JPEG Saver frequently asked questions
Some frequently asked questions about JPEG Saver:
What is JPEG Saver?
It's a Windows screen saver for displaying images with a load of options that make it a bit more interesting.
At the moment JPEG Saver is known to work on Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. It will not work on Windows RT because that is a completely different system (and you wouldn't be able to install JPEG Saver on Windows RT anyway).
Why did you call it JPEG Saver, when it doesn't save JPEGs?
I'm glad you asked that. There are no goats on this website either, so I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to all those people who come here searching for “goat jpegs”.
The original version of JPEG Saver only loaded JPEG images. It didn't save them. It was a screen saver though.
Which types of image can it load?
JPEG Saver supports JPEG, PNG, JPEG 2000 .jpc and .jp2 files, TIFF, GIF, WebP and most types of BMP file. If you want support for other formats, let me know and I'll see what I can do.
Version 5.8 also supports loading video files (if you enable the option) - here's the full list of file extensions JPEG Saver will attempt to load:
Why doesn't JPEG Saver find images in subfolders?
To look for subfolders and the images inside them, JPEG Saver must have the “Recursive” option enabled for the main folder in the Folders tab.
When checking subfolders is enabled, the icon next to the folder will look
like this: 
instead of: 
,
which means a non-recursive folder.
To make new folders recursive by default, make sure that the “+ Subdirs” checkbox is checked when you add your folders.
I've turned on “Interactive” - what are the controls?
Until version 5.9 the list of controls available was shown in a table on the interactive controls page. Version 5.9 allows you to choose your own keys, so now the best place to look is in the “Edit keys” dialog or by pressing “h” from the screen saver to show a quick help screen.
How many images can it handle?
JPEG Saver has been successfully tested with over 68000 files in more than 700 directories, which used around 16Mb of memory. I really don't know how many it can actually cope with - and I haven't imposed any limit in the software.
Newer versions of JPEG Saver use a SQLite database to store the list of images, which greatly improves the start-up time. Only folders that have been modified since the last time the screensaver started have to be re-scanned to find new or removed images or subfolders.
Why did you write it?
Originally I wrote JPEG Saver because I couldn't find a screen saver on the web that would display a bunch of JPEGs. After Windows XP came out with the “My Pictures Slideshow” screen saver I thought JPEG Saver would be obsolete. But “My Pictures Slideshow” has some limitations that I didn't like, so back in 2003 I dug out the source code and started work again.
The “Photos” screen saver in Windows 7 doesn't appear to be very good either.
What does JPEG Saver do that My Pictures Slideshow can't?
Well, the most obvious difference is that JPEG Saver supports multiple directories. There are also options for setting where the image will appear on the screen, and the order in which the images will be displayed. And you can turn individual transitions on or off. And there is more control over the resizing of images. And you can change the background.
Version 3.0 added options for displaying some information about the images, and other stuff. Version 3.1 added support for JPEG metadata - comments and EXIF data, which means it can auto-rotate digital camera images that have stored which way up they should go. Version 3.1.3 added support for IPTC data too.
The Version 4.x branch has a completely rewritten rendering engine that uses DirectX 9 / Direct3D, allowing for much smoother transitions.
Where can I get it?
Go to the downloads page where you can download the latest version.