How do I program a screen saver for OS X?

D

Doraemon

Registered
Hi there.

I have got quite a few, IMO, good ideas for screen savers which I'd like to realize.
However, I don't know how to start. I have never done this before and therefore I am looking for some kind of tutorial or reference on the web. Can anyone recommend such site or perhaps tell me what to do?

Thanks! :)
 
Search for screensaver or something similar on versiontracker.com, get those that are freeware and include sourcecode (there are some).

The ScreenSaver.framework is what you are interested in.

Also check out thistutorial at CocoaDevCentral.


theo/iconara
 
There are screensavers with source code from the author of Fire. You'll probably need to learn OpenGL, since it is much faster than plain Quartz (10-20x as fast). Unless this has changed with recent OS updates. Anybody know?
 
since Quartz of Jaguar is fully optimized for graphic hardware acceleration it should be as fast as OpenGL is, on my opinion. ;)

(talking about Jaguar : I'm really curious to try Ink. I have a Newton ...)
 
Originally posted by maccatalan
since Quartz of Jaguar is fully optimized for graphic hardware acceleration it should be as fast as OpenGL is, on my opinion. ;)

(talking about Jaguar : I'm really curious to try Ink. I have a Newton ...)
Click to expand...

Well, I don't know what "fully optimized" means (can code ever be fully optimized!?) but I hope you're right. The old quartz was very slow at blitting, so you were much better off putting your images into textures and using opengl. If the new quartz does this automatically, then that would be great.

I'd love to try Ink, although I haven't really liked the screenshots I've seen. It will let me eat a peach with one hand while still using the computer with the other; the problem with typing is that it takes two hands. :)
 
you're right about a "fully" optimized code ... :)

but about Ink I can tell you one thing (I just tried it today for the first time) :
Do you or did you have a Newton MessagePad ? Because it is exactly the same. You need to write somewhere ? just take your wacom tablet and begin writting. My hand writting is recognized at something like 80% (my father tried it too ... he was around 0% ... :)
It is very easy to use. It won't replace the keyboarding but it is fun to take a PC-guy and tell him : "Hey! look what my Mac does." :) So funny, I did it today with a friend. He was really amazed and interested.

This ink preview was with a Jaguar beta I got few days ago. The news are good : the system (graphics and anything else) are so fast. there're still some bugs and problems (hey! it's a Beta!) but I bet that the next version will rock. :D

;)
 
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