I don't know why so many people here feel bad for Jim when someone has something negative to say about his screensaver. People are paying for this and have every right to speak their minds, make suggestions etc. Jim certainly doesn't need every third post apologising for someone elses opinion. Jim knows he's created art never before seen on a PC... but everything is subject to criticism especially since this is not a free product. People speaking their minds possibly will aid in future tweaks and enhancements..
With that said, the screensaver has more than met my expectations... it is by far, without a doubt the most beautiful recreation of marine life ever conceived on a PC. I had posted before that I dedicated an entire PC with 17" flatscreen monitor in my entertainment center as a full time marine aquarium (which also doubles as a MP3 juke box of 500+ songs
It's on all my waking hours and is a joy to look at. I cannot wait for the 3D background and a few other enhancements but am very content for now. But see, we all have opinions on what we want most out of it and Jim reads and picks from what he agrees with or what he'd like to see out of it himself. Sometimes these come from criticisms as well... for me, 3 issues havent been cleared up and if you've read this far, I'll share them: User selectable automatic lighting... I would love to be able to choose tick marks on the sliders so the auto-lighting would stop at more than the 3 current scenes. The transition between light and dark has a beautiful blue BG and I'd like to be able to have it cycle to that one as well. Also, I wouldn't mind eliminating the darkest silhouette mode as it's my least favorite. My next suggestion is toning down the 100% CPU usage. I'm no programmer so maybe it's not possible to run smoothly at less than 100% but I feel that long term use at 100% CPU usage will not benefit the processor and shorten its life (remembering this PC is a full time aquarium running at 100% full time - not good in the long run) My last suggestion is giving us the ability to select which fish appear from the random list... I'm not a fan of a few of the fish and would like to avoid them with my 2 random slots.
Lastly to Jim, I've read much more than I've posted but I've seen postings from you regarding keeping the interface simple for everyone. This makes sense to me but maybe a hidden option for advanced features would be the way to go. Tweakers, like a lot of us here, would benefit from this and your average Joe wouldn't even need to be bother with it. My bottom line is give us the most customization options you are comfortable with that doesn't degrade your overall vision. Lots of us love to tweak and your program has some room to grow in this area
Great work overall and I'm always looking forward to your next release as it just gets better and better
riz