A fireworks display on your PC with Screensavers
Rockets, peonies, willows and two-colour bursts: how to set how often they fly, their colours and burst size in Fireworks from Screensavers by Zaweba.
Bonfire night, New Year's Eve, a birthday or the last day before the holidays all call for something a bit more festive on the office monitor. Fireworks in Screensavers by Zaweba gives you a night display that never runs out of rockets. They climb from the bottom of the screen and burst into rings, peonies, willows and two-colour bursts, all drawn by the app's own code.
It is one of the classic pack, and its three settings decide whether the show is a gentle few rockets or a grand finale that never ends.
The kinds of burst you'll see
Each rocket opens into one of four shapes. A ring is a clean circle of sparks. A peony is the familiar round ball of colour that fills out evenly. A willow droops, with long trails that hang and fall like the branches of the tree it is named after. A two-colour burst splits its sparks between two colours. The mix keeps the display from feeling repetitive even after it has been running for a long while.
How often, which colours, how big
How often runs from 1 to 10. At 1 there are pauses between rockets and the sky goes dark for a moment, which is closer to watching a real display from a distance. At 10 the sky is busy almost all the time. For a screen you'll see across a room, somewhere in the middle feels lively without being frantic.
Colours has four choices. Every colour is the full, bright mix. Gold and silver is classic and a little more elegant, and suits a wedding, an anniversary or a formal event. Blues and teals is cooler and calmer. Reds and oranges is warm and fiery, and looks particularly good on bonfire night.
Burst size also runs from 1 to 10. Small bursts leave more dark sky and look further away. Large ones fill the screen. On a small laptop screen a larger burst helps the shapes read clearly. On a big monitor, a medium size usually looks best.
Matching the display to the occasion
Because settings are read every time the screensaver starts, you can change the look for an occasion without reinstalling anything. Set gold and silver for New Year, reds and oranges for early November, and back to every colour afterwards. Open the manager, change the colour, and the next time the screen goes idle the new display appears.
A shop or café that wants a bit of celebration on a counter screen can set Fireworks for a special week and switch back to something calmer later. For a party, try a high how often and a large burst size on a big screen and let it run.
Trying it before you use it
The manager's live preview follows your settings as you change them, so you can see the burst size and colours straight away. Then press Preview full screen to see the display at its real size, where how often matters most. Any key, click or mouse movement closes the preview.
When it looks right, Use this screensaver builds it into your profile with no administrator rights needed and opens Windows' Screen Saver Settings for the wait time. With several monitors you can have a display on each, one wide sky stretched across them all, or one on the main monitor only with the others black. A stretched sky works nicely, because rockets on the far screens feel like part of the same show.
Keeping it pleasant
A constant stream of large, bright bursts on a big screen can be tiring to sit next to, even if it looks wonderful in the first minute. If people will be working nearby, turn how often down a notch and try gold and silver or blues and teals. If you're on a laptop, the battery saver in Install and options will turn the screen black when the charge falls below the level you chose, so a long display won't flatten the battery.
Fireworks also works well as one of several. Tick it in Install several with a couple of calmer screensavers and you'll get a display now and then rather than every time.
