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10.4: Show MacOSXHints on RSS screen saver
Authored by: rgould on May 12, '05 02:52:54PM
yes,
    encro, Ockham, and EddEdmondson,
you completely missed the point of this hint.

what if you dont want to use safari? what if you dont want to have to go into safari and add a feed to make it work with the screensaver?

what if you wanted to make a screen saver that went to only one place and rename it something else so that it will only display news for one thing?

be creative.

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10.4: Show MacOSXHints on RSS screen saver
Authored by: jcroft on May 12, '05 03:04:50PM

Maybe they missed the point of the hint because the hint says NOTHING about Safari. It doesn't say, "here's a way to use the RSS screensaver for a custom URL without using Safari..." Instead, it just says, "here's how to add a custom URL."

And, for the record, whether you use Safari as your default browser or not, you can still use it one-time to add an RSS bookmark. Isn't that simpler for most folks than editing the files directly?

Frankly, the hint is poorly written. If it's all about being creative and finding unique ways to use the RSS screensaver, it should have said so. You can be creative all you want, but most of us are just reading the hints as they're written. The way this one is written, the only logical response is, "this is stupid."



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10.4: Show MacOSXHints on RSS screen saver
Authored by: gandolfthemac on Jun 10, '05 01:21:58AM

I think this hint is good, it may be the long way around and not a shortcut but this is a osxhints site not an osxshortcut site!!!!

This hint does two things... 1 it works!! 2 it shows and reminds us "creative people" or "forgetful people lol" how to modify .plist in tiger.

Wait, apparently it also gets people all razzed up ;)

anyway props to the hint author
and props to ROBG allways!!!

GANDOLF



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10.4: Show MacOSXHints on RSS screen saver
Authored by: zane on May 12, '05 04:27:30PM
"Creative" would be modifying the screensaver to do something that it can't normally do via. it's regular UI. As already pointed out, this hint demonstrates how to do something the long way, that a simple click of the UI's "Options" button will achieve. This hint is largely counter-productive.

"Creative" would be adding functionality, not making existing functionality more complicated.

As for non-Safari users, there's nothing stopping you from simply running Safari just to bookmark feeds. To me this seems far more convenient than .plist editing.

I don't think anyone is trying to steal anyone's thunder here. I just think think it's irresponsible to teach people that three lefts make a right, when only one right can make a right.

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10.4: Show MacOSXHints on RSS screen saver
Authored by: nickdynamite on May 12, '05 04:38:23PM

so it's quicker to go through 2 terminal commands and renames?

uhhhhhh...

i appreciate knowing that there are multiple ways to do any one thing, but if it's already easy why change it?

and doesn't, if you select it in the options, the rss bookmarks and the associated screensaver only "go to one place"?



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10.4: Show MacOSXHints on RSS screen saver
Authored by: rgould on May 12, '05 05:31:34PM
jcroft & zane,

you two dont get it either. maybe because you arent creative. how about this scenario:

you are ESPN. you want to use the quartz composer to designing a cool screensaver to handle ONLY your RSS feed. sadly, when you do create a screensaver using quartz composer, it defaults to the same behavior that the one apple ships with tiger has. so then you have to explain to your readers that they need to open safari, bookmark the RSS, and blah blah blah. lots of steps. and that leaves the screen saver open to manipulation with the "options..." button that you are all fond of pointing out.

this hint would let someone create a unique RSS screensaver that an end user cant mess with. unless they hack it with this hint, that is.

thats what "be creative" meant.

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10.4: Show MacOSXHints on RSS screen saver
Authored by: jcroft on May 12, '05 05:49:10PM

I am not creative? I'm a graphic and web designer by trade, and a pretty well respected one, at that.

My point was not that you are incorrect. My point was that while everytthing you are saying is true, there is no good reason why anyone should have thought of that sort of application based on the hint. The hint tells us how to change our RSS screensaver to use a user-specificed RSS feed. It doesn't say anything about creating a screensaver based on the RSS one. You came up with that -- it's totally irrelevant to this hint.

The hint is poorly worded, plain and simple. It tells us how to do something the hard way. That's not a "hint," but rather a timesink.



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10.4: Show MacOSXHints on RSS screen saver
Authored by: Ockham on May 12, '05 07:02:27PM
"this hint would let someone create a unique RSS screensaver that an end user cant mess with. unless they hack it with this hint, that is. "

Actually, that's not true. The options button will still let you modify the preferred RSS feed after you have manipulated the .plist as described in this hint. Why? Because this hint is merely modifying the preferred RSS feed by typing it in the long way directly in the .plist file instead of choosing it from the option button.

And to be clear, this has nothing to do with creativity, just simplicity. Had the hint actually been about using Quartz Composer to create a new RSS feed screen saver that is site-specific or is unique in some other way (like making the feed all lower case) that would be creative.

This hint did not discuss anything to do with Quartz Composer. This hint discussed taking the long road and manually changing the .plist file instead of simply doing it via the preference pane.

That being said, I applaud the hint poster for taking the initiative and figuring out how it all works.

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10.4: Show MacOSXHints on RSS screen saver
Authored by: mrpresident47 on May 12, '05 07:50:57PM
LOUD NOISES!!!!!!!!!

(See the movie Anchorman)

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10.4: Show MacOSXHints on RSS screen saver
Authored by: dubmaster on May 13, '05 01:02:30PM

That is actually not true, because you can define the url for the feed in the quarz composer already. Just select the first box RSS Feed box in the Root patch layout and do an Apple-I. Cycle to (or choose from the pulldown menu) Input Parameters and enter your RSS Feeds URL. Once you modified all what you want, color, speed, whatever, and you save it, it will keep the url.
You as well could copy the original RSS Visualizer (it's in /System/Library/Screensaver) to your Users /Library/Screensavers Folder and double click it there. Quartz composer will open and you can modify about all the settings with help of the Inspector panel.

---
-- Dub



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10.4: Show MacOSXHints on RSS screen saver
Authored by: eno on May 13, '05 09:48:45AM
you completely missed the point of this hint.

what if you dont want to use safari? what if you dont want to have to go into safari and add a feed to make it work with the screensaver?

what if you wanted to make a screen saver that went to only one place and rename it something else so that it will only display news for one thing?

be creative.

First prize for King Doofus goes to rgould.

Question: What if you don't want to use Safari?

My answer: Its installed by default with Tiger. Shouldn't be too much trouble to fire it up just once to add a bookmark.

Question: What if you dont want to have to go into Safari and add a feed to make it work with the screensaver?

rgould's answer: Instead of going to all that hassle take the easy road and hack a system plist file (but don't forget to convert it to and from binary plist format so that you can edit it in your 'favoriate' text editor).

rgould's answer to any other comment: Be creative/you're not creative/I am creative.

No doubt Rob will delete this comment because he likes things to be nice and clean on his site, but this rgould character is a clown and I think it needs to be pointed out. As written, this hint is completely inappropriate for most users and it doesn't even make use to either the Apple-sanctioned way of doing this, or any of the "creative" cases which rgould suggests justify the hint.

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