Wallpaper \ Background changing with Unity Ubuntu 11.10

[globalmac]

Thank you drpain

[Pynalysis]

It does require some Linux / Ubuntu know-how. Lets maybe do a checklist:


1. ) Is Python Installed (Yes / No) ?

You can install it using the following command in your terminal:

sudo apt-get install python

Or you can install Python in your Ubuntu Software Center


2. ) Do you know what the absolute path of your wallpaper folder is (Yes / No)?

For example if my username is rudi and my wallpapers are in my home folder then it would be /home/rudi/wallpapers I hope this makes sense to you.

Cool script!!!

Wanted to share my modification to set the default path to /home/username/Pictures folder for all interested

# Import socket as well
import socket

# Determine hostname/username on machine
hostName = socket.gethostname()

# Set /home/user/Pictures as default path
defaultPath = "/home/%s/Pictures" % hostName

# Set Path
path = raw_input("Enter the path of the directory that contains your Wallpapers\neg. /home/%s/Pictures: " % hostName)

[drpain]

Cool script!!!

Wanted to share my modification to set the default path to /home/username/Pictures folder for all interested

# Import socket as well
import socket

# Determine hostname/username on machine
hostName = socket.gethostname()

# Set /home/user/Pictures as default path
defaultPath = "/home/%s/Pictures" % hostName

# Set Path
path = raw_input("Enter the path of the directory that contains your Wallpapers\neg. /home/%s/Pictures: " % hostName)

Awesome! I am just glad so many of you used it, I previously posted a shell script which ran every five minutes but I don't think anyone used it. Nice variation there, shot for sharing!

[jony121]

Don't wish to slag the Ubuntu team off but this seems like a very basic feature which I expected to see in 11.10 and was very disappointed not to find. I thought I was going to have to mock up something shoddy but this python script is very well done and has made me a happy penguin. 8>
Thanks drpain! <3

[drpain]

Same here, the Ubuntu team is awesome and I am sure they have bigger fish to fry then something like this. I am just glad you were able to use the hack.

Who knows if they will have future releases using this desktop manager, it would server us well if someone can creates a GUI version of this (I am a very basic programmer at best and PHP is my forte).

[mojo636]

Thanks drpain, finally i found something that works!! script worked like a charm.

[Dr3wbi3]

So You can use this script or crebs to make xml files ... I had an issue where their were files that wouldnt work so i thought it was the script but after trying to compile the xml with Crebs i got some errors about some files that couldnt be included.
So I removed those files and things started working ok.
so now i want to have multiple slideshows to switch from (this is working for some but not all dunno why)

go to /usr/share and now open gnome-background-properties as root and then edit the ubuntu-wallpapers.xml
with the following code to point to each new slide show you make.

<wallpaper deleted="false">
<name>YOUR NAME HERE</name>
<filename>/usr/share/backgrounds/Contest/Contest.xml</filename>
<options>Scale</options>
</wallpaper>

(replace the bold fields with your names and paths)
this way you can also point to the crebs directory as well
then save and exit the file and logout or restart

[ebichuhamster]

Im having trouble with this script.

I installed it, it worked, it did what i wanted.

Then i had to reboot and suddenly i cant access anything in my desktop and i am very new to linux/ubuntu so i don't know the necessary shortcuts or anything.

I appreciate any help!

[ebichuhamster]

I'm pretty sure Unity somehow crashed and it is not getting up.

I tried unity --reset but it just responded something like "no window display enabled".

Does anyone know what went wrong?? >_< I think i'm looking in all the wrong places...

[surya16]

thank you