http://electricsheep.googlecode.com/files/electricsheep-2.7b24.dmg
Open the DMG then double click to install (requires OSX 10.4 or better). It should select itself as your current screensaver, and also put an icon for the application on the desktop. If not, open the System Preferences / Desktop & Screensaver and choose "Electric Sheep" from the list on the left (not "ElectricSheep" without a space, because that's the old version).
If you have trouble, see the help page.
Misc
I noticed with this version, b24, my "playcounts" have reverted to zero. I mean, either that or it's not reading the logfile or whatever, correctly - it's saying "Played for the first time" for things I know I've played many times before, such as sheep #244.05157. The weird thing is, after having installed it yesterday, it's not even saving the fact that I've played certain sheep *since* then. So something is off here. My prior version was b22; I'm running it on a Mac.
Secondly, I like to choose when to send my fan into overdrive, not have ES kick in everytime the lappy is inactive; thus I've chosen a very lo-CPU screensaver -- I mainly these days run ES in standalone mode. So... when I install ES, I would call this a bug, the fact that the ES installer doesn't check to see if I already have it installed - I think it should, and then if I do, *leave alone* my pref of having a different system screensaver. In other words, *don't* set ES as my default screensaver. (but for peeps installing ES for the *first time*, then *do* set it as default screensaver, since, well, they're newbies, bla bla, that's kind of expected behavior, etc.).
Lastly, is there a better method of reporting bugs / enhancement requests than making posts here, or is this the desired way of doing so?
Thanks again! -- Oh, ps, I just read the release notes more completely - it didn't put an app alias on my desktop.
if you turn off rendering it
There was a change in
Also when all play counts are reset to zero. The zero times played sheep (all in your case) have priority playing, therefore first you'll see "first time" sheep played and if one of them connects to already played one, you'll have different play count displayed. This could be sparse. But by renaming the file above, you should get rid of this situation.
For the installer issue, yes you are right, we should ask about setting the screen saver as default. But by itself it is difficult to say if a user intentionally set the screen saver to something else. We are presuming that if somebody launches installer of Electric Sheep he/she wants to see how it works, therefore we set the screen saver for him/her. You have still the choice to not to install the screen saver by unchecking the package in custom installation options. You'll have only the app installed. But I'll see what can I do about the default-screen-saver-setting user confirmation.
2.7b24 released
+ added generation number to playcounts file.
+ hides cursor even when itunes is the active app.
+ moves status displays to lower left corner and improves them.
+ do not crash when median Level is set at 100.
2.7b22 released
1) fix loop detector and improve variety of sheep played.
2) improve and expand info overlay (F2-4).
3) fade in at beginning.
4) add config file setting for the MedianLevel (see below).
5) add timestamps to the log.
6) don't render with all cores, leave one for display.
7) fix installer bug for just one user.
You can now set the MedianLevel in the config file. This is a value from 1-100 which controls what percentage of the flock is selected to be played. It excludes the sheep with the highest playcounts (if you set this at 80, the default, then the 20% of the flock with the highest playcounts are not played). The ranking is recomputed every 20 minutes.
I would recommend setting this lower than the default. We are still experimenting with this feature, but my current guess is if you have a full 2GB flock then 15 would be good. If 1GB then 30, etc. If you mess with it please let us know what happens.
Standalone Mac app: Y-height (off by 10 pixels)
Which leads me to a feature request. At least in the Mac standalone app (if not when running as a Mac OS X screensaver) - can there be an option -- even a hidden one -- to maintain aspect ratio, at all times? This would allow me to drag-resize the window, while keeping the aspect ratio constrained. Would also make the Toggle Fullscreen command add in pillarboxing if running on a 16x9 or 16x10 aspect ratio display. Or, in rare instance, add letterboxing if running on a 'portrait display'. If this is implemented (first) for the standalone app only, and not the screensaver - the preferences UI could be kept clean by making this pref take the form of a command-line argument like:
defaults write org.electricsheep.standalone preserve-aspect-ratio -boolean YESdefaults write org.electricsheep.standalone preserve-aspect-ratio -boolean NOSorry, I am not sure I
How did you calculate the 800x14 size?
About the aspect ratio, I think it will be implemented in the future releases as the general option for application and screen saver as well.
Typo.. and my mistake
tell application "System Events"get size of window 1 of application process "Electric Sheep"
end tell
And... right you are -- my bad! Minus the titlebar, which is 22 px tall, the window content height is 592, exactly the height of the rendered sheep, as it should be - as you point out. I started off on a faulty presumption, which was that the sheep were in 4x3 aspect ratio, thus 800x600... I trust there's some programmatic explanation for why they're 4x2.96 (800x592).
