Quartz Extreme = Animated Desktop?

dstranathandstranathan
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
I am wondering if Jaguar will allow Macs to have an animated desktop "movie loop" as opposed to just an old-fashioned desktop pic (ie wallpaper). I think it would be cool to have a calming stream trickle across my desktop as I worked, or maybe puffy white clouds slowy rolling across my TiBook screen- ala' an animated sky sequence....

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 13
    nx7oenx7oe Posts: 198member
    That would be Tight, but very unlikely because a moving desktop would cause some icons to dissapear alltogether and the dock, since it is transparent could not be seen. But maybe with the Terminal Window Modifications to the system or a Theme it could be possible.
  • Reply 2 of 13
    paulpaul Posts: 5,278member
    [quote]Originally posted by nx7oe:

    <strong>a moving desktop would cause some icons to dissapear alltogether and the dock, since it is transparent could not be seen</strong><hr></blockquote>



    why would either of those thing smatter? just because the desktop is being animated does not mean things would dissapear... maybe it would get harder to see these things, but you would just wait a sec for the desktop to "go back" to a "frame" in the animation that allows that part of the screen to be seen clearly...



    anyways... I think this can be done now, but it is a pain in the *** ... for example, you know those programs that change your desktop bkrnd every 15 min or so? well who is stpping you from changing that interval to lets say 24 pics/sec and make the desktop change in a sequence,... so you would have 24 frames/sec on your desktop? Is that even possible or am I making it up? I dono I have never used said program, only heard of it on these boards...



    If it cant be done now, it would be damn cool if jag lets us....
  • Reply 3 of 13
    scott_h_phdscott_h_phd Posts: 448member
    I don't see why Apple can't do it now in OS X and I don't see why this would be bad wrt icons and the dock. At least not any worse than putting up your own pic.



    Apple has no reason not to do this.



    [ 05-26-2002: Message edited by: scott_h_phd ]</p>
  • Reply 4 of 13
    spotbugspotbug Posts: 361member
    This has already been done. You don't need QE to do it. Just cover the desktop with a window (not sure how that's done, but it's possible) and run an animation in it. Voila.



    I really wish I could remember the name of the app that did this. I dumped it a while ago. It replaces your desktop picture with a spinning galaxy graphic which animates continuously. I got rid of it months ago because, on my lowly G3/350, while it was certainly beyond cool, it was also a real CPU-sucker.
  • Reply 5 of 13
    code mastercode master Posts: 344member
    I would just ask that it be smart enough to only use otherwise 'idle' processing power so that it never hurts performance of other apps
  • Reply 6 of 13
    spookyspooky Posts: 504member
    Given the sloooowness of aqua as it stands, can u imagine the performance hit from an animated desktop! <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
  • Reply 7 of 13
    applenutapplenut Posts: 5,768member
    [quote]Originally posted by spooky:

    <strong>Given the sloooowness of aqua as it stands, can u imagine the performance hit from an animated desktop! <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>



    quicktime is not slow. I remember a demo of a animated desktop using qt sprites
  • Reply 8 of 13
    noahjnoahj Posts: 4,503member
    Hasn't this been done with DVD playback already? It is only a small step from that to what he was speaking of....
  • Reply 9 of 13
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    who are you people? <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
  • Reply 10 of 13
    nostradamusnostradamus Posts: 397member
    What you are suggesting has been done.



    <a href="http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=11202&db=mac"; target="_blank">xBack</a>



    xBack has been out since the Public Beta days.



    Displays screensavers as your desktop. If you have the SaveHollywood screensaver, you can play movies that Quicktime can play on your desktop, and hence, animations.



    Quartz Extreme should dramatically improve xBack.



    [ 05-27-2002: Message edited by: Nostradamus ]</p>
  • Reply 11 of 13
    spotbugspotbug Posts: 361member
    [quote]Originally posted by Nostradamus:

    <strong><a href="http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=11202&db=mac"; target="_blank">xBack</a></strong><hr></blockquote>



    That's the app I couldn't remember.
  • Reply 12 of 13
    spotbugspotbug Posts: 361member
    [quote]Originally posted by spooky:

    <strong>Given the sloooowness of aqua as it stands, can u imagine the performance hit from an animated desktop! <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>



    You don't have to imagine. Try it out:



    <a href="http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=11202&db=mac"; target="_blank">xBack</a>



    The hit is pretty bad on my G3/350 using a full-screen animation (an animation that changes the entire screen with each frame).



    I don't think, on today's hardware, a low bandwith QT movie would be too bad. A looping waterfall, where the waterfall part of the movie was only a portion of the image, would be really cool.



    Actually, this exactly equivalent to having a big QT movie going in the background all the time. That's not too bad - depending on the movie.



    [ 05-27-2002: Message edited by: spotbug ]</p>
  • Reply 13 of 13
    jdradenjdraden Posts: 89member
    another app that will do that is called.. "saverlab" I think.. search for it on versiontracker.com



    mike
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