Billboard Screensaver Setup

Billboard is run primarily on Apple computers running the webXsaver screen saver. Below are instructions on how to get the screen saver running properly and getting the screen saver to run over the OSX login screen, so that you do not need to be logged in for the screen saver to start.

First, download the webXsaver binary and install it onto the Mac. Once you have installed the screen saver, set it as the active screensaver (System Preferences > Desktop and Screen Saver > Screen Saver tab -- and then select webXsaver on the list on the left).

Now that webXsaver is installed, we need to edit the URL that the bulletin board looks at. In order to do that, open up a terminal and navigate to the folder

/Library/Screen Savers/webXsaver.saver/Contents/Resources/

and open the "webloc.plist" file using the command:

pico -w webloc.plist

From there, the file should contain text like this ('Note:' the URL in the <string></string> parameters may be different)

<dict>
	<key>webLocation</key>
	<string>http://originalurl</string>
</dict>

And replace the value of <string> with http://www.wolftech.ncsu.edu/billboard/ -- so that the full file looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>webLocation</key>
	<string>http://www.wolftech.ncsu.edu/billboard/</string>
</dict>
</plist>