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carfield
May 18th, 2008, 04:08 PM
I am using GNOME, in the old day I can use an application call chbg to change wallpaper, but now it doesn't work, is that any similar application for me to do that?

Superevil
May 19th, 2008, 02:04 AM
I used Desktop Drapes and Wallpapoz both of which are available through the add/remove apps. Personally I'd like something like OS X has where you can change the wallpapers every 5 seconds or so and they blend from one to the other.

esteckis
May 19th, 2008, 02:29 AM
What I am using under the screenelts program is called Gnome wallpaper. You can have it change wallpapers from your folder, or download wallpaper Gnome art and change wallpapers that way. It's nice to have some refreshing wallpapers from Gnome art.

angry_johnnie
May 19th, 2008, 09:29 AM
There is a really nice app available in the repos, called wallpaper-tray.

It stays on the system tray, and looks for images in any directory of your choice, and then changes them at certain user-specified intervals (the minimum interval being 1 minute).

There is another one, called gbackground, which does the same, but can be set to change the background image at a faster rate (any given number of seconds --even 1 second). It is also available in the repositories.

A, perhaps, "geekier" approach, would be to write an xml file to set the background and then change it after some time, with --even-- a nice fade in/out transition. Then you could just go to system > preferences > appearance > background > add > all files, and select your xml script.

It would look something like this:


<background>
<static>
<duration>1.0</duration>
<file>/background/image/one</file>
</static>
<transition>
<duration>2.0</duration>
<from>/background/image/one</from>
<to>/background/image/two</to>
</transition>
<static>
<duration>2.0</duration>
<file>/background/image/two</file>
</static>
<transition>
<duration>2.0</duration>
<from>/background/image/two</from>
<to>/background/image/one</to>
</transition>
<static>
<duration>1.0</duration>
<file>/background/image/one</file>
</static>
</background>

where duration is measured in seconds.

But then, if you ask me, I'd say wallpaper-tray. :-)
It's a lot easier.

carfield
May 20th, 2008, 05:05 PM
Wallpaper_tray look great, but where does the config file put in home directory?

angry_johnnie
May 21st, 2008, 06:02 AM
Wallpaper_tray look great, but where does the config file put in home directory?

:o It's either not there, or it's called something completely random, but you can change anything in its configuration just by right-clicking on the tray icon.

carfield
May 21st, 2008, 07:58 PM
My issue is I would like to have a hidden directory to be added, like "/home/user/.friends" How can I do that for Wallpaper_tray??

angry_johnnie
May 22nd, 2008, 05:47 AM
I'm not sure about that... I'm not currently using wallpaper-tray, but it doesn't show hidden directories, does it?

What happens if you type in the entire path to the directory of your choice?

you know, like /home/you/.friends

If it works, well... it works :-)... if not, then I don't think it will let you add hidden directories.

carfield
May 22nd, 2008, 02:15 PM
cool, it work

dage
May 23rd, 2008, 09:02 AM
i'm using wallpaper-tray, it's really an user-friendly program. Thanks.

stinger30au
May 25th, 2008, 01:17 AM
thanks for the info.
i was feeling kinda dumb for a while as i searched first of via applicatoins > add remove and could not find wallpaper changer.

duh!!!!

system > administration > synaptic

searched on wallpaper and installed.

Thanks!

carfield
May 25th, 2008, 02:58 AM
thanks for the info.
i was feeling kinda dumb for a while as i searched first of via applicatoins > add remove and could not find wallpaper changer.

duh!!!!

system > administration > synaptic

searched on wallpaper and installed.

Thanks!
a lot of application do like this, at least all applications mentioned in this thread

guywithcable
August 21st, 2008, 03:46 AM
For anyone interested in this. I wrote a shell script to generate an XML file which will give you the fading transition effect like in Mac OS X.

Thanks to angry_johnnie for pointing out how to do this.

Run the script in a directory full of all your wallpapers, then go to system > preferences > appearance > background > add > all files, and select wallpaper-set.xml.

angry_johnnie
August 21st, 2008, 06:29 AM
For anyone interested in this. I wrote a shell script to generate an XML file which will give you the fading transition effect like in Mac OS X.

