Topic: TreetopLights is a Christmas Decoration set for your Mac X 10.3 or Later system

[Software Santa]

TreetopLights is a Christmas Decoration set for your Mac X 10.3 or Later system

Software Santa got TreetopLights 1.0 SIXTEEN Years ago (in 2004) and it has been a holiday favorite every year!
Version 2.4 still works on Mac OS X 10.12 "Sierra" in the Year 2020. Santa made a Donation at Last.

http://www.freerangemac.com/TreetopLights.html

TreetopLights is a Christmas application that decorates the Mac OS X desktop with a Christmas tree and animated lights.


Description:

TreetopLights is an application that places a Christmas tree on the desktop and holiday lights on the menubar or screen edges.  The desktop tree can be decorated with blinking or fading lights, ornaments, a treetop star, and perhaps some snow.  A small assortment of lights are available, and custom lights can be designed and added for both the tree and screen lights.  The ambient lighting can be controlled for the appearance of a dimly or brightly lit room, and the transparency and size of the tree can be set to keep it out of the way, or set the perfect holiday mood.  The optional but festive menubar lights can blink or glow to decorate the menubar, or even go around the screen.  A customizable countdown timer displaying days until Christmas and the twelve days of Christmas is also included for display on the desktop tree and dock icon.  There's also an option to send a Christmas greeting through Apple's Mail application.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!


Changes in Version 2.4:

• Updated for Snow Leopard

• Santa & Snowman now appear when clicking or command-clicking the desktop tree in Snow Leopard

• Send A Christmas Greeting option now creates a proper image attachment with Mail in Snow Leopard


Changes in Version 2.3:

• Recompiled on Leopard to improve Leopard compatibility

• Santa Preferences (Show Icon Ornaments, Show Tree Snow, Santa Speed, Random Broken Bulbs, Santa & Snowman Timers) are now available by default in preferences

• Added option to show lights over the screen saver when the screen saver is running (requires Mac OS X Tiger & up)

• Icon Ornaments are now functional as mini-launchers (double click icons to open applications)

• Icon Ornaments and Christmas Greeting images are now stored along with custom lights in TreetopLights folder in Application Support folder

• Fixed some issues with restoring light preferences between launches


New in Version 2.0:

• Added the following options for the desktop tree: gold ornaments, popcorn garland, tinsel garland (with tinting option)

• Added the option to hide the desktop tree

• Added option for addition of custom lights for both the desktop tree and screen lights

• Also added the option for custom animations for both the desktop tree lights and screen lights

• Added option to set the animation speed of both the desktop tree lights and screen lights

• Added option to show the countdown display on the dock icon

• Added additional display options for the countdown display (striped text, transparency)

• Improved spanning screen support for the screen lights... any 2 screen configuration should now work

• Improved many of the graphics and increased the default resolution of the tree graphics

• The Christmas email option now includes a single image with the current state of the desktop tree

• Changed the application to a foreground process (now shows dock icon & menubar)

• Reduced the cpu usage (about 50%)


Please Note: TreetopLights will only run under Mac OS X 10.3 or later.
TreetopLights Options

To access the options for TreetopLights, select the appropriate option from the TreetopLights application menu or File menu of the application, or control-click or right-click anywhere on the desktop tree, and select from the list of options:


Desktop Tree Options: (available by control-clicking or right-clicking on the desktop tree):


The "About TreetopLights" menu item will display a window with version information & clickable links to Free Range Mac.


The TreetopLights "Preferences..." menu item opens the application preferences window to allow setting options for the desktop tree & menubar lights (see below).

 

The "Turn Off Lights" or "Turn On Lights" menu item will turn off or turn on both the animation of the desktop tree lights & menubar lights... this functions independently of the preferences settings.


The "Send a Christmas Greeting" menu item will ready a Christmas email message for sending through Apple's Mail application.  The message includes an attached Christmas image themed by TreetopLights ... just fill in the recipient!


The "Quit TreetopLights" menu item will quit the TreetopLights application.


TreetopLights Preferences: (available by choosing the "Preferences..." menu item from the TreetopLights application menu or control-clicking or right-clicking on the desktop tree):


Desktop Tree Preferences

 • Choose to show or hide the desktop tree

 • Set the desktop tree decorations, including:

   • Star

   • Ornaments (traditional)

   • Gold Ornaments (various figurines)

   • Popcorn (& Cranberry) Garland

   • Tinsel Garland

       • the tinsel garland can be tinted to your preferred color

   • Lights

 • Choose the light type for the desktop tree

 • Set the animation style of the desktop tree lights

 • Set the animation speed of the desktop tree lights

 • Choose to show or hide the Christmas countdown

    • selecting the Setup... option will allow setting various preferences of the countdown, including:

       • show or hide the countdown on the desktop tree

       • show or hide the countdown on the dock icon

       • choose to display the 12 days of Christmas when they arrive (will appear as 1st, 2nd, etc...)

