Help finding Mac screensaver with scrolling text (Windows Marquee-esque)

Question

Level 1

42 points

Help finding Mac screensaver with scrolling text (Windows Marquee-esque)

I have been searching the internet somewhat intensely for a scrolling text screensaver for my Macbook. I found an Apple download called "message", but that is wayyy too fancy for me. I can barely even see the text with all of the crazy fonts and weird zooming. The emphasis is not on the text for that screensaver.

Something like the Windows Marquee would be fine, though I am sure somewhere out there is a tricked-out version for Mac. I would just want to be able to read the text clearly, as I intend to use the screensaver to help me to memorize some text.

Maybe I am overlooking an obvious screensaver already loaded on the Macbook, but I am surprised that Tiger does not come with such a screensaver. Any suggestions and links? Thank you

MacBook 1.83; 60GB 5G iPod, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Aug 20, 2007 7:13 AM

Reply

Answer 1

a brody

Level 10

85,314 points

Aug 20, 2007 7:25 AM in response to Fat Moses

This sounds like something that could be done with one of iMovie's title effects. Quicktime Player will play back those files and it has a loop playback mode as well as full screen playback in the Pro version that costs $30. Since I don't use iMovie, I can't say for certain. I'll see if someone who does can recommend something. There are some freeware applications that play fullscreen Quicktime movies as well.

http://www.versiontracker.com/ http://guide.apple.com/ and http://www.macupdate.com/ are all places I'd search too.

Reply

Answer 2

Kyn Drake

Level 7

21,597 points

Aug 21, 2007 7:15 AM in response to Fat Moses

I think you should be able to find something that works for you using Quartz Composer. As an example, here is a link to someone else that was working on horizontal scrolling text. I don't know if their project got completed (or if it's currently included in Quartz Composer) but the .qtz file on this page will load in QuickTime so you can see the results as of this posting.

http://www.mulle-kybernetik.com/weblog/2005/05/towardshorizontal_scrollingi.html

You get Quartz Composer by downloading the Xcode tools. I'm looking through the example libraries now to see if there's something you could use in the current examples.

Reply

Answer 3

Kyn Drake

Level 7

21,597 points

Aug 21, 2007 7:59 AM in response to Kyn Drake

I was able to create horizontally scrolling text without any patches. Took a few attempts and examining other example files, but it's pretty straightforward once you get the hang of it.

Reply