The Machinery Behind Theses Screensaver
The The Machinery Behind Theses screensaver shows a rotating draw from the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network, gathered by the pipeline. Sampled rather than sorted, and that is a statement about the data: CTAN's package JSON has no date field anywhere in it, so any newest-first claim would be invented. It's free, runs in your browser, and ESC exits.
Live preview
Press ESC to leave fullscreen. Settings are saved in your browser only.
How the The Machinery Behind Theses screensaver works
The saver reads the source described above and draws it on a canvas — no account, no tracking.
A rotating draw from the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network, gathered by the pipeline. Sampled rather than sorted, and that is a statement about the data: CTAN's package JSON has no date field anywhere in it, so any newest-first claim would be invented.
It refreshes on a schedule, so what you see stays current.
Colours and any options can be changed in settings; nothing is stored beyond your own browser.
What CTAN is
CTAN, the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network, is described as the authoritative place where TeX-related material and software can be found for download. It was built in 1992 by Rainer Schöpf, Joachim Schrod, Sebastian Rahtz and George Greenwade, and is served through a worldwide set of mirror sites. TeX itself was designed by Donald Knuth, who wrote a memo on its basic features in 1977, to let anyone produce high-quality books with minimal effort.
LaTeX, developed by Leslie Lamport as a format built on TeX, became a common way to write scientific papers and theses. CTAN holds the packages, fonts, documentation and tools around that ecosystem. Many packages solve small, specific problems, such as a particular citation style or a table layout, so the catalogue reflects decades of people sharing fixes for their own typographic nuisances.
The saver draws packages at random because the underlying data carries no dates, so there is no honest way to show newest or most popular. Presence in the archive is also not a recommendation: some packages are obsolete or superseded.
A worked example
A rotating draw from the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network, gathered by the pipeline. Sampled rather than sorted, and that is a statement about the data: CTAN's package JSON has no date field anywhere in it, so any newest-first claim would be invented.
Settings & tips
- Accent and Background recolour the display.
- Every value on screen comes from the live source — nothing is simulated.
- Press ESC to leave fullscreen.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this real data?
- Yes — it comes from the source named on this page and is refreshed on a schedule.
- Is a key needed?
- No. This source is fully key-less.
- Is it free?
- Yes, and it runs entirely in your browser.
- Do I need to install these packages myself?
- Often not. Distributions such as TeX Live and MiKTeX package TeX with the tools and packages most documents need, so check your distribution before installing anything by hand.
- Who wrote TeX and LaTeX?
- Donald Knuth designed and wrote TeX. Leslie Lamport originally developed LaTeX as a format built on top of it.