German version of MA 1.1.2
 

Hello,

I bought the german version of MA some days ago at a german mail-order-house.

The trial-version 1.1 was on a CD attached to a computer newspaper.

After ordering I got the key code an could download version 1.1. All seems to be fine (only the german text at the preferences windows has some mistakes and my Mac had sometimes some strange changes at the monitor preferences when MA has started as a screensaver. Restarting the Mac made then some bigger problems!).

After visiting the homepage of MA I saw, that version 2.0 is the actual version of MA and I couldn't upgrade to version 2.0 as described on the homepage. I got the error message that I'm not found in the database (?)

This seems to be a strange policy. I never made the experience buying online a software which isn't the newest version.

I hope that version 2.0 is much more stabil - when I get it !?!

Bye

rnet-ss

Sorry to hear about the problems you've encountered. I'll try to offer some suggestions to help and point you in the right direction to resolve your other issues.

First, I believe the German version of MA was localized by a German firm that also sells and supports it. If you know that company and how to contact it, you can speak to them about their plans for MA 2 and their upgrade policies. If not, contact Prolific (go to www.serenescreen.com and select the Technical Support page) to obtain directions to the German firm that sells/supports your version.

Second, when you say that you had problems with the Monitor preferences when using the screen saver, could you be more specific about your settings and what you're seeing? In the settings for the MA screen saver (or the app), do you have "Full screen resolution" set to anything other than "Desktop resolution" (or the German equivalents of these English phrases)? You may need to delete your preferences file (look in "~/Library/Preferences/By Host" and delete any file starting with "com.prolific.ScreenSaver.Aquarium"). If this doesn't solve the problem, please let us know.

Thank you Michael!

First: I know this german firm. I know that they will tell me that I ordered the special offer of this firm. I wanted to tell you that customers don't like different upgrade policies, especially if there is no information before buying the software.

Second: indeed there were the settings to another resolution. After installation the selected resolution was the same as in the monitor settings of MacOS. So I will try it now with "Desktop resolution". Why is there the option for other settings when they cause problems?

If german version 1.1 is still available, perhaps you can correct some text-problems in the settings-windows?

register "Aquarium":
Automatische Lichte (automatic ...) -> Automatische Lichter (the right letters were cut)
Vordergrun -> Vordergrund
Lautstär (Volume?) -> Lautstärke
Vollbilddarstellung beenden bei N (Fullscreen ... finishs at ..) -> Vollbilddarstellung beenden bei (what?)
Seesterne ... erlaub (Seastars ...) -> erlaubt

register "Screensaver"
there is on the left side a area titled with "Vermissen" an the Checkbox "Ende bestätigen" (Confirm end?).
I don't understand what this means. "Vermissen" means "Miss/Missing". I could find out the results of "Ende bestätigen".

Bye!

I'll pass your comments along to Prolific. You can also send your comments to them and the German firm from whom you purchased the product. I work on porting the software to the Mac. I don't get to decide sales, localization, or upgrade issues.

As to the resolution switching capability, it obviously is not there for the purpose of causing problems. Our testing of resolution switching in the application hasn't shown problems, but there could be some hardware/software combination(s) which triggers a problem. I'd still like a more complete description of your system configuration, settings, and the exact problem that you are seeing. Resolution switching should be disabled in the screen saver. In fact, we've received several requests to enable it (support it) in the screen saver as well. We disabled it in the screen saver precisely because it did cause problems, particularly when the Classic environment was running. As a screen saver module, MA is essentially a "plug-in", running inside another application (the system screen saver). We try to be a bit more conservative in our behavior, in this case (be a "good guest").

Thanks for the pointers on translation problems in the German version. I believe the German firm did the translation themselves. I'll pass your info on to Prolific so they can forward it to the appropriate source. It looks like most (all?) of the problems are due to the size of the interface elements being too small to display the entire translated string. We'll try to get that corrected for a future version.

Hello Michael,

here some more details about my problems with MA.

I use a PPC 7300 (MacOS 9.0.4) with a Voodoo3 2000 card and a 21"-monitor (1152x870,16,7 Mio. colors).

Some times - not always - after MA was activated as screensaver, my Mac isn't able to manage a new start. I have to try it several times and if I'm lucky the Mac finishes the start process. But then the desktop is bad. I only see the selected desktop-color but no HD-icons, no Menu, nothing. The mouse arrow stops at the top, right and at the bottom of the screen. But it disapears on the left side. Wherever?

The installed software "FinderPop" helps me to open the control panel for the screen solution and for the colors (this seems to be the only way to get in contact with these control panels). There is then no pre-selection for the colors and the resolution visible. When I choose again the normal solution 1152 x 870 and 16,7 millions of colors all will be o.k.

So it seems that MA causes sometimes a process which deletes the settings for the screen solution and the colors. The problem occurs when I selected "1152 x 870 Millionen Farben" in the MA preferences and after I changed these settings to "Bildschirmauflösung" (screen solution?)

Sorry for the bad english. Its not so easy to describe such technical problems in a foreign language.

Fatherland
 

We are going to get our German partners to step in here, and we will work tother with them to fix these issues.