Screen Saver Problem in 10.8

[scbrain]

On 10.7, I had my screensaver set to choose photos at random from my large (220 GB) collection. The photos were arranged in the following way:

[Photos]

--> [2001 Photos]

----> [January 1 - New Year's in Paris]
----> [January 4 - Back to Tokyo]

--> [2002 Photos]

----> [January 2 - Landing on the Moon]

And so on.

With, 10.7 I could choose the folder containing ALL the other folders - that is, the one entitled "Photos," and 10.7 handled this just fine, but 10.8 will not. I have to choose a folder containing only photos. That is, unless I choose one of my "event" folders, the screen saver won't recognize the folder, making for a monotonous screen saver, consisting of photos drawn from only one event. Is there any way to force the computer to recognize groups of folders, rather than just one?

 

[aaronlam]

I'd like to know how to do this too... seems an odd thing to do away with. Don't even see an option for iPhoto anymore.

 

[bmxbradford]

This is very annoying in my opinion - agree 100% with first poster. The screensaver should recognize that there are pictures within the main folder I select, even if they are in subfolders.

I am hoping this is simply a "bug" that they will fix. There is absolutely no reason for this change. *everyone* organizes their images in folders, besides maybe iPhoto users (won't go into that software - suffice to say I think it is ridiculously bad).

I have tens of thousands of edited images in a very well organized "main" folder on my desktop and the screensaver is a key feature for me. Please fix this apple or provide some sort of workaround. I've looked for third party screensaver apps but haven't found any yet.

 

[starbai]

yea this is really annoying I hate it.

I have probably about 7.5gb of random car pics I've saved from the web over years and years of browsing that i have my screen saver pointed to the parent folder.

now my screen saver only plays the pics that are in the parent directory of that folder, and doesn't take from any of the subsequent folders.

theres gotta be a way around this... anyone come up with anything? ? i can't go adding each folder it would take forever.

 

[allieaitch]

Here's how to make it work . . .



I had the same problem. Why did Apple make this inane change??

Anyway, this worked for me . . .

1) Open iPhoto and copy the folder whose pictures you want to use for your Screen Saver.

2) paste the folder to the desktop,

3) Open Screen saver in preferences and just choose that folder fro, : user/desktop.

Good luck!

 

[starbai]

I had the same problem. Why did Apple make this inane change??

Anyway, this worked for me . . .

1) Open iPhoto and copy the folder whose pictures you want to use for your Screen Saver.

2) paste the folder to the desktop,

3) Open Screen saver in preferences and just choose that folder fro, : user/desktop.

Good luck!

thanks for the idea... but basically what this will do is make me have two copies of my pictures, correct? I'd rather not have 14gb of space taken up on my hard drive for 7gb worth of pics... thank you though for the suggestion!

 

[allieaitch]

You're welcome. And, yes, if you want ALL of your photos to be used, you'll be using double the space on your hard disc.

I use only a few hundred pictures for my Screen Saver, so it's no big deal.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

 

[ijohn.8.80]

Selecting folders within folders doesn't work yet, unfortunately.

In iPhoto it's easy.

Option 1:

In iPhoto, add all the events you want to a new album, call it what you want. Then select that.

Source - Photo Library... - your album - Choose.

Option 2:

Just select iPhoto as in the following picture, if you want it to go through all your photo's.

Source - Photo Library... - iPhoto - Choose.

 

[ijohn.8.80]

Solution found, but you have to do it in iPhoto, no duplicates!

Okay folks. I found a workaround for this frustration finally. It does involve the use of iPhoto however, but will not create duplicates at all.

Open iPhoto and go to:
- Preferences
- Advanced
- Uncheck "Copy items to the iPhoto Library"
- Close Preferences

Drag your folder of organised photo's into iPhoto, it may take a while depending on how many shots you have there.

When I did this, it arranged them for me in events according to the folders I had created, keeping the same organisation, sort of.

From here, just follow the steps I gave in my post above!

 

[jayducharme]

That's a clever work-around. But I think I'll just grit my teeth and wait until 10.8.1. This HAS to be a bug. I would hope that Apple didn't do this on purpose and won't strong-arm me into using just iPhoto for my screensaver.

I guess it's time to send some feedback to Apple....

 

[starbai]

That's a clever work-around. But I think I'll just grit my teeth and wait until 10.8.1. This HAS to be a bug. I would hope that Apple didn't do this on purpose and won't strong-arm me into using just iPhoto for my screensaver.

