# 'Oscar the Grouch'



## annapanna (May 16, 2005)

The trash can in OS9 and below had a fun little extention 'Oscar the Grouch'

Did that go away for OS X? Is it possible to make a new one? A widget perhaps?

Thanks,
anna


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## Zammy-Sam (May 16, 2005)

How about iCan?
And welcome to the forum.


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## adambyte (May 16, 2005)

For those of you who have no idea what the hell is going on, the extension he's talking about, called "The Grouch," had only one function: Everytime you chose "Empty Trash" from the "Special" menu, an animated Oscar would pop the lid off of your real Trash icon, still with the trash lid on his head, sing a clip, "Oh, I... Love... Trash!..." and then pop back down. Genius, in a real cartoony way.

I have no idea how the extension figured out WHERE your trash icon was on the desktop. But it would, and then he'd pop out (making the icon appear bigger than it really was), and then pop down.

Could iCan animated everytime the trash is emptied, AND make an animation outside the icon's area?


Wow. I'm an old fart when it comes to Macs.


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## kainjow (May 16, 2005)

I remember that little extension. Back in high school one of the Macs had it installed, that was where I first saw it. That thing was great! It brings back memories.

OS 9 had some great UI extensions and features that really made it stand out. I also remember the app that let you have animating icons for any file! Those were the days..   

I Googled around for the Oscar thing but couldn't find any links to download.


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## adambyte (May 16, 2005)

Well, even if you couldn't find it, it wouldn't run on OS X. Somebody would have to create a new version, specifically for OS X.

Also, anothe problem is... the default Trash icon for OS X is more like a wire wastebasket you'd have in an office.... not a traditional trashcan, at all, that Oscar would pop out of. 

Any programmers up to it? lol


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## texanpenguin (May 16, 2005)

Not to mention that it would look silly coming out of a waste basket, but the problem is, the Trash in OS X sits in the Dock, and so there's not any *room* for the icon to get larger like the Grouch used to do.

If someone was going to do this, it'd take some tricky coding and some replacement trash icons.

But I had him installed on all my old Macs. I was young, and it was brilliant. I used to trash all kinds of important things just to hear him sing his little song . I probably still have the Classic extension installed on my old Macs if anyone desperately wants it.

The problem was it would encourage young people to delete things .


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## nixgeek (May 16, 2005)

I remember that little extension.  I still have it somwhere on a CD that came with a Mac rag years ago.

I'd be willing to look for it if anyone is interested, although I'm sure it's on the Net somewhere


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## Andrew Adamson (May 16, 2005)

Well, I note that Mail has a context-sensitive icon that is programmatically controlled (the numbers that appear when there is unread mail) and Adium is animated and context-sensitive. To me, that suggests that it is possible.


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## adambyte (May 17, 2005)

It's not that animation isn't possible in a dock icon. The problem is that, how do you animate a grouch coming out of it, without making the trashcan itself any smaller?

Agreed. Tricky coding. There must have been some tricky coding in the first one, too.

Truly the work of a master.


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## albloom (May 17, 2005)

Oscar the Grouch was retired when the Muppetmasters' attorneys
screamed bloody murder. Many years and OS's ago.


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## Krevinek (May 18, 2005)

Well, the coding for the OS9 one was simple: find the location of the desktop item for the trash can, and then draw the animation OVER the icon rather than replace it. It wasn't very tricky and used some pretty standard calls. You will also notice it completely locked your machine while it ran, hinting that it was simply an animation it was drawing by hand.


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## kainjow (May 18, 2005)

Hmm you could do the same thing then... just find the height of the Dock (via plist?) and then estimate width and height of trash icon from there and draw into a transparent window placed directly over the trash's icon.. but if you did anything to the dock while the animation was running it'd get all jacked up, unless it autoresized with the dock.... pretty much a waste of anyone's time


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## roystonlodge (Oct 10, 2008)

Sorry for posting to such an old thread, but I thought y'all might be interested in the workaround (cheap-ass substitute?) for the classic Oscar app that I set up on my Mac Mini.  You can download it (for free of course) at my website www.stephengilman.ca.


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## grossmusic (Nov 27, 2011)

There were two parts to the song & it would complete the first part with a 2nd trashing.

I really want this function back. I've missed it ever since I had to upgrade to 9 & above...

I'd be willing to pay someone to develop it & then sell it as cheap shareware.


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