PanoSaver 1.0
View panoramic images while your machine is idle.
Free
PanoSaver 1.0
View panoramic images while your machine is idle.
Free
Welcome
Hi there, and thank you for trying my second screen saver. Over the last several years our displays have gotten large, but our digital cameras have gotten even larger. PanoSaver is a plugin for the Mac OS X screen saver engine that displays very large images from a specified folder by panning randomly across them. It will change pictures every once in a while and loads only as much of the picture as needed, to reduce memory requirements.
Requirements
PanoSaver should run on any machine with Mac OS X 10.3 or later and is Universal.
Installation
To install, just double-click the PanoSaver.saver file.
If this is a new installation, System Preferences will launch and you'll be asked whether you want to install just for yourself or for all users. If you're not currently logged in as an administrative user and want to install for everyone you will be asked to authenticate.
If you're installing over an existing copy of PanoSaver, you'll be notified that it already exists and asked if you really want to replace it. If you opt to replace a copy that's installed for all users and aren't an admin, you'll be asked for credentials.
Use
Screen savers in Mac OS X have two modes of operation. The common one is to use it as a screen obscurer/exerciser when you're not actively using your machine. For that behavior, just select the PanoSaver entry from the list in System Preferences, configure it with the "Options…" button to select the source directory, and let it go.
Alternatively, you can run a screen saver module on your desktop - over any desktop image you have, but beneath all windows and icons. I've provided AppleScript applications to start and stop PanoSaver in this mode.
As noted above, PanoSaver only loads as much of the image as it has to to draw the current screen. You need to give it a little bit of help to do this; packaged with the screen saver is an application - PanoSlicer - that carves images up into an arrangement of tiles. Use is fairly simple: Launch the application, load an image, and then save it to the directory you’ve told the screen saver to look in for pictures.
Please note: While PanoSaver is quite memory-efficient, it’s fairly CPU hungry.
Licensing
PanoSaver is, I think appropriately, postcard-ware. If you decide to keep and use it, please send a postcard from where you are to where I am. That'd be:
If you really want to give me money, I'm certainly not averse to it. Donations in whatever amount you consider worthwhile can be sent to the same address or via PayPal to gweston@mac.com.
Support
If you have any questions or suggestions regarding PanoSaver, please send mail to support@splook.com with, preferably, a subject line that includes the name "PanoSaver." Updates will always be available at this site.