Great app! :D

Too bad though that it (apperenlty?) can't be used as a screen saver.

Keep up the good work :)

good job!

thanks! A screensaver version of it is in the works and should be released shortly. Unfortunately I've never made a screensaver for Mac OSX before and I've got to study a little how the preferences work :)

Loving this and I haven't even played with all the settings yet. Will I ever change my desktop again? Unlikely.
Can't wait for the screensaver version...good luck!

A screensaver version would be very cool.
Maybe some options could include changing branch and leaf colors.

Just beautiful!!
I'm use this on macbook (not core 2 due) and this app does not use cpu so much.
I'm looking forward to Screensaver version too!
(sorry, my strange english...)

Thanks, I'll definetly keep an eye on your site to see when the screensaver comes out! :D I'm sure you'll be able to do it. Good luck with building it though :).

allo Matteo,
echoing all the above - very beautiful and peaceful.
my powerbook is happier having this running. ')
saw it mentioned on Mac's download section, and would just like to also say a screensaver would be super. peace and respect. :-) -friedmandesigns

Beautiful job!

thanks for all the kind feedback. Hope you will like the screensaver version too.

An excellent program! Very amusing and relaxing to watch. I found it through the apple.com downloads.
It would be great if you could build in a "Defaults" button, that sets all the settings back to default.
Screensaver is great.

Mike

First of all I'd just like to congratulate you on having it made possible to make an offshoots screensaver!! (and so fast too? ) I love it and so does my happy apple :). All that I'm missing in the screensaver version though is that you can't make the background transparent like you can with the regular offshoots program....but hey...who's complaining?? I can live without transparent background screensavers ;). Again great job, looking forward to see more of your work!

greetz, ciao 4 now :)

Offshots works only on the main screen, even if I have plugged other monitor to the Mac. It would be nice that Offshots handles multiple monitors.
Thanks!

couple of things,

1. if would be awsome if when the leave and branches faded, the did so smoothly instead of jerking to the new opacity.

2. It would also be cool if the stand-alone program could be taken out of the dock and put into the menu bar at the top, much like quicksilver.

But hey, those are only small improvements, this is great so far!!!

That is truely the most unique and beatiful thing I've seen in a long long time.

Why is this nice, little app such a gigantic memory hog? I have been running it for a few days now, and it is up to 342MB of real and 811 MB of virtual. Time to clean up those pointers.

steven thanks for the heads up, the app was made as a proof of concept and in a bit of a hurry and that is entirely possible, I'll try to look on it in the weekend. I'm also working on some other features...

Matteo, thanks for this very beautifull app! I would agree that reducing the memory usage would make people with older computers (like myself) more inclined to turn on the program more often!

Very artistic!

Hi guys, i love this app that you did, one question though, is there a way for it to automatically switch on so when i log in it automatically starts?

@papao: You can add it to the login items of your user account in the System Preferences.

this is so c??l :) great job

I agree with the above post, implementing support for 2 or more screens in the standalone app would be awesome. Especially if there were two different options: 1) Trees grow across all screens as if they were one screen, and 2) Trees grow the way they do now, but on every screen seperately. That would be killer.

@patches: multiple screens' support is probably coming in the next release. The problem is that my access to multiple monitors at home is very limited and I had too little time to work on it for this release.

hey - i love this so far, it's pretty nifty - the only thing i'd love to see is a crossfade between the changes of background colors (when it's on my desktop or as a screensaver)

good work though!

-kevin

@kevin: thanks for your feedback. What do you mean by "crossfade"? How is it different from what it does now?

Thank you for getting the screensaver out! Its awesome!!! Nice work!

Good job on version 1.2....but still no transparancy (transparicy? :P ) in the screensaver version? :(..

@cvnico: sorry, I tried to but couldn't succeed in that. Although I added the "ScreenSaver mode" in the standalone version that should do more or less what you want. Please let me know what you think of it.

My desktop is covered by many windows all open at the same time so sadly I really couldn't utilize "Offshoots". Thanks for the screen saver! I have it running on both monitors and it is BEAUTIFUL!

Hello,

This is a lovely application, any chance of making it run on a dual display system?

Thanks


Wonea

can ni change the parameters so it doesnt show on whole screen but part of screen....
ilooked through the codes and i didnt se parameters : (

Thank you for replying to my message i love your work and so do my friends their so jealous about it! Haha. wouldnt it be cool if it also had an option to make desktop images at the background change while the tree animation is running on the foreground? I love this BEAUTIFULL APP

i love the program but it seems to unexpectedly quit way too often. It gets kind of annoying.

@big: never heard of it. Please send us the crash log you find in ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter. It should be called Offshoots.crash.log or something like that... thanks

I don't know what I did right (or wrong) but have it running differently on 2 displays at once. I just installed it and let it run.

This is simply amazing and beautiful. i love how individual it can be. keep up the good work!

Offshoots looks great and it's just beautiful. Too bad that it always eventually crashes. That isn't such a bad problem. But my presets are always gone after I've restarted it from a crash. And I'm getting pretty pissed of continuosly selecting the colors and parametres I wish it to have.

