen" is not checked.

The "Delay" is the time (in milliseconds) that will wait to change the lights. Useful to keep
program from hogging the CPU too much.

The "Highlights" will create a small white highlight that appears on each light to make it look like an
LED light.

The "Play" when checked will cause the sound to play.

The "Sync" when checked will cause the sound effect to trigger not by the timer but when the
lights appear each time.  If you select the "Sync" and the "Play sound" is not enabled it will
automatically check the "Play sound" checkbox.

The "Timer" is the time (in milliseconds) that will wait to play the sound effect file you
specify.

The "Browse" button will bring up a new window where you can select the WAV file that you want to
play for the main screen sound.  I have included one example but you can use any WAV file.  Once you
find the WAV file you want you must double-click the filename to close the window and place the name
into the options box.  The small right arrow ">"  will allow you to test the file.

The "Moveable" checkbox allows you to drag the lights with your mouse.

The "Full Screen" will cause the lights to display across the entire screen and the Width number
below that is only effective if the "Full screen" is not checked.

The "Hide Taskbar" will keep the program name off of the taskbar.


Version Information

V1.3  Feburary 16, 1998
   Added simplified color selections for the LEDS and background.  Added more color selections
for greater control of appearance.

V1.1a  December 26, 1997
   Added some error checking missing before if you tried to force the LED size to be smaller than
the limit of 4.  Corrected a bug if you used a size of 4 and screen width of 1024 some lights 
wouldn't be cleared correctly.  Also added the ability to change the diaply font of the program 
to any font you specify.  I didn't supply any fonts, but I'm sure you can locate your favorites 
somewhere.  You will have to experiment to find the right combo of font to readability. Moved 
some options around but they are still there.

V1.1  December 25, 1997
   Added some more useless features.  Added a random display for the lights pattern.  Added another
alignment feature so the display can be the topmost, none or bottom most window.  Added a new
shape so that round, square or rectangular.  Also now you can alter the color of the highlight, the
background and border of the window.  Added a delay for the timing of the lights. 

V1.0  December 18, 1997
   This is the first version of the lights.  Tried to add as many options as I could within reason
for a program that is essentially useless.


Patrick Dugan
patrickd@getonthe.net or patrickd@usti.com
http://208.142.5.166/pdhome.html