I guess it's time to send some feedback to Apple....

well the update is out now, and the problem is still there.

Theres not even a way to select multiple folders anymore even if you wanted to go through and select each one individually.

Sucks.

Anyone know of any third party screen saver apps that I could use to produce the same effect?

----------

Okay folks. I found a workaround for this frustration finally. It does involve the use of iPhoto however, but will not create duplicates at all.

Open iPhoto and go to:
- Preferences
- Advanced
- Uncheck "Copy items to the iPhoto Library"
- Close Preferences

Image

Drag your folder of organised photo's into iPhoto, it may take a while depending on how many shots you have there.

When I did this, it arranged them for me in events according to the folders I had created, keeping the same organisation, sort of.

From here, just follow the steps I gave in my post above!

didn't see this.. giving it a shot now.. thanks for the suggestion!


PS, does anyone know how iPhoto works in terms of adding photos? Right now Its importing 19,595 photos.... to which i had a few here or there pretty much every day... does anyone know how to make it continuously monitor a folder, continuously if I there is any way to go through the same process of adding folders of pics again but it only adding the new ones without making duplicates (in the library) of the same picture? (i know it will not make a duplicate copy of the picture file once you uncheck the box as shown above)



SOOOO--- got the photos imported... went back to screen savers in settings, and I dont know if its new from the update or what, but iPhoto isn't there as an option... what am I missing?

Is there a folder to choose that particular album i imported?






also being discussed here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4141512?start=0&tstart=0 with no updates/fixes listed.

 

[ijohn.8.80]

Seems stupid I know, but I had to restart to reflect the new iPhoto imports. Try that and let us know if it then appears for you.

 

[Cynthia Blue]

I use Picasa, not iPhoto.. just don't like iPhoto, I want to micro-manage my pictures and folder structure and Picasa lets me do that, iPhoto doesn't really.

So my question is.. if I launch iPhoto (I never have on my new MacBook, have had it about a month), will it mess up my photo directory structure at all? Can I still use Picasa as my main photo management software, and just use iPhoto for the screensaver?

Thanks.

 

[MacTinker]

Auto Add photos to iPhoto

PS, does anyone know how iPhoto works in terms of adding photos? Right now Its importing 19,595 photos.... to which i had a few here or there pretty much every day... does anyone know how to make it continuously monitor a folder, continuously if I there is any way to go through the same process of adding folders of pics again but it only adding the new ones without making duplicates (in the library) of the same picture? (i know it will not make a duplicate copy of the picture file once you uncheck the box as shown above)

There a lots of ways to get your photos into iPhoto automatically.

I would use Automator to either monitor the folder or use Automator to create an iCal event that triggers every night (or however often you would like it to do it).

I have attached basic screenshots of each. Just open Automator and select the type that will suit your needs best.

Hope this helps

~~Love Macs cause they work..... and if they don't you can tinker until they do.~~

 

[Stangs55]

As a primary PC user, this crap makes me shake my head...

As a secondary mac user...this crap just angers me. So many of Apple's decisions boggle my mind...

Anyone find a fix for this yet that doesn't involve automator and reducing myself to using the crap that is iPhoto?

 

[rhoggard]

I have been trying to post this everywhere I see this issue. The issue here is the version of iPhoto. Up to Lion iPhoto 2009 or version 8.1.2 worked with the Screensaver no issues. One of the "features" of Mountain Lion is "Apple signed" or "identified developers" approved applications (this found in you System Prefs under the Security & Privacy). Now most of the applications out there have updates or simple work fine under Mountain Lion but that is the rub for iPhoto 2009. It is not an "approved app" but iPhoto 2011 or 9.4.x is approved and thus it works with the Screensaver. Now from what I have found out talking with folks at Apple, the current version takes advantage of several new features that the screensaver can do. Well of course it is up to you to determine if these features are worth it. The short of it is that iPhoto 2009 is not designed to work with Mountain Lion's new screensaver and thus doesn't work. It is multiple levels but the reason the folders are greyed out is the app is not approved to run with the screensaver so the screensaver won't access your photo library but it will access raw folders of photos, go figure. Anyhow you can upgrade and if you do good luck as if you been in other forums well there is all kinds of problems folks are having with iPhoto 2011. I have upgraded and the screensaver works just fine. I don't use iPhoto heavily so I haven't run into a lot of issues. Anyhow that is why we all were having issues with our tried and true iPhoto 2009 with Mountain Lion.

