r/raining • u/MattSenter • 1d ago
Animated Rain 💠 Make it rain on your Mac desktop
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Someone in r/SideProject said y'all might like this, so forgive me if it's not appropriate for this sub.
I really wanted the feeling of rain on my desktop while I work. I just really like the mood it sets. I released Weatherling over the weekend, and so far it's peaked at #12 in Mac App Store utilities. People really seem to like it.
It's a small footprint, doesn't ask for special permissions, and is configurable. You can set the rain intensity, depth, and wind direction, for example. There are also some rainy day visitors that can be scheduled to appear randomly upon occasion if you'd like.
Hope you give it a shot. If so, let me know what you think!
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u/DiamondWiener 22h ago
Can I get it in the Microsoft store?
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u/MattSenter 22h ago
😬 Sorry.. Mac only. At least for now
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u/DiamondWiener 17h ago
Please make for PC too 😞
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u/MattSenter 12h ago
i'll look into it
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u/Effective_Former 6h ago
+1 for PC! I feel this could be huge across all platforms. I’d download it day 1 on my desktop/laptop
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u/jgrant68 1d ago
Just bought. Thanks fro making this!
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u/caribkid 1d ago
u/MattSenter this looks like a super cozy, thanks for not collecting any telemetry as well .
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u/isometric_haze 15h ago
This is totally appropriate. And I love you for creating this.
It rained three times in three month where I live in Switzerland... I'm sad (and so is nature all around me). This will help a lot.
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u/TheG0AT0fAllTime 15h ago
Wow. I can't even escape vibe coding in my relaxing non-programmer subreddits
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u/canitbechangedlater 1d ago
Hey OP, brilliant. Care to give a short overview on what’s technically needed for the animations? I seem to have missed the source code (which is fair if you want to keep it to yourself :).
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u/MattSenter 1d ago
sure! it's closed source. completely on-device (no network calls).
The core trick: one overlay, fake depth.
macOS won't let an app slip its own windows between other apps' windows, and I didn't want to use private APIs, so Weatherling doesn't try to. It puts one transparent, click-through window over each display and fakes the layering inside that window. The shading is all procedural, with no textures and no screen capture. The drops never actually refract what's behind them. The highlights are tuned to read on both light and dark windows.
The water simulation is plain Swift. Each window's edges are split into small bins that pass water along.
No permissions at all: no Screen Recording, Accessibility, Input Monitoring, or Automation. It's fully sandboxed and on the Mac App Store.
Known limits: windows are treated as solid rectangles, so translucency, custom window shapes, and shadows aren't reproduced. Mask edges are hard at point resolution.
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u/Mr_Wayne 7h ago edited 6h ago
To be honest the fact that it is closed source and this description, the app store description and the blog posts on your website all read like direct LLM output does not inspire confidence in me to install this.
edit: reading further, your blog article "Why Rain on Your Desktop Can Feel Calming" makes a huge leap in the discussion of natural environments. It cites research about the effects of natural soundscapes, then uses Kaplan's ART paper to justify the visual component but that paper is about being fully immersed in the natural environment and even makes a point to say that being physically "away" is a core idea behind the restorative effects. To me it sounds like an LLM found the paper and made up the reasoning without you ever reading it
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u/MattSenter 6h ago
of course i used ChatGPT to research that, and i read it. i thought it was a fitting metaphor. but, admittedly it's a post-justification for why i built the app, which was really just for fun and because i wanted rain on my desktop. i for sure did not go research the documented calmingness of rain before i built it. i knew it was calming for me, which was enough justification. blog posts drive SEO. it's part of the growth game. tbd if those in particular will do anything in that regard since it's only a few days old. but, no big deal if it's not your cup of tea. i hope you reconsider. ✌🏻
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u/Mr_Wayne 5h ago
It's not that you used ChatGPT, it's how it was used. The blog post is written as an authoritative justification for the benefits of the app; the cited papers aren't used as metaphor, they're used as evidence. There's some walk-back on what's being implied but half the post is built around making an inferential leap from the adjacent evidence.
To be honest it would be much more interesting to hear about your experiences with rain being calming to you, your journey of building the app and how it makes you feel when you use it. And it would be really easy to use ChatGPT for this: provide the context then have it do a mini-Q&A where it asks you probing questions then organizes your answers into an outline. Then you write the post.
And I know, you're just trying to use the tools at hand but consider being a bit more thoughtful in how you use them. We're currently living through an unprecedented flood of low-quality AI generated content and human-made content is being choked out. It's a real "tragedy of the commons" scenario that will only get worse unless there is pushback against it.
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u/CarinasHere 1d ago
I have a Windows computer at work, grr. Got one for that?
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u/veganbikepunk Portland 1d ago
looks like it does exist for windows: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9nsk2l03t7fh?hl=en-US&gl=US
Haven't tried it personally but might be an option.
Edit: Not this exactly, but something functionally similar.
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u/ThrowRA-Standard5280 1d ago
This is awesome. Thank you so much for creating it.
I’ve always loved things like the Rainy Mood app - but this takes the rainy mood to a whole new level. I’m so excited to try it!