[Drugwash]

I created LogoTool2 specially for WBL. Once you designed your bitmap, type down the coordinates of the animation somewhere in a text file, flip the bitmap vertically using an editor of your choice, then start LogoTool2 and enter the animation values - it will save the file automatically as SPLASH.SYS.

Unfortunately I don't have any recent ATi card to test with (not to mention spare time), so this will have to wait for PassingBy to resume his work on WBL, when/if possible.

If there's anything else you need, don't hesitate to ask.

[Offler]

tihyi, your wll has just frozen system three times in attempt to boot. this has not happen yesterday... something is very seriousliy wrong. without wll system will boot correctly always. also i the way how it affects buffers may be quite strange...

The WLL by tihiy is my favourite. i need only bmp in its basical format, and no other manipulation. but in this phase all loaders are unusable

[Drugwash]

Please take into accout that there may be some extreme settings particularly related to your system that make WLL behave this way.

I can say that my version of WLL works fine (apart from the 'bullet' jump in the first bank, sometimes) on my secondary Celeron III 633 MHz machine equipped with an Intel815 8MB integrated videocard. And it also used to work fine on my primary machine (Pentium II 400 MHz, MSI GeForce 4 Ti4200VTD8X 128MB) before I started having random BSOD at startup that hindered my WLL testing and - indirectly - development.

The main idea of this project was to allow animation at any screen position (user-defined coordinates), which has been achieved. Also, if possible, we should've got ridden of certain bugs and I believe WBL has already overcome some of them while adding new features such as the fading effect.
So overall I think we're on the right track and even if the project has somehow stalled for some time, it's not forgotten. Let's hope for the best.

[Offler]

well i dont like hw dependant software the main part of immolator project is compatibility and it works mainly with normal apps - thanks to all you guys... but it is quite annoying when new part of system has so big trouble with hardware...

i hope you genius-minded programmers will fix it soon

[Drugwash]

Ah, you're too flattering; re-read the first post: I'm no programmer, just playin' around trying to do something good. Let's hope the real geniuses like Tihiy and PassingBy will keep offering their help.

Personally I don't like unstable behavior either so I'll do my best trying to fix the issues; I'm afraid it's quite a bit over my head though. However, users' help describing their systems' setups in detail, providing all possible details regarding the problems encountered and testing interim versions would be extremely helpful in fighting the bugs.

[os2fan2]

I suppose, were there a way of determining if Windows were booting int Windows mode or DOS mode, it might be possible to use alternate logos, like LOGO.SYS vs LOGO.DOS. It may be too much trouble, but i suppose it would be the thing. Start in Windows or in MS-DOS with different logos.

Another idea is to support .zipped logos, or something like it.

thanks for listening.

[Drugwash]

Theoretically speaking, there may be a way to detect DOS mode. However, we still have a problem with interrupts, where text messages (thus forcibly switching to text mode) break the graphical mode. And Windows going in DOS mode does display a lot of text messages.

If you wanna check, install my version of WLL (if you have it or is still available at the above link, which I doubt), install some application that needs a reboot to finish the installation and you'll see that when the system would display 'Updating system files...', WLL will bail out saying 'LOGO.SYS missing/mismatch. Press a key [...]'. That's bad interrupt handling and I'm afraid it's a bit too much for me to fix.

As for zipped logos... what would the advantage be? Saving a few dozen HDD kB versus potential issues with unzipping utility and memory usage? Maybe I don't get the whole picture so if there's more to it, please elaborate.

Regardless, thank you for the interest.

[Tihiy]

http://logosys.logotypes.se/
That's the inspiration if you need one.

[os2fan2]

Of zipped logo.bmp, I was thinking more of boot disks, where space is limited. You can use diskettes in places like vfloppy (load a diskette from an image file on the hard drive).

None the same, the mod that Tihiy made to io.sys saves something like 100kb on the disk,

[Drugwash]

I see... Well, no promises but I'll keep that in mind.
Also, thank you Tihiy for the above link, it's an interesting reading. I'll see if I can find any useful hints within the code - hopefully it won't take me 11 years (like the guy that wrote DOS-LOGO).

[Philco]

Drugwash, on Mar 18 2008, 09:27 AM, said:

And here's the new version of LogoTool: LogoTool2. Based on first version of LogoTool, it is designed to patch exclusively WBL-style bitmaps (using the palette storage addresses rather than visible area as in the first version).

It is intended for creating SPLASH.SYS animated boot logos, solely for use with PassingBy's WBL.COM.

Please note that the logos created with this tool will not animate on either Tihiy's original WLL.COM or my mod.



Download: LogoTool2 v2.0.0.1

Sorry for the temporary inconvenience, previous version was bad.
Oh and the one above got debug info on. May be useful to someone though, so I let it be.

Here's the final, working version: LogoTool2 v2.0.0.2

Whew!

