whitescreen.tv

Changelog

New features and fixes on WhiteScreen.tv.

  1. New

    Interactive wallpapers

    • A new kind of page: interactive wallpapers, seventy to start. Each one begins as a single still picture with recorded sound, and the parts that would really move are made to move the way they really do. Wipe the fog off a rainy train window, turn a page in a lamplit library, rake a sand tray, watch three koi swim and come to your finger, set a Foucault pendulum swinging and watch the Earth turn under it, read the time on a clockmaker’s bench (it shows yours), wind a brass orrery whose planets keep their true pace, call the fireflies until they blink together, stir a cabin fire, or roll the glass marbles down a stone channel. Twenty are for the season: shake a snow globe, run the model train under the tree, ring the bell on a wreath, dust a gingerbread house with sugar, turn the handle of a cider press, or watch a red fox sleep through a snowfall.
    • The wallpaper page has a search box and a category for each kind of scene, from the holidays, rain and fire to space and fantasy, and every wallpaper has the others in a row under it, opened on its own category. Sound and its volume are one setting for all of them: turn the sound on in one and the next one starts with it. Each wallpaper saves what is on the screen as a picture, goes fullscreen with F, and explains on its own page how to use it as your wallpaper, with a live link ending in #wallpaper for apps that can show a web page: it shows the scene alone, with no ads and no sound, at no more than 30 frames a second.
    • The eleven Christmas wallpapers, from the snow globe to the steam station, have music: fifteen instrumental tracks, twelve of them carols. Music is apart from the scene’s own sound, with its own button and volume, so you can have either, both or neither. Each scene starts on a pick of its own; you can repeat one track, play them all, or shuffle the ones you tick. It only plays once you start it, and remembers your choice.
    • Every wallpaper can be rated with the stars under it, like a screensaver. And on every page of the site, pointing at a star now lights it and the ones before it, so the stars show the score a click will give; before, only the star under the pointer lit up.
    • Each page shows a short note before anything moves. Two scenes have a storm far off, on the train window and the prairie: the far cloud lifts once and fades over a few seconds, at least ten seconds apart, and never reaches the change the flash guideline counts as a flash. Fires and candles change the light on the room by about one percent, slower than once a second, while the flames move inside them. The fireflies and the server room's status lights fade slowly, one at a time or in a slow shared rhythm. Sails, reels and a flywheel pass over any spot less than twice a second; the model train's spokes are dark on dark, too faint to count as a flash at any speed.
    • The pages are in English for now.
  2. New

    Twenty-one more scenes from Screen Test

    • Twenty-one scenes from the Screen Test effects gallery join the collection: ten of its benchmark scenes, like Nebula Drift and Neon Metropolis, and eleven more licensed shaders, from Alien Planet to Warp Speed. That makes 222 scenes in eleven collections.
    • Five stay out. Flux Core, Demoparty and Hypernova flash. Volcanic Fire and Starfall Cascade are full of small bright sparks that, by the strict reading of the flash guideline, count more than three flashes a second even at a quarter speed, so they stay out too.
    • Every one of the twenty-one went through the same flash check at the fastest speed it can play. Several play slower than the rest at most: Crystal Blizzard, Particle Explosion, Neon Metropolis and Alien Planet at a quarter speed, four more at half speed, Topologica and Kaleidoscope at normal speed. At those ceilings none counted more than three flashes in any second, the guideline's limit: Neon Metropolis reached three, Particle Explosion and Kaleidoscope two, and most counted none. Static Field is the exception that isn't one: it is fine noise, new in every pixel every frame, and its note says so before it plays.
    • The benchmark scenes have an Amount slider for how many particles they draw, and phones start with a quarter. The shaders keep their authors' own settings, such as the knot in Digital Maelstrom or the mirrors in Kaleidoscope. Each plays Screen Test's music for it.
    • Disco Tunnel, Star Planes and Kaleidoscope carry the stripes note, Neon Metropolis and Warp Speed the fast-motion note, and Canvas 2D Basic Circles the dense-dots note.
    • It works the other way too: the ninety-four WhiteScreen Studio scenes now play in the Screen Test effects gallery, from the same files.
    • They open in the player rather than on pages of their own, and the player loads their code only when you pick one.
  3. New

