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After weeks of pixel-by-pixel tweaking in Photoshop, perfecting CSS in Smultron, and refreshing browsers (Safari, IE, and Firefox), I’m pleased to announce the launch of the new Wallsaver 2.0 website at www.wallsaverapp.com.

This new website is a much needed update to the text-and-random-image based version currently hosted on the NWW Network website (which will have its own update soon). There’s plenty of AJAXy goodness and rounded corners for everyone. Everything was custom designed from the ground up, and is (mostly) standards compliant and looks great in pretty much any browser.

There are some issues with the way Internet Explorer 6.0 and lower handles transparent PNGs and CSS padding, so in order to preserve the viewing experience the entire site is disabled to users browsing via IE. The images below show the warning message and just how bad IE6 is with standards compliance.

I had initially given up and pushed the project off to my “Stuff to do when really bored” folder (yes I have one) after not being able to find a header/footer image that went with the Wallsaver theme. I considered having them be screen shots of screen savers, but as you can see above, the background was already a rotating screen shot.

Last night, while browsing the Apple Design Awards winners’ websites, I found a better solution. Instead of having the background rotate screen saver images, the header could do it. This way the page would load faster, and scale properly. The image-as-background method resulted in a 200 kb - 300 kb PNG image being loaded, not to mention users with wide-screen high resolution monitors would see black space and an abruptly ended image.

Wallsaver has been featured in Mac100%, a Japanese-language Mac magazine. I was contacted a short while ago by a Mac100% editor asking for permission to feature Wallsaver in a “software DVD” attached to the Spring issue of their magazine. Since any publicity for Wallsaver is good publicity, I granted the editor permission, and in return was sent a copy of the magazine.

Here’s the blurb, hopefully somebody can translate it for me. (Here’s to hoping it was a good review.)

While googling Wallsaver, I found that Apple’s downloads site lists Wallsaver as a “staff pick” (about half way down on this page) and is the 7th most popular download on this page.

I made a bit of a mistake while writing Wallsaver 2.0.

Most people (unless they add third party screen savers) don’t have anything inside the “/Library/Screen Savers” or “~/Library/Screen Savers” folders. Because of a bug in the code (details below), a lot of people were given the following error:

Can’t make every file of «class ects» of alias "Macintosh HD:Library:Screen Savers:" into type «class alst». (-1700)

In the program, there’s a bit of code that adds all the screen savers in a folder to a list. The code will run if the folder is empty or even if the folder doesn’t exist.

The bad code:
set UserScreenSavers to (files of entire contents of UserScreenSaversPath) as alias list

The fix, as you can see, is quite simple. Simply throw the offending code into a try statement. If any part fails (i.e., the folder is empty or doesn’t exist), set the list to null.

The better code:

try
set UserScreenSavers to (files of entire contents of UserScreenSaversPath) as alias list

end try


Why didn’t I put in the try block from the beginning? On both of the computers I use to test software (yes, I do test my software), all three of the directories Wallsaver searches in for screen savers exist and have files in them. There was just no opportunity for the list population to fail.

Thank you to all the users of Wallsaver who quickly downloaded (some within 2 hours of the release) v2.0 and reported the bug. Your efforts helped in the v2.1 update being released as quickly as it did.

I wrote yesterday that Wallsaver was coming along nicely and that it would be released within one week.

I lied.

Wallsaver 2.0 has officially been released. Here’s a copy & paste of the change log from the Wallsaver product page:

• You may now choose any screen saver in the “/System/Library/Screen Savers”, “/Library/Screen Savers/” or “~/Library/Screen Savers” folders.

• The new icon properly scales up to 512×512 pixels and depicts a screen saver that is Wallsaver compatible.

The screen shot below pretty much sums up the biggest feature of the 2.0 release.

So head on over to Wallsaver’s product page and download a copy. If you’re an existing user (you == win) you can update to Wallsaver 2.0 via the built in update utility.

I’m almost (about 75%) done with Wallsaver 2.0 and it should be ready for release in about 1 week.

What’s so special about Wallsaver 2.0?

You will no longer be restricted to the same screen saver you have set in System Preferences. You will be able to display any screen saver you’ve installed as your desktop wallpaper. This was by far the most requested feature, and it’s in Wallsaver 2.0.

There’s a new application icon.

I’d promised a menu bar version of Wallsaver by version 2.0 in the feature requests that came in via the NWW Network Support Center, but I’m pushing it back to a more distant (possibly 2.1) release.

I’d also considered charging a few dollars ($1.99) for people to download the application since I am paying quite a bit for (mt) Media Temple hosting, but decided against it because I believe that software should be free.

So, in summary, Wallsaver 2.0 (to be released in about 1 week) will allow the user to change the screen saver that is displayed as the desktop wallpaper, features a application new icon, and will continue to be free.

Thanks to all of you out there using Wallsaver!

PS: I’ve also entered the Apple Design Awards “BEST MAC OS X LEOPARD STUDENT PRODUCT” contest. Who knows? I might actually win, the prizes (even for the runner up) are pretty sweet.

Disclaimer: I’m no longer employed by Apple Inc., so there is no conflict of interest by me entering this contest.