Quartz Composer and using a screen captured desktop for a screensaver

[drjump]

Mac OS X Version 10.6.2
Proc. 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Mem. 3 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM


Quartz Composer
Version 4.0 (103.1)
Framework Version 4.1 (156.10)

Take the STANDARD screensaver with quartz composer and save it and use it as a screensaver and you get a black screen. HOWEVER it tests just perfectly normal... the way you would hope for it to work. TEST works, however when the screensaver starts, by using hot corner or just waiting for it the screen goes black.

MY HYPOTHESIS - when the screensaver runs, the screen turns black, the screensaver that is trying to pull an image of the desktop is pulling that black screen image.

FIX?!?!??!? I DON'T KNOW ...

Of course I don't know that much about quartz composer, or creation of screensavers but such a SIMPLE thing as a blurry screen of your active desktop windows included and all is VERY confusingly difficult.

PLEASE HELP ME!

 

[kainjow]

Do you have the password lock option enabled by any chance?

 

[drjump]

Do you have the password lock option enabled by any chance?

as in password after screensaver yes, really that's the preferred option.

 

[kainjow]

I bet if you disable that in System Preferences > Security, and run the screensaver normally (outside of System Pref's test environment), it'll work.

When the require password option is enabled, the password dialog is opened but it's behind the screensaver window, so you only see it when the screensaver is canceled (from the mouse/keyboard). The password dialog is in front of a full screen black window, and I presume this is for security reasons so no one can see what's on your screen if you had for example a transparent screensaver, like the default Quartz Composer one.

I figured this out through some hacking a few weeks ago when attempting to write my own transparent screensaver that dimmed the screen. It would probably be possible to incorporate the hack into a custom patch, but that's not exactly simple to do.

So basically blame Apple for this one.

 

[drjump]

I bet if you disable that in System Preferences > Security, and run the screensaver normally (outside of System Pref's test environment), it'll work.

When the require password option is enabled, the password dialog is opened but it's behind the screensaver window, so you only see it when the screensaver is canceled (from the mouse/keyboard). The password dialog is in front of a full screen black window, and I presume this is for security reasons so no one can see what's on your screen if you had for example a transparent screensaver, like the default Quartz Composer one.

I figured this out through some hacking a few weeks ago when attempting to write my own transparent screensaver that dimmed the screen. It would probably be possible to incorporate the hack into a custom patch, but that's not exactly simple to do.

So basically blame Apple for this one.

I understand... and I tried all different time options with the password enabled... and there is no way to have password after screensaver and have a transparent screensaver ... you are right, without the password on it works just fine.

So I have an idea for a workaround
http://mac101.net/content/how-to/lock-your-mac-and-display-fast-user-switching-screen-on-idle/
and set the screensaver before this program, trying this out now and we'll see what happens.

 

[drjump]

I understand... and I tried all different time options with the password enabled... and there is no way to have password after screensaver and have a transparent screensaver ... you are right, without the password on it works just fine.

So I have an idea for a workaround
http://mac101.net/content/how-to/lock-your-mac-and-display-fast-user-switching-screen-on-idle/
and set the screensaver before this program, trying this out now and we'll see what happens.

AND IT WORKS with SNOW LEOPARD + it's relatively easy, I don't have textmate so I used SMULTRON an amazingly strong free app. follow the instructions but do all editing to files with smultron... it is actually an easy process.

So now I have a transparent background screensaver that I made myself and it works and my computer is safe because it locks at any time I determine.