    Ninety particle scenes

    • Ninety new scenes made of particles: strange attractors like the Lorenz Butterfly, a murmuration of starlings, a slime mold that builds its own network, planets on their orbits, knots and Möbius strips, a snow globe you can shake, and a clock that spells out the time.
    • Two new collections, Chaos & fractals and Flocks & swarms, hold many of them; the rest join the collections they fit. That makes 201 scenes in eleven collections.
    • Each particle scene has three to six sliders of its own, from how chaotic the Lorenz Butterfly runs to how closely the starlings keep together.
    • They come from the same library as the Screen Test effects gallery, written for both sites. The player loads them only when you pick one, so the rest of the collection opens as fast as before, and phones start them with fewer particles.
    • At double speed, the fastest the slider goes, none of them counted more than two flashes in any second by the strict reading of the guideline, under its limit of three, and 80 of the 90 counted none. Sandstorm carries the fast-motion note and Chaos Game the dense-dots note.
    • They open in the player rather than on pages of their own, and each borrows the music of the scene closest to it in mood.
  4. Languages

    Tile names that fit in every language

    • In some languages a screen's name is too long for one line under its tile, and the first line used to slide up over the tile itself. German had it on most of the color tiles, and longer prank names did it in Finnish, Ukrainian, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Turkish, Thai and Hebrew. Those names now wrap onto a second line below the tile.
    • Japanese names break between the color and スクリーン instead of in the middle of a word.
    • Names that already fit on one line haven't moved.
  5. New

    Eleven new screensavers, more controls, and a note before each scene

    • Six new scenes written for this collection: Harmonograph, Cloud Chamber, Wind Tree, Soap Film, Tesseract and Orrery. Each has up to six sliders of its own, from the pendulum rhythms on Harmonograph to the season on Wind Tree.
    • Five more scenes from the Screen Test effects gallery: Ringed Planet, Overcast, Sandstone City, Neon Heart and Star Trails. That makes 111 scenes in nine collections.
    • Every scene now shows all of its sliders, not just the first two, and the Screen Test scenes gained a zoom slider.
    • The first time a scene moves, a short note says what to expect and asks before it plays: slow motion for most scenes, or fast motion, dense dots, fast color change or high-contrast stripes for the few that have them. Cards in the gallery carry the same tags. Tick the box and that kind of note won't ask again on this device.
    • Open Ocean now plays at no more than half speed, as Color Melt already did, because faster settings could make its glints on the water flash more than three times a second by a strict reading of the guideline.
    • In fullscreen, the space bar pauses a scene and starts it again.
  6. Safety

    Calmer choices for the pranks that flicker

    • The Glitch Screen has a new Frozen style: one still frame of damage, nothing moving. The preview no longer animates, the page says what each style does before you start, and it opens on Frozen if your device asks for reduced motion.
    • White Noise can show still static or a dark screen while the sound plays.
    • Tiles on the prank gallery mark the effects with flicker or moving static, and Random Prank no longer picks the Glitch Screen.
    • Every prank shows how to stop it for a few seconds when it starts. Going Back, or switching away from a flickering effect, always ends it.
    • Our article on flashing prank screens now covers migraine and visual discomfort, flicker from screens themselves (PWM), and new measurements of every animated prank.
    • An expert on visual discomfort and photosensitive epilepsy reviewed the scientific content of that article and the safety notes on the prank gallery. Both pages now name him and say what the review covers and what it doesn't.
  7. New

