Saver Starter

Saver Starter is a small freeware program that:

• Allows a screen saver to be started by moving the mouse over a corner of the screen.
• Prevents a screen saver from starting when the mouse is in a corner of a screen.
• Starts the current screen saver quickly.
• Gives easy access to the screen saver configuration settings.

Download

To download Saver Starter click this file saverstarter150.zip (8KB)

Install

Saver Starter has no automatic install process. The zip archive contains two files, SaverStarter.exe and Readme.txt. To start the program simply run SaverStarter.exe. You might like to add Saver Starter to your start-up group, that way Saver Starter will be available every time you start Windows.

Using Saver Starter

When you start Saver Starter an icon will appear in the system tray, as shown below.

The icon displayed adopts a traffic-light system, Amber (as shown above) means Saver Starter is in a neutral state.

Red means Saver Starter has disabled the current screen saver. This icon is shown when the mouse is in a corner of the screen marked as a cold-spot.

and Green means Saver Starter is about to activate the current screen saver. This icon is shown when the mouse is in a corner of the screen marked as a hot spot. The Green light is shown for three seconds after which time the saver is then started. If the mouse is moved out of the hot spot within three seconds, Saver Starter returns to the Amber state. By default Saver Starter has a hot-spot in the top-left corner of the screen and has no cold-spots defined, to change these settings see the section on Configuring Hot-Spots

Context Menu Features

Right clicking the icon brings up the Saver Starter popup menu

The Start Screen Saver item does just that, it starts the current screen saver. The current screen saver can also be started by double clicking the Saver Starter icon.

The Screen Saver Properties item brings up the display settings control panel applet with the screen saver tab selected.

The Configure Current Saver item brings up the current screen saver configuration dialog. This action is a short-cut for the bringing up the screen saver display settings dialog, and clicking the Settings button.

The Modify Hot Spots item allows Saver Starter's hot-spot behavior to be modified. See Configuring Hot-Spots for more info.

The About and Exit items do what you'd expect them to.

Configuring Hot Spots

The Modify Hotspots Dialog, shown below, allows you to configure Saver Starter's hot-spots and cold-spots.

Four check boxes represent a corner of the screen. Clicking the mouse in a box cycles it through its three states: empty, red tick, and blue cross. As the dialog describes, a red tick represents a hot-spot, a blue cross a cold-spot and an empty box means Saver Starter performs no special handling when the mouse is in that corner of the screen.

Contact

If you've any bug reports, suggestions or feedback send me an email at [email protected]. I'm always pleased to receive any sort of feedback.