That is way cool. :-)

tweak
August 21st, 2008, 11:47 AM
For anyone interested in this. I wrote a shell script to generate an XML file which will give you the fading transition effect like in Mac OS X.

Thanks to angry_johnnie for pointing out how to do this.

Run the script in a directory full of all your wallpapers, then go to system > preferences > appearance > background > add > all files, and select wallpaper-set.xml.

Any way to increase the smoothness of the transition? I'm loading 1600x1200 images and they chunk the system quite heavily when performing anything other than a very fast transition, defeating the beauty of it!

guywithcable
August 21st, 2008, 10:01 PM
Any way to increase the smoothness of the transition? I'm loading 1600x1200 images and they chunk the system quite heavily when performing anything other than a very fast transition, defeating the beauty of it!

You could tweak the time for the transition to give you your desired effect. I found that smaller transition times give me smoother transitions, but it could be different for you. Just open up the script in gedit and find and change the value in bold below:


echo " </static>" >> wallpaper-set.temp
echo " <transition>" >> wallpaper-set.temp
echo " <duration>1.0</duration>" >> wallpaper-set.temp
echo " <from>$f</from>" >> wallpaper-set.temp

guywithcable
August 21st, 2008, 10:04 PM
I forgot to post that if you want a different duration for your wallpapers, you can give it the duration as a command line argument:

Usage: ./Wallpaper-Transition-XML-Generator.sh [duration]

It is duration in seconds and the default is 300 (5 minutes).

tweak
August 21st, 2008, 10:08 PM
yeah I've fiddled the various transition times without luck. I suspect that the sheer size of the images vs the relatively low cpu speed is just the nature of the beast.

cheers!

guywithcable
August 21st, 2008, 10:37 PM
yeah I've fiddled the various transition times without luck. I suspect that the sheer size of the images vs the relatively low cpu speed is just the nature of the beast.

cheers!

Do they have to be that big? Have you tried decreasing their size or quality? It would help them load faster.

tweak
August 21st, 2008, 10:56 PM
the hell with that, screen real estate is more important to me :)

guywithcable
August 21st, 2008, 11:24 PM
the hell with that, screen real estate is more important to me :)

Haha. Yeah. It's too bad though, cause Mac OS X pulls it off pretty nicely even with huge pictures.

tweak
August 21st, 2008, 11:47 PM
Haha. Yeah. It's too bad though, cause Mac OS X pulls it off pretty nicely even with huge pictures.

Yeah I'm the token linux user in an office full of mac zealots. Gotta admit some things are done well on osx, and they seize every opportunity to make mention of those things and rub it in.....the ******* :P

guywithcable
August 21st, 2008, 11:53 PM
Yeah I'm the token linux user in an office full of mac zealots. Gotta admit some things are done well on osx, and they seize every opportunity to make mention of those things and rub it in.....the ******* :P
There's always one thing they'll never, ever beat... the price. :)


not to mention, the filesystem support, compiz fusion, the package managers, the community, the customization, the various distributions, the free learning resources, etc.

tweak
August 21st, 2008, 11:56 PM
haha preaching to the choir bro! :D

angry_johnnie
August 22nd, 2008, 10:57 PM
There's always one thing they'll never, ever beat... the price. :)


not to mention, the filesystem support, compiz fusion, the package managers, the community, the customization, the various distributions, the free learning resources, etc.

Speaking of the "free learning resources..."

I have taken the liberty to borrow your script...
and then I took the liberty to re write it...
and finally I took the liberty to make a debian package out of it...

I kept your name in there, although I didn't include your email... but you can add that later (and then we can call that version 1.02 :p).

I can still think of a few things to add to it... but then I'm moving to another town... like... right now... (I shouldn't even be here, really), so that means I won't have time to sit down and think about it for at least another three or four days. So, why don't you try it and see what you can make of it.

I have also attached a compressed folder with all the included files. I would have written a changelog... but then I'm lazy like that :p... no... really I have to get going.

If you install it, you'll find it under System > Preferences > XML Wall.

Cheers :-)



P.S. I just came back to warn you: Don't you dare make fun of my silly icon... it's a work of aht! :p

guywithcable
August 24th, 2008, 09:04 AM
Very nice! I made a few modifications and fixed a bug when you give it a folder path with a space. I also wrote error protection for it. I drew a new icon that is a little more relevant to its name. (BTW I like the name) Also included my email. :) Here is version 1.02 and source.