       • choose the display font, size & color of the countdown

       • add candy cane stripes to the countdown display

 • Control the size of the desktop tree

 • Control the lighting of the desktop tree

 • Control the transparency of the desktop tree

 • Set the float state of the desktop tree


Screen Lights Preferences

 • Choose to show or hide the screen lights

 • Choose the light type for the screen lights

 • Set the animation style of the screen lights

 • Set the animation speed of the screen lights

 • Control the transparency of the screen lights

 • Choose to span the screen lights (will allow lights to span two screens in any configuration)

 • Control the screen edges displaying animated lights

 • Set the float state of the screen lights


Note: If a screen light goes dim, click on the light to repair the bulb.


Send a Christmas Message...  (available by choosing the "Send a Christmas Message..." menu item from the TreetopLights File menu or control-clicking or right-clicking on the desktop tree):

This option allows sending a Christmas-themed message through Apple's Mail application. Selecting this option will create a new outgoing email in Mail.app with an attached image displayed showing the current state of the desktop tree, Santa, the snowman & a Merry Christmas message. The snowman will be included in the image if on screen when selecting this option. To include the current screen lights in the message, hold command key while clicking the tree, then select the "Send a Christmas Message..." menu item.


Santa...

Click on the desktop tree to fly Santa in his sleigh across the screen. Hold shift while clicking Santa to slow him down. Click on Santa for some additional options(includes icon ornaments, snow for the tree, a broken bulb option, and santa & snowman preferences.

Snowman...

Command-click on the desktop tree to glide the snowman across the screen. Hold shift while clicking the tree to slow him down. Click on the snowman when he stops to keep him on the desktop... click on the snowman again to send him offscreen. Control-click or right-click on the snowman for the additional hidden application options (see above).


Custom Lights...

Select the "Open Custom Lights Folder..." menu item from the TreetopLights File menu.  If no custom lights folder is already created, one will be created the first time this option is selected.  Or, create a custom lights folder named "TreetopLights" in the "Application Support" folder of the user Library folder or local Library folder.  Custom lights can be added to this folder, and will appear in the Tree Light or Screen Light popup menus in the preferences window.


Custom Lights are application packages with either the ".treelight" extension (for tree lights) or ".screenlight" extension (for screen lights).  Within the package is a plist file called "LightInfo.plist" containing information about the lights and custom animations.  The lights are 24 bit "png" image files with alpha transparency.

 •Tree lights are 384 pixels x 384 pixels in dimensions, and will overlay the tree.  Tree lights should include both an on state and an off state.  Custom animations can also be included, with up to 5 frames... for custom animations and at reduced lighting, the on state of the lights will be layered over the off state of the lights.

 •Screen lights can be any dimensions, but suggested dimensions are: 128 pixels x 44 pixels for the lights and 68 pixels x 44 pixels for the corner images.  Only the lights for the top screen edge need to be created; the other edges will be rotated or flipped from the top screen edge.  The lights will be tiled to fill the screen edges.  Screen lights should also include both an on state and an off state.  Custom animations can also be included, with up to 4 frames.


The best way to view the format of the lights is probably to inspect an included light package from the Resources directory in the TreetopLights application package.


I hope to have more extensive directions for creating custom lights and links to custom lights on the TreetopLights web page sometime soon.


Please Note: If a text message appears on the desktop, just click the text or the tree to dismiss it.


Note: To reduce cpu usage, reduce the animation frequency of the tree and screen lights in the TreetopLights preferences.  Spanning lights across 2 screens will slightly increase processing time, so turning off screen spanning for lights will decrease cpu usage.


System Requirements:

- Mac OS X 10.3 minimum


Installation: Just drag the folder "TreetopLights 2.3" from the mounted disk image to a convenient directory, or decompress the BinHex archive.  (See below for directions to uninstall)

 

To Uninstall: Remove the following Items:

• "TreetopLights 2.3" folder (located wherever it was originally installed/copied from the disk image or archive)

• "TreetopLights" folder in "Application Support" folder of user "Library" directory or local "Library" directory (if created)

• "com.freerangemac.treetoplights.plist" file (located in the user preferences folder)


Cost: TreetopLights is freeware!  But, donations are welcome... click the PayPal link below for donations through PayPal.



Issues & Limitations:

- This application has only been tested with Mac OS X 10.3 through 10.4.3.  Please let me know if you find any bugs.


Localizations:

Currently, there are no localizations available for TreetopLights... if you'd like to localize TreetopLights to your language, please let me know.


Thanks... to all & Merry Christmas!


If you have any questions, send me an


For some other Mac OS X utilities, visit my website: Free Range Mac

Kevin Kelleher, 2009


Version Notes:

Changes in Version 2.4:

• Updated for Snow Leopard

• Santa & Snowman now appear when clicking or command-clicking the desktop tree in Snow Leopard

• Send A Christmas Greeting option now creates a proper image attachment with Mail in Snow Leopard

http://www.freerangemac.com/TreetopLights.html