A far-fetched request...

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Hey all,

I've been searching for something that I'm pretty sure doesn't exist, but I thought I'd ask anyway. Is there a way that I can have the National Weather Service's motion radar (or any weather radar for that matter) on my screen as my wallpaper? Kind of like an RSS feed, so that it's always in the background. The closest I've been able to come is a screensaver.

Thanks for the help! I'll be surprised if I hear a positive response! :)

Chris
 
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I can't really help you much but just thought I'd suggest setting the screensaver as a "hot corner" so you can switch to and from it quickly.
 
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Okay my apologies...The screensaver DL's I found were only for Windows. I can't find anything for Macs. Geez they make it difficult...
 
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Hi, someone once asked how to run a screensaver as a desktop background and this is the answer I gave them. I wonder if it applies to your situation and thought I'd re-post it again but I edited it to suit your specific situation.

It might help you if you do find a screensaver compatible with your mac.

If you have what you want as a ScreenSaver you can also have it as a desktop background.

To locate the installed National Weather Screensaver :

Macintosh HD -> System -> Library -> ScreenSavers -> ScreensaverNameHere.slideSaver.

Control/right click on ScreensaverNameHere.slideSaver and select "Show Package Contents" from the contextual menu.

In the window that should appear, double-click on the "Contents" folder, then double-click on the "Resources" folder to reveal each individual photo in the ScreenSaver if that applies.

Next, select the picture you want as a desktop background and drag it to your iPhoto icon in the Dock. (or to your desktop, then onto the iPhoto icon in your Dock if that's easier)

What you have actually done here is import it into iPhoto. Once iPhoto launches and imports the pic, just select it then go to the iPhoto menu and select Share -> Desktop.

Voila ... you have a stunning new desktop picture.... you can import all the individual screensaver images into iPhoto if you like, then if you want to change your Desktop image, just do it via System Prefs.

If you choose to import all the ScreenSaver photos to iPhoto, when this is done, highlight them and from the File menu choose... "New Album From Selection". This creates a folder in the left pane of iPhoto where you can access these images easily.

When you are in System Preferences -> Desktop & ScreenSavers -> Desktop ...scroll down in the left pane until you come to the horizontal dividing line. The next folders are your iPhoto collection. Here you will find all your Albums including the newly created screensaver images folder. Just click on this folder and select the image you want to set as your new Desktop Background and that's all there is to it.

Just for your further info, there is an app (free 7 day demo then $10 to buy) called Visage. This nifty app allows you to actually run these screensavers, (complete with transitions) as a desktop background. I'm not sure how much of a drain on the CPU this would be, but you can set the CPU Usage from Low all the way through to High.
 
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Hey all,

I've been searching for something that I'm pretty sure doesn't exist, but I thought I'd ask anyway. Is there a way that I can have the National Weather Service's motion radar (or any weather radar for that matter) on my screen as my wallpaper? Kind of like an RSS feed, so that it's always in the background. The closest I've been able to come is a screensaver.

Thanks for the help! I'll be surprised if I hear a positive response! :)

Chris

Can none of the Dashboard widgets serve this purpose for you? Or do you need to see the radar all the time?

This is not exactly what you're looking for, I realise this but all the same - check out Yahoo Widgets - they're kind of like the widgets you get on your dashboard but you can have these running on the regular desktop. Checking out the widgets available, they have loads of weather radar widgets - take a look and see if anything comes close to what you're looking for.

Yahoo Widgets (for Mac)
Weather Radar Widgets
 
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I used to be able to keep an individual widget on my desktop but the method I used doesn't seem to work anymore ...
 
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The weather widget would work. I was going for a moving radar on the desktop, but as long as I can see it all the time I'm fine.
 
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Now I know how to keep a widget on the desktop and why it stopped working for me ....

Just drag one of the widget icons from the selection bar and press F12 (or whatever your dashboard shortcut is) while still dragging it.

It used to be you changed some code in Terminal than launched your widgets and just dragged an active widget while pressing F12 again ...

With this new way, if you press F12 yet again, the widget is returned to DashBoard, so it's not permanent.
 
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My mac is on the way so I can't try this out, but I've seen alot of people use and enjoy Meteorologist.

http://heat-meteo.sourceforge.net/

But in one of the screenshots it shows what looks to be a background with a map. Let me know how it works for you.

dbimage.php
 
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Well I tried downloading meteorologist twice, and it wouldn't let me change the city. In preferences, you have the option of adding a new city. So I tried using the city name and zip code...neither worked. At the bottom of the screen it said, "If a search cannot be completed, try copying and pasting the URL of the city's weather page into the search bar." I tried that and nothing. I tried searching for all major cities (Chicago, New York, LA) and none would show up. Very interesting.
 

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