Blank Screen Screen Saver in Leopard
This quest actually started out as a possibly lame attempt to consider how much energy my monitor is using just leaving it on with the screen saver. Before Leopard I was using Sleep Display and it worked pretty well for what I wanted, except that it didn't lock the display like a screensaver does. After Leopard I found out that Sleep Display just plain doesn't work. Turns out I don't REALLY care about the energy aspect, although it'd be nice to contribute in a small way like that, I just hate the wall display my 24" monitor displays when the screen saver comes on. So really I just wish that Apple shipped OS X with a "blank screen" screen saver. Wouldn't that make life a little simpler? Enter Quartz Composer. With a little Google searching I came up with this howto on quartzcompositions.com, which wasn't EXACTLY what I was looking for, but pointed me in the right direction. So, without further ado, a how-to on making a blank screen screensaver for Leopard with Quartz Composer.
And there you have it. I personally have my top-right hot corner setup for screen saver, so this works perfect for my usage pattern, blank screen and lock the machine. Note I also have to my Energy Saver setting to sleep the display after 1 hour to feed my inner tree hugger, but it's all preference I suppose. Hope this helps someone out!
- Install XCode Tools from your Leopard CD, or download it from the Apple Developer Connection
- Open up "Quartz Composer" from /Developer/Applications/Quartz Composer.app
- Create a new "Blank Composition". You can do this by choosing the "Blank Composition" template or you can File->New Blank
- In the Patch Browser search type "Clear". It's likely there should only be one patch in there of the type "Renderer". Drag that patch to the Root Macro Patch space
- Save your composition; It's probably helpful to name it "Blank Screen"
- Copy your composition to /System/Library/Screen Savers
- Open up Desktop & Screen Saver pref pane from System Preferences and choose "Blank Screen", or whatever you named your composition, from the list
And there you have it. I personally have my top-right hot corner setup for screen saver, so this works perfect for my usage pattern, blank screen and lock the machine. Note I also have to my Energy Saver setting to sleep the display after 1 hour to feed my inner tree hugger, but it's all preference I suppose. Hope this helps someone out!
posted by Ryan Carmelo Briones at
5:55 PM
4 Comments:
Thanks for posting this entry because I was looking to do exactly the same thing! :)
this doesn't actually turn off the backlight like sleepdisplay. even though that app doesn't work on leopard, running the binary in the app directory does still work. so i use the scriptsaver screen saver to run some applescript, like running that binary as well as pausing all audio and video apps, then locking screen.
[…] Unblanking the Blank Screen “Some of us can use the blank screen to scare the proverbial pants off ourselves imagining how […]
Thanks for providing a solution to this problem! It is especially cool that your solution requires one to learn about Quartz Composer. Until I read your post I had never even heard of Quartz Composer, so I'm glad you introduced me to it.
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