Introduction

Top Draw Viewer is the companion program to the Top Draw. Both programs will evaluate a JavaScript based script to create an image that can be set as the Desktop Picture. Scripts can be downloaded or created and placed in a common folder on your computer. Several example scripts are included with the application and automatically installed into:
~/Library/Application Support/Google/TopDraw/Scripts

The application runs as a Status Item, which means that there is no front window or icon in the dock. Instead, there will be a colored shape in the menu bar to indicate the current status (idle or rendering). If you click on the item, it will display a menu similar to this menu:

Preferences

Top Draw has several user configurable preferences to control the scripts to render, the rate of refresh, and the appearance of the Status Item. The preferences window will look similar to this:

Preference Description
Script Folder The location of the folder on your computer that contains the Top Draw Script (TDS, extension ".tds") files to be used by Top Draw when rendering Desktop images. Only files ending in .tds will be read. Top Draw will not read files from any folders in that directory.
Script The chosen script to render. If you've selected the "Randomly chosen" checkbox, one of the scripts contained in your Script Folder will be chosen at random for each rendering. Also, the Script menu will be disabled. Clicking on the "Try it!" button to cause the currently selected (or a random one if configured) script to render.
Refresh The desktop can be refreshed at a variety of intervals (seconds, minutes, hours). Additionally, you can have it update when your computer starts up or even every time that you wake it from from sleeping.
Menu Indicator The appearance of the image drawing in the menubar can be customized. You may choose the color to be drawn when idle or actively rendering a desktop. You may also choose a pleasing geometric shape: rectangle, square, circle, or triangle. It's up to you!

Top Draw Scripts

Top Draw reads Top Draw Script (.tds) files and renders them into images which are installed on your desktop. The Top Draw application contains a ZIP archive of several example script files. When the program is first launched, it will extract and copy the scripts into
~/Library/Application Support/Google/TopDraw/Scripts

If you're not interested in programming, you can visit the Top Draw project Wiki Gallery site and download new script files. You can then copy those files into the Script Folder that you've configured Top Draw to use. If you open the Preferences window, the new script(s) will be available for your selection.

The scripts use the JavaScript programming language, with enhancements, to provide the instructions to render. If you'd like to learn more about these, please see the Top Draw documentation.

Requirements

Top Draw requires a Macintosh computer running Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or later.

Miscellaneous

Top Draw was written by Dan Waylonis in 2008.

The most up-to-date versions can be found at Google's open source repository, as the Top Draw project.

The program is open source and written in Objective-C using Apple's Xcode IDE. It uses the JavaScriptCore, Quartz, and CoreImage frameworks.