PS: The icon you have isn't bad, it's just not relevant. ;)

guywithcable
September 5th, 2008, 07:21 PM
So how difficult would it be to get XML Wall included in an Ubuntu repository?

lovinglinux
September 7th, 2008, 11:10 AM
Very nice! I made a few modifications and fixed a bug when you give it a folder path with a space. I also wrote error protection for it. I drew a new icon that is a little more relevant to its name. (BTW I like the name) Also included my email. :) Here is version 1.02 and source.

PS: The icon you have isn't bad, it's just not relevant. ;)

It isn't working for me. I get an error message during the xml file creation. There is "wallpaper-set.temp" file in the xml-wall directory, but it is empty.

Edit: Apparently you cannot specify a name with spaces. That is why it wasn't working. Works perfectly now.

How difficult would be to create several xml files and schedule a different file for each day of the week? I want to load a different set of images each day.

lovinglinux
September 7th, 2008, 03:42 PM
How difficult would be to create several xml files and schedule a different file for each day of the week? I want to load a different set of images each day.

After some research, here it is how to load different xml-wall sets on a daily basis:

1 - Run System > Preferences > XML Wall and create one set of images for each day with the following names (without quotes):

"mon", "tue", "wed", "thu", "fri", "sat" and "sun"

2 - Type the following command in the Terminal to create a file named .change.cron


gedit .change.cron

3 - Add the following lines to the file, replacing "/home/me/" with your user path


01 00 * * 0 gconftool -t string -s /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename /home/me/.xml-wall/sun.xml
01 00 * * 1 gconftool -t string -s /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename /home/me/.xml-wall/mon.xml
01 00 * * 2 gconftool -t string -s /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename /home/me/.xml-wall/tue.xml
01 00 * * 3 gconftool -t string -s /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename /home/me/.xml-wall/wed.xml
01 00 * * 4 gconftool -t string -s /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename /home/me/.xml-wall/thu.xml
01 00 * * 5 gconftool -t string -s /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename /home/me/.xml-wall/fri.xml
01 00 * * 6 gconftool -t string -s /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename /home/me/.xml-wall/sat.xml

You can tweak the exact time the wallpaper set will be changed by replacing the first four values on each line above.

This is how a cron job is layed out:

minute (0-59), hour (0-23, 0 = midnight), day (1-31), month (1-12), weekday (0-6, 0 = Sunday), command

In this example the cron job will change the wallpaper set every day at the first minute after midnight. I'm not sure if the machine needs to be turned on to work if you set a specific hour and minute, but if you set the second value to "*" it will run the script every hour.

4 - Run System > Preferences > Sessions and add a startup program like the one below. Don't forget to replace "/home/me" with your user path.

Name: XML Wall Daily Cron
Command: crontab /home/me/.change.cron
Comment: XML Wall cron job for daily xml file

That's it. There is probably a more elegant way of doing this, but this is the best I could do.

guywithcable
September 8th, 2008, 07:31 PM
It isn't working for me. I get an error message during the xml file creation. There is "wallpaper-set.temp" file in the xml-wall directory, but it is empty.

Edit: Apparently you cannot specify a name with spaces. That is why it wasn't working. Works perfectly now.

How difficult would be to create several xml files and schedule a different file for each day of the week? I want to load a different set of images each day.

Thanks for telling me about that error. I've fixed it and released 1.02.1 (Attached) which will let you specify a file name with spaces. Now there should be no problem with spaces anywhere. :)

The daily set feature would be pretty cool. I could try to expand the script to automate that process as well.

lovinglinux
September 8th, 2008, 07:44 PM
Thanks for telling me about that error. I've fixed it and released 1.02.1 (Attached) which will let you specify a file name with spaces. Now there should be no problem with spaces anywhere. :)

The daily set feature would be pretty cool. I could try to expand the script to automate that process as well.

