It is now time to rejoice! Finally there is an easy-to-use and affordable program to create screensavers. This happens to be in my Top 5 list of Software Gems and once you try it you will see why.
The program was created with the novice author in mind. This means that everything you need to do is just as far away as a click of the button. Although this almost disallows things you can find in other screensavers, it is a wonder of technological wonder and engineering brainpower. And with a little tweaking you can even do those "disallowable" effects which I will go into later.
When you first open iSD the first thing you will see is the Project window which is pictured above. Everything you need to know is spelled out for you there. You can either create a new screensaver project or edit one you have already started (or upgrade one you have already done). Through here you also register the application and access the help files. Simple as pie right? Right.
You will then be asked to name your project and given a few options before going to your creations main window (shown to the right). There are five tabs in this window with various functions in each:
Control Panel: In this tab you customize the look and feel of your screensavers control panel (natch!). You can edit the name of the screensaver, add a 392x120 picture for a more professional look, and edit the screensaver information. You can also add a link to your website if you'd like (or just leave the default which is the URL for the makers of this program)
Content: Here you can edit the content you already added when creating the new project. You can also preview your creation in this window and control how you preview it. There is also a place to edit the text and it's color of the load script.
Alternate: This is one of the coolest features. Ever downloaded a screensaver that only gave you a little glimpse of its true self until you got an unlock code? Now you too can create your own shareware screensavers. In this section you can add alternate content, preview said alternate content, input the required unlocking code a user will need, the URL to obtain an unlocking code, and also alter the text a user will see when inputting that code. Can you say cooler than cucumbers?
Installer Window: In this tab you can alter the look of your screensavers installer. You can edit the license agreement and it's custom picture (which again needs to be 392x120). You can also preview what the window will look like in FOUR different operating systems (Mac Classic, Mac OS X, WinXP, and Win "Classic")!!
Build/Install: This is the last and final tab you will need to visit in your quest to make your first screensaver. Here you can add custom icons to your installers and savers, edit their names, choose what OS they will run on, and even add installation wallpaper among other things. Then you click the build button and Whala! Your first screensaver.
As you can see iSD makes creating screensavers a breeze. There are a few drawbacks that should be mentioned though (some are just because of the nature of the program and some IMO could be fixed with a little tweaking):
Adding custom icons does not really add a true icon. Instead of choosing a Mac OS icns file or Windows ico file for you icon you are asked to choose a gif, bmp, pct, or tif file. In theory both gif and tif support transparency, but I tested tif's I made of custom icons that I made for my screensaver which had transparency in both PS7 and GC4 and the output didn't look good at all. Instead of transparency, the "icon" was placed onto a black box which hurt since some of the graphic over the transparent portions was black. Also, the icon output was not OSX compliant (128x128). IMO it would be easier to be able to choose an icns or ico file. Or they could even be part of the options as not many people know how to create those types of files. I'm sure this could be done and I hope to see it implemented in a future release. (Quick note for those of you that own Pixadex. You can apply an icon to the installer using that program in it's quick drop window, but not the saver itself).
If you use a movie instead of pictures for your screensaver the size of the output will be phenomenal depending on the size of your movie. This is something that is just the nature of the beast and can't be fixed. I just thought you be warned. In my first attempt to create the Britney Screensaver the saver looked ASTOUNDING, but it's size when stuffed was over 1GB in size. Much too large to upload to my server on a dial-up connection and too large for other dialers to download. The nice people who created this program do have some tips on how to add movies and interactivity to your screensavers though and you can find that information at thier website. It's extremely helpful. If you'd like to read up on how to do it with Quicktime then click here. If you'd like to see how to do it with Flash click here.
Screensavers created with iSD cannot be used as desktop backgrounds (at least on a Mac, I don't know about Windows). Instead of going to the background the screensavers will go to the foreground and you won't be able to get out of it except by turning off your computer. This may be fixed in a future version as I've talked to the creators about it and may have found a solution. Because of the first and third drawbacks I had to take off an apple each leaving the current version with 4. But that doesn't mean this isn't the most unique and innovative piece of Mac App I've found in some time. Sure there are a few shareware programs out there that say you can make screensavers with them. But they mainly just do what iPhoto does. iSD gives you that and more... TONS more. Do yourself a favor and check it out. And if you would like to see the screensavers I created with iSD in my 3 months or so of reviewing it go here.
UPDATE: v3.2 is now Panther ready and the movie feature works much better. This bumps iSD up one apple in my review. If the icon support would have been implemented it would have went up to the top. But it still has a windows-like icon support feature. You're limited to jpg, tif, gif, or png and a size of 32x32 (not 128x128). And transparency is still not supported. I don't like icons with jaggies and the icons you adhere to your screensaver/installer comes out that way because of this. Maybe next version. Regardless though, this is a nice update.
Control Panel: In this tab you customize the look and feel of your screensavers control panel (natch!). You can edit the name of the screensaver, add a 392x120 picture for a more professional look, and edit the screensaver information. You can also add a link to your website if you'd like (or just leave the default which is the URL for the makers of this program)