Let's spend a little quality time with our splash screen. The splash screen for the application is simply an image you can display for a certain amount of time prior to the application starting up. The "prior" part is important to note. This is not a loading screen, it's simply a way to display your logo or the title of your game if you so choose. You only have one splash screen (currently) so use it wisely, if at all.

Splish Splash...

In order to create our splash screen we have to go back to the Application Data tab and click on the button we skipped over all those sections ago (seems like eons when you're writing this) - Edit Splash Screen Properties. When the window opens check the Splash Screen checkbox to enable the splash screen. Next, type in "splash.jpg" for Image Path. You'll notice that we're not creating an image object - this is because if the splash screen is created before the application formally starts, no image objects will have been loaded. Snafu. So the splash screen is really its own entity, you can even set it to a different size than your application screen. But in this case things turn out the same, so set the Width to 800 and the Height to 600 with a Depth of 16 bits. We'll only need to see the image for 3 seconds or so, so enter in 3000 (milliseconds) into the Splash Timer box. Since we're not going to be displaying anything behind the image, we don't have to worry about transparency, and the image background is black anyways, so we can leave those settings alone.

... We're Takin a Bath

Okay, time for the old Save and Generate routine, so go to it! After you're done fire up the app and the splash screen will appear for 3 seconds as predetermined before vanishing and being replaced with your window. As you can guess, the effect is a lot better when you're using a fullscreen app rather than a windowed one. This splash screen image was one I created for a game I was attempting to make for a 48-hour programming contest to no avail, and is probably one of the greatest works of art I've ever done. Huzzah!. But enough of that - let's get on to the grand finale. This program needs a little more interactivity.