In any case, re: user option to specify preservation of aspect ratio - whether by pillarbox/letterbox, or by cropping - glad to hear that's still in the works.
Thanks again :)
592 is 0 mod 16 which helps
prerelease 2.7b21b
kernel panics fixed?
prerelease 2.7b21a
Sheep do not release screen
Same problem - no display refresh
You did not have the same
Hardware/Software regarding screen release issue
Do you still remember what
2.7b21 released: - expanded
2.7b21 released:
- expanded waiting time after sheep download failure to 10 minutes (was 10 seconds). Now we are nicer to download server.- fixed unwanted repeated downloads of the same sheep. this is an important bug fix, users of all previous versions should upgrade!
- added information of sheep playcount into playing sheep information overlay (F4)
- added timestamp to log entries
- fixed issue where Debug Log setting were not properly read from configuration file
- added config file settings.player.MedianLevel (0-100) controls how many sheep get shown based on how often they are played. setting it lower makes the current set of sheep smaller. sheep that have been played the most are not played.
we skipped b20 to synchronize with windows version numbers.
Bug Report: Not working from ~/Library/Screen Savers
I like to have my screen savers in my home directory's Library/Screen Savers directory, but when I moved the Electric Sheep saver from /Library/Screen Savers, the it wouldn't run. [Moving it back fixed the problem, but I'd still prefer to have it in ~/Library/Screen Savers for future versions]
After you move your screen
After you move your screen saver to ~/Library/Screen Savers, you must go to System Preferences and reselect it. Did you do that?
Otherwise please answer the spot's questions below...
what were the symptoms? can
what were the symptoms? can you be more specific than "wouldn't run"? what version of the OS and client do you have? thanks.
2.7b19c released
Thanks to our developers and testers we have a new release for Mac. Changelog since v2.7b17b:
- multiple display support added
- the multiple display support has two modes (which can be set in
Options... dialog):
+ Shared - every display render the same sheep
+ Individual - each display renders its own sheep
- option for Logging Debug Messages and Quiet Mode is added
- Option to switch VBL synchronization (Vertical Blank) On or Off is
added. This Option allows visually smoothing down animation on some
machines.
Attention! When On it can considerably slow down rendering on
configuration with more than one display. Please switch it Off if you
are in this case.
- Next sheep to play is now calculated in bacground. Should not
disrupt animation even on configurations with lots of sheep
- Download status overlay now displays more precise information about download
- display FPS" status overlay is more stable and 'fps' instead of 'hz' is used
- handling of transparency in PNG images on PowerPC machines is fixed
- Seamless playback falls back to Normal one if no closed loop is
found. A message gets displayed when this happens.
- Display mode is now set to Piecewise cubic by default
- Frame rate is not divided by two on some machines anymore
- The full screen mode in standalone application can now be exit using
ESC key as in other Mac applications
- The downvoted sheep are deleted correctly now. It can take time to
be really deleted but they will be.
- Voting and downloading is now implemented without blocking so the
exit from screen saver is much snappier. The times where you need to
wait to exit screen saver should be gone.
- OpenGL rendering is made faster, smoother and less encumbered
- Maturity of sheep is set to 1 (was 3). In reality it makes newly
downloaded sheep show themselves once with the highest priority and
after that behave as others. Before, each newly downloaded sheep was
shown 3 times with highest priority causing playback to start with the
same sheep annoyingly often in some cases.
- Option to use all available processor cores when rendering is
removed. This was causing an important processor load and overheating
of some machines (the option is just removed from the GUI you can still access it by editing the config file)
- Reorganized Function keys shortcuts - F1 is now help overlay, F4 is now display status
- Fixed multiline text display in status overlay
- Changed introduction screen to be static image instead of movie
- Improved display of remaining time. It dynamically count down remaining minutes or seconds
- Added connection errors to download status overlay
- Fixed issue where sometimes partially downloaded sheep movies were considered as complete
- Improved display of sheep ID to contain starting zeros
- Fixed memory leaks which happens when playing with left and righ arrow keys (Moving forwards and backwards in history)
- add attribution image and add a config setting to turn off attribution
- Silent Mode option renamed to Quiet Mode
- reverted next-frame waiting code. It should be now more stable and faster on some machines. Was broken since version 2.7b18
Just wanted to say that everything is working perfectly.
