Greg Ordy
It is said that a picture is worth 1,000 words. Here's a picture generated by Mandala.
Mandala is a no-cost graphics program that displays animated Mandala images. A large number of options can be controlled by the user. Changing these options produces an extremely wide range of Mandala sequences.
The Mandala is more than a pretty picture or interesting animation. The Internet contains a number of very good sites with much information on Mandalas. Here are some of my favorites. Please visit these links for more information.
Much more information about the Mandala program is available from the program documentation, which is on-line.
Mandala has been tested on Windows 95, 98, and NT 4.0. It should also run on Windows 2000. Performance of the CPU is not critical, except that a faster computer and faster video subsystem will be able to draw more pixels per second.
The current Mandala self-extracting download file is approximately 400 Kilobytes, which typically requires around 2 minutes of transfer time (at 28.8 KBaud). The download program is executed to perform the Mandala installation. Total installed disk space consumed is approximately 300 Kilobytes (less than half a megabyte).
The amount of RAM memory required by the program is a function of the window size. A full-screen Mandala program at a typical screen resolution, using the help viewer, will require approximately 7 megabytes of memory. This should be considered an upper bound.
Mandala help information is viewed through the HTML Help viewer.
NOTE: In an attempt to draw pixels as quickly as possible, Mandala generates graphics commands which can be accelerated by many video cards. These commands flow from Mandala through the Windows operating system and directly into the video card for rapid execution. This situation is certainly not particular to Mandala, and is designed to improve the performance of many applications. It is possible, however, for problems with this process (graphics acceleration) to lock up the computer. When a computer locks up due to this problem, the problem can usually be fixed by installing a more recent video card driver (typically available from the vendor's web site), or by adjusting settings related to the video card. As an alternative solution, it is possible to adjust the amount of graphics acceleration that is allowed. This adjustment is made with a slider control located on a Windows dialog box. With most versions of Windows, you can get at this control by right clicking on My Computer and selecting Properties from the context menu. This will bring up the System Properties dialog. Select the Performance tab on this dialog, then press the Graphics button to display the Advanced Graphics Settings dialog. This dialog contains the hardware acceleration control. By default, the control is set for full acceleration, but it can be adjusted for less acceleration if your system experiences problems.
We have seen exactly one case where Mandala has locked up a computer due to problems with graphics acceleration. Adjusting the control to a lower level allowed Mandala (and some other applications) to run without incident. Since this will reduce graphics performance, however, you may want to investigate the device driver and settings so that you can obtain the highest performance from your system.
Through this section you can download the current version of Mandala.
When you download Mandala, you are actually downloading a self-extracting compressed archive file onto your computer. The downloaded file name is a combination of the program name (Mandala) and the program major version number. In order to install Mandala, you must execute the downloaded file. The install program is in the form of the common installation wizard. You will be asked several questions that will customize the installation for your computer.
One of the installed programs is the Mandala uninstall program. You should use this program to remove Mandala from your computer. The uninstaller will remove all Mandala files, and remove Mandala-specific entries from the system registry. The uninstall program will also be available from the Add/Remove Programs applet on the Control Panel.
Although Mandala includes an uninstall program, you are responsible for the downloaded self-extracting installation wizard file. In other words, the uninstall program does not remove the downloaded file (it removes the installed files). After Mandala is installed, the downloaded file may be manually deleted.
Finally, the software. The following table contains the Mandala releases, in reverse chronological order (most recent is first).
Version |
Release Date |
Description (Size) |
Download File |
Download |
History Information |
4.02 |
November 12, 2001 |
Release (400 KBytes). | Mandala4.exe |
View |
Additional installation and operation information can be found in the on-line documentation (next subsection).
All Mandala documentation, both the help information and user's manual, is written in HTML. HTML, the language of the Internet, is also becoming the preferred language for program support documentation. In fact, Windows 98 is shipped with the HTML Help viewer in addition to the older Winhelp viewer.
If you are not running Windows 98, or a more recent compatible operating system, you may not have the HTML Help viewer. The viewer is available from the Microsoft web site, and it will operate on any version of Windows. The viewer will also be automatically installed if you install Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher numbered version. If you do not have the HTML Help viewer, you will not be able to use the help facilities built into the program, or read the user's manual (through the program). Since the documentation is written in HTML, however, we have placed all of the documentation under this web page. This means that you can access all of the information regardless of your help viewer. You can also read the manual before downloading the software.
If you have problems, questions, or comments (concerning this software), please contact me via email, at ordy@seed-solutions.com.
Mandala was developed by, and is owned by Seed Solutions, Inc. Copyright ©, 2000, 2001, Seed Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. No warranty of any kind is made as to performance, or fitness of use in any application. Your use of this software is your agreement with these terms. You agree to hold Seed Solutions, Inc. free from responsibility for any damages that may or may not be associated with the installation or operation of the program.
This software may be redistributed in original form. No fee may be charged for redistribution without the prior and specific written consent of Seed Solutions. Inc. This software is licensed for personal and non-commercial use only, and is subject to the export laws and regulations as defined by the State Department of the United States of America, and other applicable regulatory agencies.
Windows, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Other product and company names mentioned on this site may be the trademarks of their respective owners.