MacOS X Web Screensaver
A screensaver that will display your favorite Web page.
Whilst doing some graphics and layout work on Watershed's public display system (the screens at the top of the stairs) I thought it would be useful for staff to have the daily What's On information displayed on their computers. A screensaver looked to be a good idea:
- We already had, not only the data, but formatted and layed out for display.
- The public screens are very simillar a screensaver - non-interactive content is displayed in a sequence.
- The public screens are built using standard HTML, CSS & Javascript making the content easy to display.
- The content updates and refreshes itself. The application displaying the content does not have to interact with the content in any way.
One evening, on the train home, I quickly built a screensaver that would load and display the content.
The Web content you wish to display must change itself. This can be done usins a meta refresh tag, Javascript timers (AJAX calls work well) or using a simple HTML wrapper around QuickTime, Flash or Shockwave content. Obviously user events, such as mouse & keyboard (this being a screensaver), are not passed to the HTML.
Download
Requires MacOS X 10.3 or later. Download .dmg file
Redistribution and Usage
Redistribution is permitted but please give Watershed Media Centre with an engineering credit and include a link to the homepage at www.watershed.co.uk in either a splash screen or Read Me file. The software is provided 'as is' and is unsupported. If you use the screen saver, then please send us an email (benjamin@watershed.co.uk) because we are interested in any use it receives.
How to configure the screensaver
The screensaver just needs a full, absolute URL to operate. It will not currently work with a relative URL for content distributed inside the screensaver bundle. The URL is stored in a plist file inside the .saver bundle.
- Open the .saver bundle by ctrl-clicking the icon and select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu that is displayed.
- Open the Info.plist file, that is inside the Content folder, in either a text editor or Apple's Plist Editor.
- Change the value of the WSHDWebLocation key to the location of yout content. Ensure you have included the http:// protocol prefix.
- Save changes and double click to install.