Filed under: Software, Freeware
Status Screen Saver 1.0
Are you so addicted to RSS, Mail, and Twitterrific that you just can't stand when your screen saver launches? Status Screen Saver might just be the screen saver for you. The awesome thing about this screen saver is that is displays your current unread Mail count, unread NetNewsWire feeds, and even unread tweets from Twitterrific. You can select a screen saver that you have installed in the Status Screen Saver options.Even better, Status Screen Saver allows you to (with some AppleScripting) create your own "modules" which opens up unlimited possibilities to what can be shown in Status Screen Saver. So, if you use something other than the supported applications, you can (if the application is scriptable) make an AppleScript to give a number, then place it in the Screen Saver.saver/Contents/Resources/ directory.
Overall, this is a really cool screen saver which can be expanded upon by the user. You can download this free (donations accepted) screen saver by visiting the developer's website.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Blaktornado said 2:47PM on 5-23-2008
Very nice, but it'll be better when there are more modules... such as an Adium module?
Also, the icons would be better if they weren't all jaggy when at a bigger or smaller size than 10%, but it's early days.
Very promising :)
Hope to see some nice things come out of this.
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BabyGotMac said 3:41PM on 5-23-2008
Pretty cool but the third party app notification instructions are a tad scant.
:)
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dbr said 1:22AM on 5-24-2008
It's simple. Go to home-dir, Library, ScreenSavers. Right click the StatusScreenSaver icon and select view package contents.
Go to contents, resources.
Alt+drag the Mail.bundle (makes a copy of it), rename it to something sensible (mynewplugin.bundle). right-click>show-package-contents that too.
Load script.applescript in the script editor.
Change the script to:
set unreadCount to 10
return unreadCount
Next, save/close the script, you can change the icon to a different one (find "IconGrabber" to extract icons form applications as .tiff).
Now, to enable your fancy new plugin - Go to the screensaver preferences. Select the status-screensaver, click options and enabled on your your new plugin.
It should show up when you preview the screensaver - it will always display "10" (whatever number you return at the end of the script is what is displayed)
I'm trying to write an Adium unread script - I can't seem to find how to get the unread message count via applescript.. When I find a way, it will be trivial to write..
Matt said 3:51PM on 5-23-2008
Would like to see a module for showing unread RSS feeds from Mail.app
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FightTheFuture said 4:47PM on 5-23-2008
this is a great idea - but since they don't move, won't the icons burn into your monitor?
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Blaktornado said 9:05PM on 5-23-2008
Nah. The Menu bar doesn't, nor do various other things that stay permanently fixed on your computer screen (like desktop icons).
Only rarely do screens burn these days.
Screen savers are mainly there to look pretty, in this modern age.
gino said 4:49PM on 5-23-2008
Really nice application!
but how to set also netnewswire messages?
i can't select it on modules and can't see rss news
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Adam Betts said 5:21PM on 5-23-2008
Finally, a cleaner and working replacement to IconSticker Screensaver ( http://pekeler.org/software/IconSticker/ .)
I'd like to see iChat support. I've tried to make an iChat module but with no luck. Here's the applescript I used:
tell application "iChat" to return count of (messages where is new is true)
This doesn't work.
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chris.wanja said 7:37PM on 5-23-2008
Program is a little buggy. The screen saver is super blurry (not flurry) and pixeled. Looking good for the early stages but would like to see the better updates
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rrrrrs4 said 1:31AM on 5-25-2008
very cool, but can you make the bottom transparent or change colors and have the icons shift left or right every min. or so? It defeats the purpose of a screen saver, but you can make it work by pixel shifting every so often. Some of us leave the screen saver on all day ;) But overall great idea.
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Andrew Lartigue said 9:57AM on 5-29-2008
Tried it, but on my system, the mail icon shows count of one even though there are no email in the account. Per the developer, fiddled with the excluded mailbox, but still shows one email (grey circle). When I get new email, the counter changes color to red and shows 2. I open email and read that one and it show grey with 2 when screen saver starts. I can empty the inbox. It is back to 1.
Even tried on new installed system, with just new account set up (no other folders, no rules, junk delivered to inbox, no rss).
A
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Andrew Lartigue said 10:00AM on 5-29-2008
Got with the developer and determined that the extra message was in the notes feature of Apple Mail. Had a note in that folder (name and phone number) and it was picking up that info.
The developer sent nice applescript that showed the folders the info was pulling from.
A
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