 

[Laodah]

My photos (thousands of them) are in an ordinary folder. They are Graphic Converter files. They are further organised in subfolders, as are everyone's on the planet. In the past, the built-in OSX photo screensaver was an important part of my photo editing process; now it's gone, thanks to this OS6 can't-parse-a-folder-tree malarkey.

I have no desire to dance around with iPhoto or Automation or anything else; I want to select my photos folder like a citizen of 2013 and go back to productive work. At this stage (10.8.2) it seems Apple has just flipped us all the bird. So...

Someone above asked if there are any third-party screen savers out there that will replicate Apple's previously post-1988 technology in this task. Does anyone know of one? I'd like to have this function back.

Thanks.

 

[mickeyandmal]

Prob Solved

If someone is still looking for solving this problem, I've just do it!
Try Artsaver for mac.
That's it.

 

[Laodah]

Artsaver it is!

Thanks, MickeyandMal! Works better than the bundled one used to.

 

[mattonmac7]

Any Other Ideas - No ArtSaver on Mountain Lion

I really thought we had an ok work around with ArtSaver, but no support for Mountain Lion 10.8.2. Ugg ....

Read about the iphoto trick, but having 2 photo management programs fighting in out in the same directory just to have a screen saver seems ludicrous (and dangerous).

After all, if Apple can hose something as simple as a screen saver, I really don't trust them to respect Picasa's directory structure, hidden files, etc.. A future update could really mess things up royally.

Another option (I think) is to set up a Google Web Album with an RSS feed. However, web albums are limited to 1000 photos.

Is this not utterly amazing? I am a very clean directory structure with 10 years of photos. And I can't see them in a mother loving screen saver? In 2013?

I am kind of speechless (save profanity) ....

 

[Laodah]

Artsaver

I'm running Artsaver under 10,8.2, and it's working great. Are you sure you're using a current version?

 

[starbai]

where are you guys obtaining artsaver? I see it on softpedia and download.cnet but they appear to be older versions?

Artsaver 2.2? is that the most current?

http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Screensavers/ArtSaver.shtml

http://download.cnet.com/ArtSaver/3000-2257_4-79644.html

 

[Laodah]

Artsaver version

I'm running 2.2. I think I got it from Cnet. It's not quite as seamless as the built-in was (for example, it won't delay display sleep, so if you want it to run longer you'll have to turn up that adjustment in Systems Prefs) but it's really pretty good.

 

[Sailor3553]

ML screensaver problems

On 10.7, I had my screensaver set to choose photos at random from my large (220 GB) collection. The photos were arranged in the following way:

[Photos]

--> [2001 Photos]

----> [January 1 - New Year's in Paris]
----> [January 4 - Back to Tokyo]

--> [2002 Photos]

----> [January 2 - Landing on the Moon]

And so on.

With, 10.7 I could choose the folder containing ALL the other folders - that is, the one entitled "Photos," and 10.7 handled this just fine, but 10.8 will not. I have to choose a folder containing only photos. That is, unless I choose one of my "event" folders, the screen saver won't recognize the folder, making for a monotonous screen saver, consisting of photos drawn from only one event. Is there any way to force the computer to recognize groups of folders, rather than just one?

Your problems are solved! Google "Artsaver for MAC". It's a free Mac screensaver that reads subfolders, pauses, shows the file name, and lots more! Cnet has it for download. The creator's name is Gabriel Zachman.

----------

Your problems are solved! Google "Artsaver for MAC". It's a free Mac screensaver that reads subfolders, pauses, shows the file name, and lots more! Cnet has it for download. The creator's name is Gabriel Zachman

On 10.7, I had my screensaver set to choose photos at random from my large (220 GB) collection. The photos were arranged in the following way:

[Photos]

--> [2001 Photos]

----> [January 1 - New Year's in Paris]
----> [January 4 - Back to Tokyo]

--> [2002 Photos]

----> [January 2 - Landing on the Moon]

And so on.

With, 10.7 I could choose the folder containing ALL the other folders - that is, the one entitled "Photos," and 10.7 handled this just fine, but 10.8 will not. I have to choose a folder containing only photos. That is, unless I choose one of my "event" folders, the screen saver won't recognize the folder, making for a monotonous screen saver, consisting of photos drawn from only one event. Is there any way to force the computer to recognize groups of folders, rather than just one?