The documentation is available in multiple formats. Pick your poison:

• Online HTML docs (update in progress)
• Printable PDF version

If you would like to contribute a localized version of the documentation for a language other than English, please feel free to contact us.

Q: What's going to be in the next version?

Q: What are we working on?

Q: What changes were there in each version?

A: We have an online ChangeLog so that you will know what we are working on and to let you see what has been done since the initial release.

Q: How do I install Fluid? Is it hard to do?

A: Fluid is easy to install. Just follow these steps:

1. Drag the Fluid.saver file into your ~/Library/Screen Savers/ directory.
2. Open the System Preferences application and select Screen Effects. Then change your screensaver to Fluid. That's it.

Q: Are there any keyboard commands for Fluid? What are they?

A: Fluid does have a few keyboard commands that can be used while the screensaver is running without making the screensaver stop running.

F

Displays the current frame rate for Fluid

S

Saves the currently rendered frame as a TIF file. Fluid puts the images in a Fluid directory within your Pictures directory. The images are numbered sequentially.

-> (Right arrow)

Forces a reset of the current theme or, if you have random themes turned on, immediately resets to the next theme.

T

Displays the current theme name. Useful if you have random themes inabled and you see something that you like, or if you are using network based themes via Rendezvous.

Q: Fluid crashes when I start it?

A: This probably is a result of a corrupted/bad preferences file. If you have upgraded from a previous version of Fluid and/or are seeing this behavior then you should delete the preferences file at the following location: ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.concepthouse.Fluid??????????
The exact filename will be different on each machine but it will start with com.concepthouse.Fluid.

Q: How do I install the Fluid Theme Server?

A: Follow these steps:

1. If you do not have a ~/Library/PreferencePanes/ directory, then you should create one.
2. Drag the Fluid Theme Server.prefPane file into your ~/Library/PreferencePanes/ directory.
3. Open the System Preferences application and select Fluid Theme Server and click the "Start" button.

Q: Fluid runs slow on my machine. Why?

A: Check out our performance page in the Online Documentation.

Q: All I see is black. What's going on?

A: Fluid fades in when it starts and fades out when it resets. What you are seeing is probably just the black screen before it fades in. Give it a second or two and you'll see something. We decided to do it this way because it looks much better when using a background image or desktop background with warping turned on. Check it out and see. If you still don't see anything, make sure that you have some type of rendering style turned on. Colorgrade, vectors, contour lines, anything will do.

Q: How do I install extra colormaps and themes?

A: The colormaps that show up in the ColorMaps menu in Fluid can be found in your Library folder. They are in your ~/Library/Application Support/Fluid/Color Maps/ directory. To install new/extra colormaps, just drop them in that directory. You may also drop whole folders of colormaps in the directory and Fluid will find them and keep them ordered as submenus.

Themes are the same deal, only they are installed in your ~/Library/Application Support/Fluid/Themes/ directory.

Q: How can I trade colormaps with my friends?

A: See the above tip to find out where the colormap files are kept. To trade, just copy the ".clr" files wherever you want them. We figure that a good one will probably sell for millions on eBay.

Q: What are these ".clr" files that Fluid uses?

A: Those are colormap files. They are in OS X's native NSColorList format and can be read by and edited with the standard color picker in OS X. That's just a little bonus that comes with Fluid. In fact, you can use Fluid's way-cool ColorMap editor to save new NSColorLists to files that can be used in other applications that support color lists. Ahhh, the wonders of Cocoa.