TIP: Make your own screensaver

[King Cobra]

For those with a collection of pictures of desktops, those with a collection of different movie pics, or just those with a ridiculous porn fetish, you can make your own screensaver out of these images.

There are two catches:
(1) You must know how to activate root user.
(2) Your images should not be ANY smaller than 25% your current screen display. Use the largest images possible.

The procedure:
(1) Log into root user.

(2) Navigate to System > Library > Screen Savers< and duplicate any one of the current screen savers (except Flurry.saver and Random.saver). Move the duplicate to a convient area, such as your desktop.

(3) Open the package contents of the duplicate (control-click on the folder, show package contents) and, inside the folder, navigate to Contents > Resources.

(4) Replace all of the images inside with whatever images you want. Make duplicates of the pictures instead of using your only copy of each picture you want for the screen saver, and place these duplicate pics in the resources folder.

IMPORTANT: Rename the files in alphabetical order. When the screen saver is launched for these images, the images will always display in alphabetical order.

When finished organizing your pictures appropriately, you may close the package contents folder.

(5) Rename the folder to XXXXXX.slideSaver. The name "XXXXXX" is the name of the screen saver as it will appear in your Screen Saver Preference Pane.

(6) Place the new .slideSaver folder in System > Library > Screen Savers.

You may want to test your screen saver in case you need to make changes to it. Preview it first BEFORE you log out of root, or you will have to log back in.

(7) When satisfied, log out of root and log back into your regular account.

(8) Watch the slide show.

A helpful tip to enhance your experience with the slide show: Have iTunes play music in the background while you run the screensaver. The music will play uninterrupted and the screen saver will also be uninterrupted.

 

[ftaok]

Actually, it's even simpler than that. You don't need to mess around with the root user account.

Here's what you do.

1. Create a new folder.
2. Put the pictures that you want into the folder.
3. Rename the folder xxx.slideSaver (replace xxx with anything you want).
4. Place the folder, xxx.slideSaver, into user/Library/Screen Savers.

NOTE - this screen saver will only be available for that particular user. This could be a good feature if you have a "porn" saver, that you don't want others to have axxxess to.

NOTE - if you want to make it available to all users, you'll need to log into the root account.

 

[mnkeybsness]

couldn't you just place it into /Library/Screen\Savers ? that's where i've put all of my downloaded screen savers and they work fine

 

[Jaykay]

Re: TIP: Make your own screensaver

Originally posted by King Cobra
For those with a collection of pictures of desktops, those with a collection of different movie pics, or just those with a ridiculous porn fetish, you can make your own screensaver out of these images.

Nice, ill have to try this, though i dont see myself making a 'porn'saver anytime soon.

 

[cb911]

hhmmm... that's handy to know. i guess.

 

[iJon]

why wouldnt someone just put there pictures in their pictures folder and just do it like that.

iJon

 

[King Cobra]

iJon, I'm lost in your wording. Do you mean make a screensaver out of everything in the Pictures folder, or do you mean go through each image in the pictures folder and manually open it?

Each frame of a screensaver lasts about 10 seconds. If you had 100 images in your screensaver the slide show would last over 16 minutes before looping.

 

[iJon]

lol, i dont know. im sure you are talking about something different than me. whenever i want to make a screen saver with the pictures i have downloaded or taken i just put them in my home folder in the pictures folder. then i tell system prefs to play my pictures.

iJon

 

[saint]

Yeah, I don't know why you would go to all that trouble. What's wrong with just setting the screen saver control panel to use a particular folder of pictures?

I think the only advantage would be if you wanted to set the screensaver to 'random' and be able to use different sets of pictures at the same time.

Is that what you are getting at?

BTW, I do think that the screen saver is a great way of running a slide show. It certainly changes between pictures a lot more smoothly than iPhoto.