I downloaded the packs from Archive.org and had 5GB of new sheet in moments using wget, and simply copied them in. I'm surprised I've only rendered 4 frames, but since it is only using 1 core [it is winter now, so more cores would be fine ;)] I suppose the tradeoff is nice.
Dual Dual Core Xeon 2.66Ghz Woodcrest, 12GB Ram, ATI Radeon 1900XT 512MB ram 10.6.2 no issues whatsoever.
Honestly congrats on the standalone and the screensaver. I just love working with the standalone along side my other work. I'll be seeding the two torrents for a couple weeks I hope, although anyone could really just get wget and queue up all of the files on archive.org & be a good neighbor by not overwhelming their services. There was a previous comment about the packs on Archive.org being old, but the files on Hotfile when combined together with The Unarchiver [simple] were of the same size.
A note about the log on OSX, however. It would be much easier to watch it in action if it was writing to a log directory that Console.app watches. Having a log in the Application Support directory isn't a huge deal, but Console is where I looked first just to see how it was handling.
I sort of have a question about the ElectricSheep.cfg that I did not find in the wiki.
-- Table: {6}
{
["nickname"]="rayrayisforever",
["save_frames"]=true,
["user_url"]="",
["totalFramesRendered"]=11,
["enabled"]=true,
["all_cores"]=true,
},
}
Although the option was taken out in the new beta, I had it selected in the old beta I had installed for only half an hour. Is there a way to re-enable all_cores, or is it just skipped? The winter is the time of the year I can really use my Xeons to the max :) I dislike not feeling like I have contributed much!
I'm a linux Sysadmin by trade, and usually I have my own server with 2-3TB of bandwidth. As soon as this becomes possible, I would happily like to donate bandwidth for your tracker/sheep without all of the annoyances of those free services. If at the very least, I would be able to have the Linux server always seed torrents available to all.
As soon as I get another job, I'll be donating and hopefully learning how to implement built in bittorrent with the OSX program. I've always wanted to do something neat like that.
rayrayisforever
raymondabril.com wordblog pixelblog Podcast
The all_cores setting is
The all_cores setting is ignored completely in the last version.
and in b19c and later
and in b19c and later releases, the setting is respected but you can only turn it on by editing the config file directly, there is no UI for it.
another prerelease: 2.7b19a
http://electricsheep.org/pre/electricsheep-2.7b19c.dmg
- fixed potential crasher when exiting screensaver
- the intro screen should be now really the static image with text (wasn't in b19)
EDIT: 2.7b19a2 fixes installer bug when there's a space in the user name.
2.7b19c changelog: - fixed
2.7b19c changelog:
- fixed issue where attribution image was not shown on Mac and add a config setting to turn off attribution
- Silent Mode option renamed to Quiet Mode
- reverted next-frame waiting code. It should be now more stable and faster on some machines. Was broken since version 2.7b18
- all_cores option is honored again. The UI is still hidden. Configuration file should be edited directly if this option is needed
Dual monitor support...
...is back and works perfectly. You are indubitably a genius.
thank you -- in this case
thank you -- in this case it's Daniel Svoboda who is developing the mac version and deserves credit.
I just upgraded from 2.7b15
I just upgraded from 2.7b15 to 2.7b19a and was really hoping that the display glitching issue I've had for the last few versions on several MacBook Pros would be fixed, but until wasn't :-(. However, in reading the release notes for 18 I tried setting the VBL synchronization and it seems to have fixed it!! Many thanks to the developers for their efforts.
note this hasn't been tested
note this hasn't been tested as much as usual because we are in a hurry, so we really need to hear back from you if it works or not and any problems. thanks to daniel for getting it out right away in time for our holiday push!
http://electricsheep.org/pre/electricsheep-2.7b19.dmg
- Reorganized Function keys shortcuts - F1 is now help overlay, F4 is now display status
- Fixed multiline text display in status overlay
- Changed introduction screen to be static image instead of movie
- Improved display of remaining time. It dynamically count down remaining minutes or seconds
- Added connection errors to download status overlay
- Fixed issue where sometimes partially downloaded sheep movies were considered as complete
- Improved display of sheep ID to contain starting zeros
- Fixed memory leaks which happens when playing with left and righ arrow keys (Moving forwards and backwards in history)
- Other small improvements and fixes.
prerelease with dual screen support
please let me know if you try it and what happens. thanks to daniel
for his hard work:
http://v2d7c.sheepserver.net/electricsheep-2.7b18b.dmg
Here are the release notes:
- multiple display support added
- the multiple display support has two modes (which can be set in
Options... dialog):
+ Shared - every display render the same sheep
+ Individual - each display renders its own sheep
Note: It is first version of multiple display support so it is not perfect.
