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https://github.com/muffinista/before-dawn

A desktop screensaver app using web technologies
https://github.com/muffinista/before-dawn

electron electron-app screensaver screensavers

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A desktop screensaver app using web technologies

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README 

        
# Before Dawn



Before Dawn is a an open-source, cross-platform screensaver application using

web-based technologies. You can generate screensavers with it using HTML/CSS,

javascript, canvas, and any tools that rely on those technologies. In theory,

generating a Before Dawn screensaver is as simple as writing an HTML page.



The project developed out of a personal project to explore the history of early

screensavers. I decided that I wanted to write a framework that I could use to

actually run screensavers on my computer. I wanted it to be cross-platform and

easily accessible to artists and developers.



Before Dawn is definitely a bit of a experiment -- to actually use it, you need

to run it as a separate application on your computer and disable whatever

screensaver you have running in your OS, but it is fun and definitely works.



The core of the app is built on [Electron](https://www.electronjs.org/), a system

that allows you to build desktop applications that run on

[node.js](https://nodejs.org/) and are rendered via Chrome.



There's a bunch of screensavers to choose from. Here's the Flying Emoji screensaver:



![flying

emoji](https://github.com/muffinista/before-dawn/raw/main/assets/emoji-on-monitor-opt.gif

"Flying Emoji!")



You can get a quick preview of the other screensavers via this [preview

page](http://muffinista.github.io/before-dawn-screensavers/).



The first time you open the application, the preferences window will open. You

can preview and pick screensavers there:



![preferences window](assets/prefs.png "Preferences Window")



There's an 'Advanced Settings' section where you can specify certain options for

how the application should run.



![settings window](assets/settings.png "Preferences Settings")



## Downloads



Installers are available from the

[releases](https://github.com/muffinista/before-dawn/releases) page.



## Status



Right now the application itself is pretty stable. This repo includes the main

code for running the actual screensaver, a simple app for picking your

screensaver and setting some options, and a bunch of modules to pull it all

together.



The actual code for the screensavers is in [a separate

repo](https://github.com/muffinista/before-dawn-screensavers). If you want to

write a screensaver, please add it to the project via a PR!



## Running It



The easiest way to use the tool is to install it to your computer. You can grab

an installer from the

[releases](https://github.com/muffinista/before-dawn/releases) page. Binaries

are available for OSX and Windows, and there's an experimental release for

Ubuntu/Debian.



Once it's running, there will be a sunrise icon in your system tray, with a few

different options. If you click 'Preferences,' you can preview the different

screensavers, set how much idle time is required before the screensaver starts

to run, specify custom paths, etc.



Once you've set all of that up, Before Dawn will happily run in the background,

and when it detects that you have been idle, it will engage your screensaver.

That's all there is to it!



## Building It



Steps for generating your own build Before Dawn are listed in [the

wiki](https://github.com/muffinista/before-dawn/wiki/Building-Before-Dawn)



## Hacking It



If you would like to hack on Before Dawn, there's some instructions on the

[Development page](https://github.com/muffinista/before-dawn/wiki/Development)

in the wiki. It's pretty straightforward once you have a basic setup in place.



## How to Write a Screensaver



A Before Dawn screensaver is basically just a web page running in fullscreen

mode. That said, there's a few twists to make it run as smoothly as possible.

There's a bunch of specific implementation details in [the

wiki](https://github.com/muffinista/before-dawn/wiki/Writing-A-Screensaver).



There's also a very basic editor mode built into Before Dawn, which will

generate some basic code for you to work from, and will make it easier to add

some configurable options to your work.



The editor has a simple preview, a form to describe the screensaver, and a

section where you can add custom options for your screensaver:



![editor window](assets/editor.png "Editor Window")



## Contributing



Contributions and suggestions are eagerly accepted. Please check out the [code

of

conduct](https://github.com/muffinista/before-dawn/blob/main/code_of_conduct.md)

before contributing.



If you find a bug or have a suggestion, you can open an issue or a pull request

here.



If you would like to add a screensaver to the program, you can submit a PR to

the

[before-dawn-screensavers](https://github.com/muffinista/before-dawn-screensavers)

repo.



I will accept pretty much any pull request to the repository given that the

content you are posting is legal and appropriate. If you need help or have a

suggestion, please feel free to open an issue here.



## Copyright/License



Unless otherwise stated, Copyright (c) 2024 [Colin

Mitchell](http://muffinlabs.com).



Before Dawn is is distributed under the MIT licence -- Please see LICENSE.txt

for further details.