    A one-tap poll and the most-loved screensavers

    • A one-tap question under the white screen and every solid-color page asks what you are using the screen for. After you answer you see the live results: the share for each answer and how many people have answered.
    • The screensavers page now ranks the most-loved scenes from your star ratings. A scene joins the list once it has five ratings, and each row shows its average and number of ratings.
    • The poll is anonymous: an answer is stored with the page, language, country and date only, never an IP address. The Privacy Policy lists exactly what is kept and for how long.
  8. Guides

    Four new guides and our editorial standards

    • New on the blog: how to light a video call with your screen, with distances, color temperature and fixes for glare on glasses.
    • Can a white screen replace a light therapy lamp? We did the arithmetic: a laptop or monitor gives a few hundred lux at most, far short of the 10,000 lux used in light therapy.
    • Using a screen as a night light explains what evening light does to your body clock and which settings to use, from the Night Light preset to the red screen.
    • We checked every prank for flashing. The Glitch Screen could flash faster than three times a second, mostly in its Chaos style and more on 120 Hz displays. Its bright bursts are now capped at two a second in every style and intensity, timed by the clock so every display behaves the same, and the effect calms down when your device asks for reduced motion. How to prank safely lists what we found.
    • A new editorial standards page explains how we build and check the tools, source our articles, work with expert reviewers and correct mistakes. It is linked from every English page footer.
  9. Screensavers

    100 screensavers

  10. Screensavers

    62 new screensavers, five new collections

  11. Languages

    Every tool, in every language

    • The prank screen collection, dead pixel test, white screen test, white image download and bright white screen are now available in all 19 languages. Until now they were in English and Indonesian only.
    • Color screen pages in German, Finnish, French, Italian, Japanese and Ukrainian now have full headings, such as "Weißer Bildschirm" where it used to say only "Weiß".
    • Screen reader labels, the DVD screensaver's share button and corner counter, and the title of each About page now appear in your language instead of English.
    • On phones, the prank, screensaver and tool tiles now sit two to a row with their names underneath. They used to stack one per row with no names.
  12. Screensavers

    A page for every scene

    • Each of the 24 screensavers now has its own page, in all 19 languages, with a description of the scene and what its sliders do. Try Event Horizon, Rain on Glass, or Lava Lamp.
    • A scene's page always opens on that scene, and links to its video when there is one.
    • Added 30-minute videos with music for 15 more screensavers, from Velvet Nebula to Stained Glass. Every video is listed on the Videos page.
  13. New

    Videos for the big screen

    • Opened a Videos section, with a page for each video, in all 19 languages.
    • Added one-hour YouTube versions of all ten color screens, from white and black to gray, for TVs and streaming boxes that have no browser.
    • Added 30-minute videos with music of three screensavers: Event Horizon, Northern Lights, and Lava Lamp.
  14. New

    More scenes, with music

    • Expanded the English screensaver collection from six to 24 scenes in four categories: Space, Nature, Flow & color, and Geometry. The 18 new effects include Event Horizon, Solar Corona, Misty Peaks, and Stained Glass.
    • Added optional background music to the screensaver player. Each scene has its own looping soundtrack and a volume control.
    • Added larger previews, scene descriptions, quick scene switching, and a pause control.
    • Gave every page the same header and menu, moved About, Privacy, and Terms onto the same layout, and replaced the share buttons. Opened the blog and this changelog.
  15. Screensavers

    Six live worlds for your screen

    • Introduced the original fullscreen screensavers: Star Nest, Moonlit Sea, Open Ocean, Distant Galaxy, Color Melt, and Marble Drift.
    • Added speed and color controls, adaptive quality, a stop timer, and saved settings.
  16. Usability

    Your preview and settings, together

    • Moved settings beside the preview on prank and tool pages, with a stacked layout on smaller screens and a consistent Start fullscreen button.
  17. Improvement

    A tidier page, fresher updates

    • Constrained desktop ad banners so they fit the page layout, and improved cache refresh behavior so returning visitors receive site updates more reliably.
  18. New tools

    More ways to put your screen to work

  19. Effects

    A more playful WhiteScreen

Ideas or bug reports? See the About page for how to reach us.