Satori 2.1.2 : A meditative screensaver

(No payment links — Satori is freeware)

Satori is a screensaver for OS X that creates flowing, meditative images based on various mathematical formulae. Version 2.1.2 is compatible with OS X 10.14 and 10.15 (and should run on later OS X releases as well). Here's a reduced-size screenshot from Satori — this is the image used to make Satori's icon, obviously:

Satori uses six different mathematical formulas in many combinations, to produce a staggering variety of images. To give you just a taste of that variety, here's another screenshot:

The images Satori makes aren't just still frames; they animate continuously, flowing and oozing color. It's impossible to describe; it has to be seen.

I originally wrote Satori in 1990, about 25 years ago. It became a part of the After Dark screensaver package produced by Berkeley Systems, along with Rose and many other modules. After Dark is only a distant memory now, but in collaboration with Infinisys Ltd., I've revived Satori to run again. It's very nice to see code I wrote so long ago running on OS X!

As usual for Stick Software products, Satori has an overengineered configuration panel that lets you control several aspects of its appearance. Here's a snapshot of the config panel:

That might look complicated, but you can't break Satori by playing with its controls. Just experiment and have fun — or enjoy the default settings, which will give you an infinite variety of beautiful displays.

Satori is freeware (which means you may use it for free, although it is copyrighted). I hope you'll enjoy it, and that you'll take a look at Stick Software's other products! Infinisys has some other After Dark screensavers for sale, too.

Note that Satori is user-controllable via the modifier keys; the keys used are described in Satori's Configuration panel. The key controls allow you to hold an image onscreen, and change the color scheme of the current image. Note that to avoid the key-presses waking up Satori, you must go to the Security & Privacy panel in System Preferences, select the General tab, and choose "Require password immediately after sleep or screen saver begins". You need to choose "immediately" from the pop-up menu, in addition to checking the check box. This way the key-presses will show the macOS user authentication interface, but will not wake up Satori. The authentication interface will disappear after a short delay (perhaps 30 seconds). This is annoying, but macOS no longer allows screensavers to intercept key-presses.

New in version 2.1: Improved compatibility with macOS 10.14, and 10.15; rewritten to use the Metal graphics engine instead of color-table animation for greater speed, smoothness, and image quality.

New in version 2.1.1: Faster startup (now using Metal to calculate the initial Satori display on the GPU), smoother animation.

New in version 2.1.2: Fixed a couple of memory leaks that would cause Satori's memory usage to slowly grow over time.