- option for Logging Debug Messages and Silent Mode is added
- Option to switch VBL synchronization (Vertical Blank) On or Off is
added. This Option allows visually smoothing down animation on some
machines.
Attention! When On it can considerably slow down rendering on
configuration with more than one display. Please switch it Off if you
are in this case.
- Next sheep to play is now calculated in bacground. Should not
disrupt animation even on configurations with lots of sheep
- Download status overlay now displays more precise information about download
- display FPS" status overlay is more stable and 'fps' instead of 'hz' is used
- handling of transparency in PNG images on PowerPC machines is fixed
- Seamless playback falls back to Normal one if no closed loop is
found. A message gets displayed when this happens.
- Display mode is now set to Piecewise cubic by default
- Frame rate is not divided by two on some machines anymore
- The full screen mode in standalone application can now be exit using
ESC key as in other Mac applications
- The downvoted sheep are deleted correctly now. It can take time to
be really deleted but they will be.
- Voting and downloading is now implemented without blocking so the
exit from screen saver is much snappier. The times where you need to
wait to exit screen saver should be gone.
- OpenGL rendering is made faster, smoother and less encumbered
- Maturity of sheep is set to 1 (was 3). In reality it makes newly
downloaded sheep show themselves once with the highest priority and
after that behave as others. Before, each newly downloaded sheep was
shown 3 times with highest priority causing playback to start with the
same sheep annoyingly often in some cases.
- Option to use all available processor cores when rendering is
removed. This was causing an important processor load and overheating
of some machines.
Multiple monitors not working
No luck -- only get a display on the main screen. Have played with settings but does not make a difference.
10.5.8
Mac pro 8 core
2 x GeForce 880GT
3 monitors (all detected in 2.7b17b)
Can you please confirm that
Can you please confirm that you are using really the 2.7b18b version? Also can you please confirm that the check box setting the screen saver playing only on main monitor is not inadvertedly set in System Preferences? I don't see a reason why it should play only on one monitor. The code is just not there anymore.
Update - now working
Suddenly started working -- both secondary screens came on without making any changes to settings.
I did have a slow internet connection for a while today, may have slowed downloads, but it's strange the main screen was working.
In some cases old version is
In some cases old version is still active, when you replace it by newer one. I think this is what happened. Anyway if it happens again during the life of b18b, please let me know, maybe we really have problem. Thanks.
Can you please confirm that
Can you please confirm that you are using really the 2.7b18b version? Also can you please confirm that the check box setting the screen saver playing only on main monitor is not inadvertedly set in System Preferences? I don't see a reason why it should play only on one monitor. The code is just not there anymore.
daniel rules
just installed 2.7b18. i'm definitely happy to have my dual monitor support back... thanks a ton, daniel!
if it helps, i'm running a mac mini with osx 10.6.1 - 2ghz intel duo with 2gb ram.
dual monitors worked perfectly with both mirrored and individual displays. i noticed the inidividual was a little choppy for a bit, but i think that was a memory problem... so far so good!
notifications?
also is there any way to get notifications of releases? an rss feed or anything?
thanks for the report broox.
thanks for the report broox. your membership in this drupal gives you a subscription to the email list (unless you decline it or turn it off in your preferences panel). releases are announced there. what you just got was a prerelease. after more testing and more work (and after we have a windows release to go with it), it will go out on email.
Glad to hear it! Thanks.
Glad to hear it! Thanks.
Multiple monitor support not present?
I've downloaded 2.7b17b and installed multiple times, removing the previous versions each time, and installing both just the screensaver and the standalone app, but no matter what I do, I only get a choice of which of two monitors to display the sheep on in the Options dialog. What I'd like is for the sheep to display on both monitors simultaneously.
Is there something I'm missing?
cheers... -Adam
my mistake, it should be
my mistake, it should be 2.7b18b. it's fixed now, please try again.
2.7b18b
It still says 2.7b17b on the download page. What version is it?
i didn't change the download
i didn't change the download page, this is a prerelease. the link is at the top of my post above.
thanks.
thanks.
so did it work? i've had 150
so did it work? i've had 150 downloads but 1 report.... the point of prerelease is to figure out if it's good or not!
It works great I have tried
It works great I have tried everything but multi-mon.
next and previous sheep works even better than it did in the old version.
thanks for the great work best release yet
new mac client release
Hi Spot,
Do you have an ETA on the new mac client release?
2.7b17b
This one sets the current screensaver, 2.7b17a had a problem with that.