Screentime for Flash makes it easy to add user settings to your screen savers.

You can approach creating a user settings by either embedding settings controls in the screen saver SWF itself or by including a custom settings window SWF that will be installed in the OS's screen saver settings panel.

1) Embed screen saver settings in your screen saver SWF.

In most cases developers want Screentime to detect keyboard and mouse activity and quit the screen saver.

However, sometimes it makes sense to integrate interactive features into your saver such as hyperlinks or in this case settings controls.

First create a SWF that includes commands to change features in your screen saver -- number of toasters, speed of toasters, types of toasters, etc. You can use the Screentime component to right our these settings to the users harddrive using the STF.writeString() and STF.appendString() commands.

Next, setup your screen saver to read these settings when it launches using the STF.readString() command.

Depending on your settings controls in your screen saver you must tell ScreenTime to ignore the keyboard and/or the mouse input. You can change settings by listening for keystrokes or add buttons/check boxes, etc. to an embedded settings panel.

To allow mouse and keyboard input, uncheck the Exit Screen Saver On Mouse Click / Movement and Key Presses check boxes in ScreenTime.

If you allow both mouse and keyboard activity, you must include a way for your users to exit the screen saver which will send Screentime a "STF.quit" command. For more information see: Creating An Interactive Screen Saver.

2) Create a Custom Settings window SWF to control aspects of your screen saver.

Screentime enables you embed a custom settings window SWF into the operating systems Screen Saver Settings API.

To create a custom settings window SWF first create a seperate SWF that includes commands to change features in your screen saver -- number of toasters, speed of toasters, types of toasters, etc. You can use the Screentime component to right our these settings to the users harddrive using the STF.writeString() and STF.appendString() commands.

Next, setup your screen saver to read these settings when it launches using the STF.readString() command.

Finally, include the custom settings swf in your saver installer by identifying it in the "Properties" (Mac) / "Setting" (Windows) panel and build your installer. Once installed your Settings Window SWF is shown when the user clicks the "Options..." (Mac) / "Settings..." (Windows) button in the operating system's Screen Saver settings panel.

Windows XP users will navigate to the Screen Saver settings panel by clicking the Start button and selecting "Settings", then "Control Panels", then clicking the "Display" icon. This opens the Display Control panel. Once open the user will click the Screen Saver tab to see the screen saver settings.

Windows Vista users can navigate directly to the Screen Saver settings panel from the Start menu by selecting "Settings", then "Screen Saver".

Macintosh OS X users can navigate to the Screen Saver settings panel from the Apple menu by selecting the "System Preferences..." menu item to open the System Preferences window, then clicking the "Desktop & Screen Saver" icon and the "Screen Saver" tab button.

Check out our Flash-enhanced Settings Window screen saver samples for code and instructions.