I'm glad to help with my limited knowledge about Linux :biggrin:

It would be awesome if you could expand the script to automate the daily feature. It's working pretty fine here and it's very cool. I have 7 different wallpaper sets with posters of TV shows that I like to watch, so my desktop presents me the Primetime schedule of the day.

guywithcable
September 8th, 2008, 08:11 PM
To everyone who has downloaded XML-Wall, you can either look for updates here, or when I am done migrating from Mambo to Joomla on my website, it will be available there. I'm going to make an official home for it on SciActive.com (http://www.sciactive.com). It will be my first maintained Linux program on SciActive. :)

Dragonbite
September 8th, 2008, 09:36 PM
KDE allows you to change the wallpaper at any increment (from 1 minute to 1 day ... I usually use 1 hour) and Xfce allows you to change every time you bootup, why has Gnome not implemented this feature built in?

guywithcable
September 8th, 2008, 11:31 PM
KDE allows you to change the wallpaper at any increment (from 1 minute to 1 day ... I usually use 1 hour) and Xfce allows you to change every time you bootup, why has Gnome not implemented this feature built in?

It has, it just hasn't a GUI to set it up. That is what XML-Wall is for. XML-Wall doesn't provide any new feature to Gnome, it just helps you take advantage of it, without having to write the complicated XML script yourself.

FokkerCharlie
September 23rd, 2008, 11:47 AM
Cool!

I love XML-Wall. Are you going to be further advancing the project? If so, a feature request. Could we have a GUI that allows us to modify the settings without going through the whole setup (not that it's really long, but you know...) every time?

This is a great script- cheers!

Charlie

guywithcable
September 23rd, 2008, 09:19 PM
Cool!

I love XML-Wall. Are you going to be further advancing the project? If so, a feature request. Could we have a GUI that allows us to modify the settings without going through the whole setup (not that it's really long, but you know...) every time?

This is a great script- cheers!

Charlie

Thanks for the compliments. Yes, I will be working on it in the future, but right now I have very little time. I'm in college and have two jobs. When I have more time I'll put it up on SciActive and work on it there. I'll also try to include it in one of the repositories.

boingboing
October 16th, 2008, 01:35 AM
Hello, the fade effect doesn't work for me, even if the wallpaper switch every 20 seconds as I asked.

So no fade transition...can you help me? I have Ubuntu 8.04 and an ATI HD 2600 Pro with latest EnvyNG drivers.

Thanx !! ):P

I wanted to leave
October 17th, 2008, 12:37 AM
This works great, though no transition effects for me either...

For future revisions, would it be difficult to include a day/night transition option, using the same wallpaper but in varying shades according to the time of day?

MR.UNOWEN
October 30th, 2008, 08:47 AM
This is really good, but it's just a little buggy. Is the processing done in real time or does it do some calculations in advance? Could a setting for frame rate be added? The only issue I have with it is the choppy frame rate.

guywithcable
October 30th, 2008, 04:09 PM
This is really good, but it's just a little buggy. Is the processing done in real time or does it do some calculations in advance? Could a setting for frame rate be added? The only issue I have with it is the choppy frame rate.

Unfortunately I can't do anything about the frame rate. It's Gnome that produces the effect. You could submit something to Gnome to try and get it improved.

MR.UNOWEN
October 30th, 2008, 04:34 PM
Where do I post a request for it to be improved???

guywithcable
October 31st, 2008, 01:17 AM
Where do I post a request for it to be improved???

That's a good question. You could use the Ubuntu Brainstorm. You might also try Gnome's launchpad at https://launchpad.net/gnome.

weezerisrock
November 8th, 2008, 05:58 PM
Brilliant! I've been looking for something that would do fades between desktop changes! However for some reason my fades are not working atm. Is there something I should look at?

Also, if There is anyway I can help please let me know. I don't really know scripting of anykind but I would be willing to do just about anything I can for this project, including learning the scripting you guys are using.

And now for my recommendations for future releases. During the setup process it has sliders for seconds between fades and fade times. If you move that slider on the seconds its practically impossible to get the exact number you want after that. Could there be a way to make it to where you could type your numbers in as well as the sliders?

Same thing with the transistions, it would be nice to be able to put something in other than a whole second like. 1.25 or 1.5 seconds.

