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DESCRIPTION
OSXplanet is a Cocoa program that is based on the popular program xplanet (by Hari Nair). It is able to generate live images of the earth as well as other planets in the solar system with additional informations such as the current clouds, storms, satellites, volcanos, earthquakes and times and locations of cities.
WHAT'S NEW
Version 2.0b02 Universal - 09.04.08:
  • OSXplanet SHOULD work with Tiger. It has not been tested at all. Please give me feedback on this.
  • The version is now UNIVERSAL.
  • A few minor bugs have been fixed
  • PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS A BETA VERSION OF OSXPLANET. IT HAS NOT BEEN TESTED AS MUCH AS IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN. PLEASE REPORT BUGS BY GOING TO WWW.OSXPLANET.COM

    OSXplanet is now UNIVERSAL, however, it has not been tested on a PPC machine, so please give me feedback on this. Thanks.

    REQUIREMENTS
    Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
    RELATED LINKS


    SCREENSHOT

    Developer:Gabriel Otte
    Downloads:58,356
      - Version d/l:5,222
    Utilities:Desktop
    License:Free
    Date:04 Sep 2008
    Platform:PPC/Intel
    DEVELOPER POLL
    Q: What other features would you like to see in OSXplanet?
    Multiple-Monitor Support
    Random Projection Option
    Windowed Image
    ScreenSaver Option
    Weather of Cities
    Presets
    OTHER PEOPLE SUGGEST
    Suggest something else:
    OSXplanet User Reviews (77 posts)Write A Review
    sort: smiles | time
    Apr 19 2009

    BOMBA  Really nice app but has memory leaks. Quit and relaunch often if you don't want it to hog your mac's memory.  
    (Version 2.0b02 Universal)

    praisebury
    +2
    [ Reply ]
    Feb 21 2009

    JUMPJIM  I would agree with the last poster regarding the program crashing.

    I have been an avid user of OSXPlanet for a number of years but swapped to Earthdesk when it became incompatible with Leopard.

    Having recently switched back with the release of 2.0b2 I have also found that after an extended period of being open the app crashes, and istat menus has the program using almost 100% of BOTH cores until the program is force quit.

    I also had the problem of it not remembering presets but this seems to have settled down.

    I will be reverting to Earthdesk until Gabriel can sort these problems out. Sorry Gabe!  
    (Version 2.0b02 Universal)

    praisebury
    +2
    [ Reply ]
    Jan 21 2009

    RCKTMAN77  I've downloaded and launched OSXplanet 2.0b02 on my Mac Pro. It certainly is a very nice-looking desktop providing a wealth of interesting information. I realize this is a beta and the developer is young and has limited time. However, my enthusiasm for this app and it's future improvement has Iead me to post here--without being able to find some other central forum--some of the troubles I've encountered with this beta on Leopard, specifically Mac OS X v. 10.5.6.

    First and foremost, on my Mac Pro with Mac OS X v.10.5.6 the 2.0b02 app does not graphically remember my main preset settings. I believe at launch it reads the settings from the .plist file stored in ~/Library/Preferences but at times the app by itself begins refreshing the map every minute as the settings have reverted to something other than those originally specified. The only temporary "fix" is to delete the preset listed, add a new one. Then you have to go through and make any changes to the settings that you desire. However, given enough time, the preset settings will again revert to settings that weren't set, and the app begins refreshing the map every minute once again.

    The second issue I've noticed is that earthquake data is not visible. The recent 6.1 earthquake in Indonesia never displayed on the desktop; eventhough, my settings explicity state to gather this data for any earthquakes worldwide above a 5.0. Another earthquake recently in San Bernardino was registered as a 5.1 and again was not displayed on the map.

    The last issue I've encountered is that the application crashes after an extended period of time open ( > 10 hours normally).

    If anyone has any solutions to these issues, then I would certainly appreciate hearing them.

    Thanks.   
    (Version 2.0b02 Universal)

    praisebury
    0
    [ Reply ]
    Dec 26 2008

    CARBONIDE  Just found out that OSXplanet gobbled up about 6 GB of my hard disk space by archiving every generated screen in it's support folder (although I had this option turned off in the settings and also tried to limit it to 1 item).

    I now simply made that folder read-only in the hope that that will cure the symptom.  
    (Version 2.0b02 Universal)

    praisebury
    0
    [ 1 Reply - Reply ]
    Replies:
    Jan 22 2009

    RCKTMAN77  Carbonide,

    I looked at what effect setting the permissions of the parent folder where all the .png images are stored had on the application. You should have noticed that your desktop no longer updated with a refreshed image as the application can no longer write the new image to that directory and subsequently refresh the image displayed on the desktop with the new one.

    To the developer, the way in which this should be implemented is that older images are not stored separately, but either overwritten with the new image, or prior images be erased. When you're on a 2560 x 1600 display and refreshing every 30 min, it takes only a short period of time before this directory becomes a depository for a large amount of wasted hard disk space.  
    (Version 2.0b02 Universal)

    praisebury
    0

    Sep 3 2008

    BOOMER  This is, and has been the best program of it's type, by FAR.

    The graphics are superior to Earth Desk and the program is donationware.

    I am so happy to see it finally being developed for OSX 10.5.

    I donated for earlier versions and I am donating for the latest version.

    Everyone should give it a try.

    I guarantee you'll find it superior to anything else out there.  
    (Version 2.0b02)

    praisebury
    -1
    [ Reply ]
    Sep 3 2008

    UGGERHOLT  Thank you Gabriel Otte!

    I stopped to use this wonderful little app. some time last year – as far as I remember, it didn't work properly on Leopard.

    Now it's back on my desktop. Very appreciated :-)  
    (Version 2.0b02)

    praisebury
    0
    [ Reply ]
    Sep 2 2008

    GABRIEL OTTE  To the Tiger Users -

    Please understand that I have no intention of abandoning development of OSXplanet for Tiger. I will try to have a Tiger version out soon, however, I can't say for sure when that will be. Thank you for your support.  
    (Version 2.0b01U)

    praisebury
    0
    [ 1 Reply - Reply ]
    Replies:
    Sep 2 2008

    BONOBO  Thanks a LOT for your kind comment, Gabriel!

    Very nice that you intend to keep us Tiger users also hapy, and I look forward to OSXplanet 2 for Tiger :-)

    Cheers, Tom  
    (Version 2.0b02)

    praisebury
    0

    Sep 2 2008
    *****

    CHIEFTED  Oh its back and just in time for the end of Hurricane season.

    The only quibble I have with this is that for now

    I can't get the second screen to run in the dual screen mode.

    Not a big deal at this point since as it is posted this is a beta version and I know that there will be bugs.  
    (Version 2.0b01U)

    praisebury
    0
    [ Reply ]
    Sep 2 2008
    *****

    JAZZYGUY  5 Stars on G5 (PPC) works great Thanks for the tip to remove the .bz from the .dmg file.   
    (Version 2.0b01U)

    praisebury
    0
    [ Reply ]
    Sep 2 2008

    BONOBO  Hello Gabriel Otte,

    this is just to beg you to PLEASE don't abandon users of Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger".

    I for one am still running 10.4.11 and I'd LOVE to step up to OSXplanet 2. I'd even donate a second time if I could run OSXplanet 2 on my Tiger installation.

    Thanks, Tom  
    (Version 2.0b01U)

    praisebury
    0
    [ Reply ]
    View all 77 posts >>