Simon Heys
Word Clock
[ZIP] Download Word Clock Screensaver (Mac Universal Binary)
Word Clock is a typographic screensaver for Mac OS X. It displays a fixed list of all numbers and words sufficient to express any possible date and time as a sentence. Word Clock displays time by highlighting appropriate words as each second passes.
Languages
Downloaded version includes English, German and Swedish, but new translations are in the pipeline thanks to the very generous help of a lot of kind people. Forthcoming update so far contains: Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian. Help with localisation / translation.
Typography
Word Clock uses the Mac OS typesetting engine which allows for hyphenation and alignment (e.g. fully justified text). You can position and resize the text however you like and can have it displayed in any of the included languages.
Customise
Edit colours, language and force the case if you want to.
Finer typographic control thanks to typesetting engine. Change typeface, leading, kerning, hyphenation and alignment.
Adjust the layout; font size is determined automatically for best fit.
Thanks
Huge thanks to both Ole Zorn and Rasmus Andersson for German and Swedish translations, suggestions, help and general encouragement. Also to Jay for her suggestions, testing and cakes.
Burn-in?
Please don’t use this if you’re using a plasma or crt screen and are worried about burn-in.
Hi Simon,
Congratulations on such a wonderful idea. We are having a lot of fun using it.
Such a swish clock. Looks really good, and just wanted to say thanks.
bijou
Hi Simon, cant find your email address. I just wanted to thank you so much for doing that stuff on my laptop, I need never come into work again!!
Also if you have any trouble getting jay’s images please let me know.
Cheers,
Kuchar
My new favourite screensaver! Will post in on FFF later today. Well done :)
Lovely!
Excellent screensaver, very clever.
Regards
David
Amazing idea, well executed.
Hm, it’s wriiten that i can’t use the screensaver on this computer and that i should contact developer of this software for a newer version )
When the hour “one” is highlighted, it grabs the comma after December, Highlighting “, one”
…or is that comma always highlighted, separating the month form the hour?
Anyway, fantastic job. I’m using this screensaver as my new desktop.
Oh, and is there any way you could add a gradient background (to make it look more like the photo above)?
Also, the ability to set transparency on the colors would be helpful. I know opacity control shows up in OS X’s color picker, but only for certain applications…
Brilliant! lovely new screensaver!
Great work!
Fantastic screensaver! Congratulations.
Love it!
2 q’s… can you make it for a pc, and can you make a version for a wall? i would buy it =)
love it!
AWESOME!
I do love it … I wish you had a version for a PC (I know, horrible, but what can you do when that’s what work gives you.)
I, like Michelle, would buy a version for a wall too. That would be very cool.
this is great! thanks for sharing it!
Big thanks to everyone that’s emailed with offers of help for translation. I’m out of the country for a few days on a shoot so will get back to everyone next week. But keep them coming in the mean time…
Wonderful. I love the customizability. Cheers!
Now I have to use a screensaver! (Now for the PC version so I can use it at work…ick. I may be talking them into a mac, but until then!!)
Your word clock has created a shadow effect of the word clock on the desktop when the screensaver is not active.
wow man, that’s so cool. my compliments
So cool! Thanks for sharing it, I’ve already gotten a few compliments!
Love it; thanks for creating this!
Thanks all for translation help - I’ll hopefully get round to incorporating them all this coming weekend. I think the idea of having opacity on the text and allowing for a background image is great so will try to add that feature too.
Wow Simon.
This is fabulous.
I am a PC user, and now absolutely gutted!!
how does this help save my screen?
wOw! I Love it! Thanks fOr sharing this beautifuL CLOck :)
awesome idea, but i have to ask.. dont you think this will burn the screen?
donal - it doesn’t help save your screen. tom - screen burn was only an issue years ago when we all had CRT screens. Screensavers are just a vanity thing now and in general don’t perform any useful function.
or if your running a plasma like i am…
If you’re worried about burn-in, please don’t use it. I’ve added a burn-in section to the page as I think it’s a fair comment!
pc version? pretty please?
Yeah - what Alon said!
Is there a PC version in the pipeline??
Pretty pretty please?
Mmm no PC version in the pipeline at the mo. I have a Flash version of the clock that could be converted to a ScreenSaver if anyone wants to volunteer to convert it with something like ScreenTime? Doesn’t handle multiple languages though…
Bloody brilliant. thanks.
I am willing to give the Flash to ScreenSaver conversion a shot.
Bo - thanks for the offer of help. I’m going to work on the Flash one a little more so it can read all the translated xml files I have. Will be in touch when it’s done (few weeks probably!). Would like to release something good.
I’ll 4th the request for a PC version. This looks brilliant.
@ Bo. Woo hoo!
Sorry I couldn’t help Simon .. I’m one of those damn end users only!! ;p
Superb! A wonderful idea for us type-heads. Surely this is the only screensaver in the world that has adjustable typography controls?! This is gracing my desktop just as surely as my “your type makes me sick” (collapse-design) t-shirt adorns my bod.
:D
Love it, looks fantastic. Blogged; http://reformrevolution.com/
Our new favorite!