This is awesome! (as soon as I get this dadgum fade to work) and please let me know if there is something I can do to help!

jnewm
February 5th, 2009, 08:49 AM
This really is a fantastic little program! Thank you all so much.
-Jesse
:KS

euchrid33
February 14th, 2009, 03:44 AM
Yeah, wallpaper tray is great.

tsoumt1123
March 17th, 2009, 08:20 PM
After some research, ....

......
......

4 - Run System > Preferences > Sessions and add a startup program like the one below. Don't forget to replace "/home/me" with your user path.

Name: XML Wall Daily Cron
Command: crontab /home/me/.change.cron
Comment: XML Wall cron job for daily xml file

That's it. There is probably a more elegant way of doing this, but this is the best I could do.


Thank you Guywithcable, your script helped me a lot, and the transition effect on my box acted perfectly, though I still spent hours to fix a bug that seemed to happen with two pipeline commands in the script. And I'd like to contribute a little more about 'autostart' of this method to those who are new to Linux or Ubuntu and whose computers do not run all the time. Instead of utilizing crontab in the autostart, I suggest simply putting the following command into it:


gconftool -t string -s /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename /home/yourname/.xml-wall/`date +%a`.xml
As a consequence, one has to follow the strict naming pattern such as "Mon.xml", "Tue.xml", "Wed.xml", ..., etc. for the command to work flawlessly. In this way, your wallpaper will keep in pace with the date whenever gnome desktop environment starts. I now have a pleasant desktop that changes its background periodically and automatically. Thank you very much for inspiring me, Guywithcable!

guywithcable
March 17th, 2009, 09:11 PM
Thank you very much for inspiring me, Guywithcable!

Glad I could help. :)

I'll be posting XML-Wall on SciActive.com (http://www.sciactive.com) and opening it up for more development in a few days. I'm probably going to start a forum on SciActive, and will create a forum for XML-Wall. :D

amirage
March 27th, 2009, 03:42 PM
Hi there..

Nice xml. But a doubt - Why is the transition very choppy? I have send the wallpaper to change every 10 secs and the transition delay to stay at 5 seconds. When the wallpaper changes, it's quite choppy. Any idea why?

I'm running Ubuntu 8.10 with compiz and emerald in full blow.

Looking forward to your comments.

Amit

Ryan Yo
April 2nd, 2009, 12:08 AM
FYI:

Jaunty has a nice visual effect for changing wallpapers which works really well with the 'wallpaper-tray' app in synaptic.

It looks great.

tbone7
April 2nd, 2009, 09:51 AM
What's special with this visual effect you are describing?

Naz_Farooq
April 2nd, 2009, 11:36 AM
It has, it just hasn't a GUI to set it up. That is what XML-Wall is for. XML-Wall doesn't provide any new feature to Gnome, it just helps you take advantage of it, without having to write the complicated XML script yourself.

How can I find XML wallpapers. I have tried but could not find anything that changes wallpapers with the day passes.
Thanks a lot if you tell me how to do that.

lovinglinux
April 2nd, 2009, 12:00 PM
How can I find XML wallpapers. I have tried but could not find anything that changes wallpapers with the day passes.
Thanks a lot if you tell me how to do that.

Follow these posts:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5743890&postcount=29

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=6911741&postcount=46

Naz_Farooq
April 2nd, 2009, 12:16 PM
Follow these posts:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5743890&postcount=29

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=6911741&postcount=46

Thanks a lot.
I will try them in the evening.

Dragonbite
April 2nd, 2009, 02:17 PM
FYI:

Jaunty has a nice visual effect for changing wallpapers which works really well with the 'wallpaper-tray' app in synaptic.

It looks great.

Is that GUI, or text-based?

I have a demonstration this coming Monday on Desktop Linux at the computer club and was thinking this could be a fun app to demonstrate finding, downloading and installing if it has an GUI so they could see it work AND see the feature of changing wallpapers.

Ryan Yo
April 4th, 2009, 12:53 AM
Is that GUI, or text-based?

It's GUI based. It took me forever to realize it wasn't really a stand-alone app, but an applet that you stick onto the Gnome panels (right-click -> "Add to Panel...").

This is where I put mine:
http://api.photoshop.com/home_8da66861f94140c38484d29fbd4d20bb/adobe-px-assets/890191cf24954529b6c3f7f97fb80e1c

Ryan Yo
April 4th, 2009, 12:55 AM
What's special with this visual effect you are describing?