This files delete on server...

[Drugwash]

Minor cosmetic changes to the readme and sources, recompiled and reuploaded here.
Apologies for the inconvenience, the hosting is time-limited.

[Philco]

WLL running only with RP or separate?
Requires special IO.SYS? (My IO.SYS czech version - modification for czech build i task Tihiy?)

[Drugwash]

WLL (any version) and WBL can be run as stand-alone without problems. However, they all need patched IO.SYS and COMMAND.COM in order to be launched.

The patcher (installer, in fact) I've created for WLL, however, can't patch for WBL, although it wouldn't be hard to add (time allowing).

Here's the complete WLL bundle, with the installer, LogoTool (both versions), sample logo.sys, test svgacom and a testing WLL with fading which may be unstable. Please read the documentation carefully and keep the installer at hand (in C: would be fine) in case there are problems.

Please note that the LogoTool2 version in the package is a slightly older version than the one posted above, however it should work just fine.

WLL bundle download

[cruzades]

holli, on Mar 4 2008, 07:00 AM, said:

Drugwash, on Mar 4 2008, 01:30 AM, said:

Actually your help is greatly appreciated and most welcome. I think I can now fully understand how this all animation works, 'coz until now I was just shooting in the dark and killing no rabbits.

I'm happy that programming needs a lot of mathematics, so I can help you without understanding some assembler code.
I made this XP startup logo (it really looks the same like the original - there's no difference!). And if I saw the progress bar, I noticed, how it works. Without the three blocks of the progss bar it is really hard to realize how it works.

I used your source and it's awesome! The animation runs on my laptop (the original source won't do this). You also created a nice logo. But there are a few things:
1. The size of the progress bar (14px) seems not optimal for animating. Try to think in three blocks spaced by 2px regarding the terms above, you should use 13px or 16px. If you use 13px progress bar, use progrstep=5 (3px block + 2px space) or progrstep=6 (4px block + 2 px space) for 16px progress bar. Then you need a progrmax=progrstart+progrstep*X where X = (lengh of animation + 2 px / progrstep) - 2.
To explain the formula: I used the XP \LOGO.SYS and figured out the relationship of the animated witdh, the animation width, the progrstep and the 13.
You can do your own brainstorm and you'll find the same formula.
So, I decided to enhancd the animated block with 2px and set "progrstep = 6" the animation lengh of the startup.bmp (180px) don't fit with this parameters, so I enhended it with 4px, so X = (184px + 2px / 6px) - 2 = (186px / 6px) -2 = (31) -2 = 29. The resulting "progrmax" line is:

progrmax = progrstart+progrstep*29

Please note: check out the parameters progrstep, progrwidth and X before you create your startup logo.

2. Threre is a visual glitch by moving the progress bar: on my notebook (ATI Rage 128 Pro graphics) the animated progress bar is a block of foreground color (magenta) , on my desktops the correct bar is moving, but the background color (black) switched to the foreground color (magenta) after redraw the progress bar.

Hope I was helpful for this progress bar stuff...

GOD bless,

Holli

Edit: I checked out your error messages. But I don't like to press a key while starting up my system ('cuz I often turn the computer on and go to get a coffee... ;-). It is possible to put out an non centered massage in the first two lines like this:

Quote

\LOGO.SYS not valid or not found.
Please wait until Windows starts."

Thanks!
___

The "XP" \LOGO.SYS seems so real! I shocked some people with using it as a screensaver under XP.
(If you also want to shock someone, take my attachment and store it into C:\WINDOWS of a Windows XP system. Then import the "screensaver.job" file into your scheduler (just drag and drop) and activate it. Every time, when the system is idle for more than 5 minutes, Windows XP "reboots". To stop rebooting and return to Windows XP press any key.... )

thanks holli for the xlogo.bmp, i tried to replace tihiy's logo.sys with your xplogo.bmp (renamend as logo.sys), and works fine, it looks like really an XP boot screen.

-cruzades

[Drugwash]

It's been too long since this topic has been abandoned by myself, Tihiy and PassingBy. All of the links I posted above have expired long ago. Therefore, as I stumbled into this thread, something told me I should post a (hopefully more reliable) working link to the whole WLL bundle I've been working on in the past. And on this occasion I would like to thank Tihiy and PassingBy for the code, ideas and generally all the help they provided.

Within this package there is a newer, previously unreleased version of LogoTool: LogoTool3. It is meant to patch bitmaps for either my modified WLL or PassingBy's WBL. Hopefully it will behave correctly - it's been more than a year since I last worked on it. Don't bother about the Watermark type - it's not useful (yet). All the sources are bundled: ASM, AHK, icons and readme texts. Maybe someone will make good use of them, since I'm not likely to work on WLL anytime soon. My apologies if anybody kept their hopes high.

Download WLL+SvgaCom+LogoTool+WLL Installer bundle: link