Switzerland, Published Screensaver
The Switzerland, Published screensaver streams the Swiss federal open data catalogue in update order — some sixteen thousand datasets across four national languages, from the Confederation, the cantons and individual cities. It runs in the browser with nothing to install; press ESC to exit.
How the Switzerland, Published screensaver works
The saver reads opendata.swiss, the Swiss federal open data portal.
No account and no key: the request goes straight from your browser, or from this site's own refreshed copy of the feed where the source does not permit browser access.
Values are drawn on a canvas that resizes with the window, so it works on a laptop or a wall display.
If the source is unreachable the saver says so on screen rather than showing stale numbers as though they were current.
A worked example
Each row names a dataset, the office that publishes it, when it changed and how many files it holds. Titles arrive as an object keyed by language — German, French, Italian, English — and choosing one is a small editorial act; this takes German where present because most of the catalogue is published in it, and falls back rather than showing a blank row.
Settings & tips
- Accent and Background recolour the display without changing the data.
- Add it to a Multi-view grid to watch it alongside other live savers.
- Press ESC at any time to leave fullscreen.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is the catalogue so large?
- Because Swiss federalism pushes publication down to the cantons and communes, so a country of nine million publishes more open datasets than several much larger neighbours.
- Which language does it show?
- German where a record has it, then French, Italian or English. The catalogue does not translate every record into every language, so the available title varies by publisher.
- Is this real data?
- Yes. It comes from opendata.swiss, the Swiss federal open data portal. Nothing is invented or simulated, and if the source cannot be reached the saver reports that instead of drawing something plausible.
- Does it cost anything or need an account?
- No. Every screensaver here is free, runs in the browser and needs no sign-up. This one uses a public API that requires no key.