It would really be amazing app if it wasn't so unstable. I don't even see the point to save presets if they last till the next crash (which might be about for one hour). The screensaver, though, works fine and is perfect.

@Pete: thanks for your feedback. I never had problems like the ones you mention. Please refer to the previous comment to big and send us one fo your crash logs if you can. It should help us greatly.

Pete, if you made your carefully selected prefs, you can quit the app before it crashes. That way, the preferences are saved.

Matteo: maybe you can do a
[[NSUserDefaults standardDefaults] synchronize]
after each pref setting change. I know, it's not what Apple recommends, but it will get your prefs saved before the app quits! ;-)

Greetz from Thalictrum.com's developer. Like your stuff! ;-)

unexpected crash report:
[...]

@MayMay: thanks, I know of the problem, it will be solved in the next release.
Please next time send the report by email :)

Hi, it crashes really fast. Here's the crash log:

Date/Time: 2008-09-04 09:12:33.827 -0700
OS Version: 10.4.11 (Build 8S2167)
Report Version: 4

Command: Offshoots
Path: /Applications/Offshoots.app/Contents/MacOS/Offshoots
Parent: WindowServer [56]

Version: ??? (1.2b)

PID: 755
Thread: 0

Exception: EXC_ARITHMETIC (0x0003)
Codes: EXC_I386_DIV (divide by zero)

I have to say first that I LOVE this app! It has replaced VladStudio's WallPaper Clocks and EarthDesk as my current active desktop.

That said, it is crashing occasionally with divide-by-zero errors. Any chance of an update? Keep up the great work!

--------
Date/Time: 2008-09-12 11:59:57.709 -0500
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.5.4 (9E17)
Report Version: 6

Exception Type: EXC_ARITHMETIC (SIGFPE)
Exception Codes: EXC_I386_DIV (divide by zero)
Crashed Thread: 0

Thread 0 Crashed:
0 net.digitalwaters.Offshoots 0x00006809 -[DesktopView updateMouse:] + 1003
1 com.apple.Foundation 0x904265d7 __NSFireTimer + 279
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x920ffb45 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 4469
3 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x920ffcf8 CFRunLoopRunInMode + 88
4 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x95eb5da4 RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 283
5 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x95eb5bbd ReceiveNextEventCommon + 374
6 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x95eb5a31 BlockUntilNextEventMatchingListInMode + 106
7 com.apple.AppKit 0x946e7505 _DPSNextEvent + 657
8 com.apple.AppKit 0x946e6db8 -[NSApplication nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 128
9 com.apple.AppKit 0x946dfdf3 -[NSApplication run] + 795
10 com.apple.AppKit 0x946ad030 NSApplicationMain + 574
11 net.digitalwaters.Offshoots 0x000024ae _start + 216
12 net.digitalwaters.Offshoots 0x000023d5 start + 41

Thanks for the reports. I've known this issue for some time now but I was unable to release a fix as I had other new features meddled with the fix. As soon as I get back home I'll try to make a releasable version.

Very nice and simple application, it give some peace to your computer, and it's kind of fascinating to see these branches growing, and you can adapt the colors to your will. Simply beautiful. Thank you very much :)

I love this app!

You should link up a widget to the IUseThis.com page you have:

osx.iusethis.com

I use Offshoots as my screen saver since 1.3 is out. I really love it !

However, when I quit the screensaver while it is using certain backgrounds colors, my monitor keeps a blue tone, looking like it is using another color profile.
The way I found to solve this is just to open the Monitor Preferences. Then the right colors come back immediately.
I'm using 10.5.5 on a MBP.

Thanks for this app !

how do i get to the offshoots preferences

je vous dis bravo, franchement votre économisateur d'écran, est vraiment superbe, bon 3 heures pour trouver le réglage idéal, mais je ne me lasse pas de le regarder, j'ai régler mon mac, pour qu'il dure 1heure .
beautiful screensaver, sorry for my french speaking, but i couldn't transalte my good opinion in english.

AYE-MAZING!

:) I just love this application as both my screensaver and in my desktop! It's just fantastic! Thank you so much! :)

I love the screensaver, my favorite by far! Although, as I just discoved, it does not work with snow leopard, any updates soon?

I've been using this screen saver for a couple of years now - very elegant, and one of the few good-looking screensavers that doesn't cause my Mac's fans to spin up.

Sadly after updating to Snow Leopard, I too found that it doesn't work. Would love an updated version.

Thanks for good work so far!

Denise, Davey: thanks for the heads up, I'll try to get the update as soon as I can, copies are already sold out around here. Hope to be able to come up with an update soon.

A beta for Snow Leopard is now available in the Download section.

Please note that this version won't work on 10.4 or 10.5.

This version not only makes the screensaver work on 10.6 but it also solves some serious performance issues of the standalone application apparently only noticeable on 10.6.

Wow, that was quick! Thanks. All seems to be working well for me so far.

Thanks a lot for porting to 64.