Contents
Help Index for Vermin

Vermin is the buggiest program you are likely to see.

Introduction

What are vermin

Copyright information

How to...

Display the vermin control dialog

Change vermin settings

Make vermin scream


What are vermin

Vermin are nasty little roaches that crawl around on your desktop, looking for windows to hide under.  Once they hide, they aren't very bothersome, but don't move any windows or they may wake up.  Even clicking on the desktop can disturb them.

They probably carry disease.

Vermin started out as Xroach, a similar program for the X Window System.  Xroach was written by J.T. Anderson based on a suggestion in the comp.windows.x newsgroup from Greg McFarlane.

Send your vermin fan mail to jta@locus.com.  If you have complaints or improvement suggestions, contain yourself.  If you think the concept is better than the execution, try sending fan mail to gregm@otc.otca.oz.au.

Yes, I know they should breed.


Copyright Information

Vermin is copyrighted software.  Witness.

Copyright 1992, 1995 J.T. Anderson.

Vermin is not shareware, nor is it public domain (you can tell it's not public domain by the fact that it is copyrighted).  I guess it's freeware.  Anyway, it may be freely distributed under the following conditions:

1.	The files VERMIN.EXE, VERMIN.HLP and SQUISH.WAV are provided unchanged.  (They may be archived, compressed or otherwise encoded provided means are easily available to restore the files to their original condition.)

2.	Media charge may not exceed $3.

3.	As an exception to condition 2, this program may be included in CD-ROM software collections.

4.	Distribution on bulletin boards and anonymous ftp sites is encouraged.


Vermin control panel
Displaying the vermin control panel

If the vermin icon is hidden, you can display it by holding down either shift key and squishing any of the roaches as they scurry about the screen.  Once the icon is displayed, you can double click on it to display the vermin control panel.


Vermin settings
Changing vermin settings

The vermin control panel allows you to tailor the vermin personality to your own taste.  Experiment.

The stride parameters are the best way of adjusting the vermin's speed.  Larger numbers are faster.  For the technically inclined among you, the stride values are in 1/8th pixel increments.

The wobble parameters control how often the vermin turn.  The smaller the number, the more often they turn.

Stagger controls how often the vermin switch between turning left and turning right.  The smaller the number, the more often they switch.

Population controls the number of vermin.  Not necessarily the more the merrier.

The update interval parameter controls how frequently the vermin take steps.  Given the resolution of the Windows timer, the most useful values are 55 ms. and 110 ms.

The Colors button displays a dialog that allows you to adjust the color of the vermin and of the vermin guts when you squish them.

If you choose hide when minimized, the vermin icon will be hidden when the vermin control panel is minimized.  See Displaying the vermin control panel for information on how to get the icon back.

Choosing OK saves your changes and updates the vermin settings.  Choosing Cancel discards your changes.  Minimizing the control window does not discard your changes, but neither saves them nor updates the active vermin settings.


Blood curdling screams
Making vermin scream

If you have a sound board and Windows sound driver installed, you can make the vermin scream when you click on them.  Just use the Sounds control panel to associate a .WAV file with Squishing Roaches.  You may want to use the SQUISH.WAV sound that is supplied with Vermin.

Now, when you squish a running roach, it will scream in pain (or laugh, or something.)