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DESCRIPTION

Offshoots animates the wallpaper of your desktop with growing trees. The growth follows some easy-to-hack parameters. The offshoots lazily follow your mouse cursor or random points. Also available as a screensaver.

  • I really like my desktop wallpaper. Can I make the trees grow over it?
    Yes: you can set Offshoots to use you current wallpaper as the background. Or you can choose your favorite solid color. Or a mix of the two. The default option is to make it randomly choose among one of its predefined colors.

  • What if I really like the current image and I want to save it?
    You can copy the image to the clipboard (Command-C or from the menu) and save it from Preview or from your editor of choice. You can also simply hold on the current image with Pause command.

  • Will it hog my CPU?
    It is very unlikely: the application should take a very reasonable portion of the CPU time. You can also change some parameters to further reduce the CPU load: for example you can change the frame rate. When you're headed for some heavy computation, you can also pause Offshoots from the menu or with Command-P. Or you can choose to make it appear only after some time that your computer has been idle.

  • What if I want it as a screensaver?
    The release contains a screensaver version of it too. Drop it in the "Library/Screen Savers" folder of your Home and choose it from the system preferences' panel. Or you can test the "ScreenSaver mode" in the standalone application.

  • My desktop is always hidden. What if I want the trees more visible?
    You can choose the level of the window from the preferences. You can even set it as an always on top window, setting a low value (zero) for alpha: the Offshoots window always ignores your mouse clicks so you can interact with the other apps' windows as usual.

  • I want to experiment with the settings but I fear I won't be able to return to the old ones.
    (NEW) You can save presets from the preferences and recall them whenever you want.

WHAT'S NEW
Version 1.2:
  • new "screen saver mode"
  • presets: mantain different configurations
  • some new parameters
  • memory allocation fixed
  • always on top fixed
REQUIREMENTS
Mac OS X 10.4 or later.


SCREENSHOT

Developer:Digital Waters
Downloads:2,904
  - Version d/l:1,872
Utilities:Wallpaper
License:Free
Date:28 Apr 2007
Platform:PPC/Intel
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    Offshoots User Reviews (1 post)Write A Review
    Apr 29 2007
    ****.

    GLA  Simple to use, quite interesting concept which is well executed. Would like to see more texture on branches/twigs, and more natural branch shapes.  (Version 1.2)

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