Flash (.swf) Screensavers On The N82 - Bring Your Screen To Life

Posted By Aaron

One of the first things I wanted to do on my n82 the day when I bought it was to set its screensaver. Well yes, I’m a fan of fancy and animated stuffs and to be able to set them as screensaver for my phone is a great way to make it feel livelier and eye catching. It adds flavor to the s60 interface which for me is, quite dry and dull. The only thing I hate is that, aside from gif files, it’s not possible to set your images as screensaver. Thankfully, flash comes to the rescue.

Months before, i created a flash screensaver for my Nokia 5300 which was inspired by Nokia’s Xpressmusic label. I changed the caption to “ilovemyn82” because, I love my n82 ;-). I want to share it with you guys. Hope you like it. (video does not work in some rss readers)
Download here

[Upload your own video]


More flash screensavers for mobile phones that you may like are all around the internet. And some of them have notification icons for battery, signal strength, time and date, etc. Some are also interactive, and the animation or display is based on the status of the phone such as current time or battery life. Check this one out.

And this one (cool, tells you to charge your phone when battery is near empty or when it's already full):
Link
(Note: this is an s40 theme, but you can still get the flash screen saver. Just download the file, then change the extension to .zip, extract the file named demo6.swf)

Setting Up a Screen Saver
Setting a screensaver for your n82 might get tricky and annoying at first. Unlike s40 devices where you can just go to your image, hit options then select “set as screensaver”, you will need to dig down several menus just to find out where to set it for your s60 device. In addition, you will need to configure some display settings for it to work properly.

This might seem to be very common for others but for those who want to know how to set it up for your n82, follow these steps:

1. Go to Themes > Power Saver
2. Select Animation (make sure a check mark appears next to it) then hit Options > Settings
3. Select Animation File, then browse that gif or swf file you wanted to set as screensaver.
4. On Animation Time-out, indicate how long you want your screensaver to stay visible on display.
5. On Light Time-out set it to off, or to a value that is longer than the Animation Time-out.
6. Go to Display Settings.
7. On Power Saver time-out, set the number of seconds for how long you want the phone to wait before displaying the screensaver.

Important:
8. Still on the Display Settings, select Light Time-out, then set it to a value that is longer than (the value you set on [step 4] plus the value you set on [step 7])

That’s it. Step 8 is important so that backlight is available until the screensaver is finished doing its job. You won’t like the light off already when the screensaver have not started yet or while the screensaver is playing.

Tip: On [step 4], the maximum possible input is 60secs for animation time-out. If you want your screensaver to be displayed the longest time possible, I suggest setting it to a value that is just equal to (60secs minus the value you set on power saver time out [step 7]) and then on [step 8], set the light time out to 60secs. That way, the screensaver stops playing as soon as the light times out. Saves some battery.

What is your screensaver now? Or do you prefer not setting it?

P.S. I know having a screensaver = additional battery usage. I only do this when I know I will not be doing too much with my n82 and when I’m confident that I have more than enough battery. How I wish that we can set different display and screensaver settings based on the current profile, so it’s easier to set the screensaver on and off.

If you haven't heard, Aaron is a new addition to The N82 Blog. He will be writing articles here and helping make this site more useful to all N82 owners and Nseries fans. Click here to learn more about Aaron and welcome him to the community.