SST Screen Saver Maker is a very useful tool
for those of you have a need or desire to create your own screen savers for fun or profit.
As I've stated in reviews of similar products, screen savers are a wonderful way to
promote a product, service or web site.
SST is a bit different from Axialis Pro Screen Saver Producer
reviewed elsewhere on this site. SST's interface is more generic and it creates
picture-based slide shows as opposed to animated sprite shows. Each has their place and
audience. SST is priced at about twice the cost of Axialis, but you get a lot of power for
your money.
The interface is very Explorer-like, allowing you to pick and choose graphics files,
and preview them to make sure you have selected the appropriate files. Once these files
have been selected, you may attach an audio file and transition to each and every
individual file. This affords you great flexibility to customizing the look and feel of
your screen saver. There are over 20 such effects in the base engine, and once the product
is registered with Midnight Blue Software, you
receive additional special effects engines to download.
SST allows you to add an About Box with four free-form fields which will appear on
screen before the screen saver is installed. The resulting EXE can be installed on any
Windows-based system.
We used the tool to create a slide show screen saver for Automation professionals. The
show uses individual frames captured from a Powerpoint presentation, but was repackaged
with transitions and sound effects using SST. The end product is a self-installing screen
saver which works quite well. Additionally, it can be distributed without worrying about
royalties.
Whereas Axialis does not create slide show-based screen savers, SST does not create
sprite-based screen savers. So far, we have yet to find a single tool that does both.
Until that time comes, the combination of these two products should cover all the bases
for virtually any screen saver development project.