It's at the very last part of the Gnome 2.26 changelog:

"New visual effects, such as the panels sliding in and out at login and logout, and crossfading desktop backgrounds."

It adds a slick fade when you change desktop backgrounds.

Giblet5
April 4th, 2009, 03:05 AM
I used Desktop Drapes and Wallpapoz both of which are available through the add/remove apps. Personally I'd like something like OS X has where you can change the wallpapers every 5 seconds or so and they blend from one to the other.


Why stop there? You can use xwinwrap to play movies on your root window (aka background), in addition to throwing images up with any degree of opacity you choose.

I have a Qt3 GUI for xwinwrap sitting around somewhere, or you can find the GUI with a search for "qxwinwrap". I think xwinwrap is in the same tarball.

Here's the tarball (http://www.byteshuffler.com/qxwinwrap.tar.bz2) with binaries.


tar xjf qxwinwrap.tar.bz2
cd qxwinwrap
sudo cp qxwinwrap xwinwrap /usr/bin
qxwinwrap


You may want to turn off ARGB visuals, and you need to have a compositing manager running (eg, compiz).

Note: You're better off compiling it...

vaserlan
April 4th, 2009, 03:24 PM
I'd like a different desktop background for each workspace. is this possible? Any help would be much appreciated. :)

lovinglinux
April 4th, 2009, 03:35 PM
I'd like a different desktop background for each workspace. is this possible? Any help would be much appreciated. :)

There are a lot of threads about this:

http://www.google.com/search?q=different+wallpaper+workspace+site%3Aubun tuforums.org&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a

deekshlap
April 20th, 2009, 01:18 AM
Ty so much for creating XML WALL, I've been looking for a wp-changer that has transition effects for over two days. Keep up the good work, hoping to see smoother fade effect on the next update, but this is good enough as it is :D.

Update: I would like to report a bug, when I reboot my laptop the XML WALL is working however the transition fade effect does not, the wallpaper just change normally. But after about 5-10 minutes it starts to work again.

Also Is there a GUI to configure XML WALL settings, currently when i click on the XML WALL in System-->Preferences-->XML WALL it only lets me choose a new directory of pictures.

guywithcable
April 20th, 2009, 05:55 PM
Ty so much for creating XML WALL, I've been looking for a wp-changer that has transition effects for over two days. Keep up the good work, hoping to see smoother fade effect on the next update, but this is good enough as it is :D.

Update: I would like to report a bug, when I reboot my laptop the XML WALL is working however the transition fade effect does not, the wallpaper just change normally. But after about 5-10 minutes it starts to work again.

Also Is there a GUI to configure XML WALL settings, currently when i click on the XML WALL in System-->Preferences-->XML WALL it only lets me choose a new directory of pictures.

Well, as of now, there is no GUI for settings. However, most of the settings you'd want to change are Gnome's settings, so you can try gconf-editor. As for those bugs, unfortunately they are Gnome bugs, so I can't fix them. You can report them to Gnome though.

deekshlap
April 20th, 2009, 08:56 PM
Where should I go to in gconf-editor to configure transitional effects?

guywithcable
April 20th, 2009, 09:26 PM
Where should I go to in gconf-editor to configure transitional effects?

/desktop/gnome/background/

Not a lot there. :(

deekshlap
April 21st, 2009, 12:10 AM
/desktop/gnome/background/

Not a lot there. :(

Looool hopefully next version will have more eye candies to satisfy my sweet-tooth. :P

deekshlap
April 25th, 2009, 06:18 AM
Ack, bad news XML Wall seems to have stop working in 9.04. The fade doesn't work any more and even the wallpaper doesn't change. :(

tbone7
April 25th, 2009, 10:32 AM
It works for me in Jaunty..

Bob63
April 25th, 2009, 02:35 PM
Ack, bad news XML Wall seems to have stop working in 9.04. The fade doesn't work any more and even the wallpaper doesn't change. :(
For me, the wallpaper changes, but no transitions. I'm going to run XML Wall again and see if rebuilding the settings will fix it and report back.

EDIT: Re-running XML Wall did NOT fix the transition issues. I'll check and see if it might be something with Compiz or maybe even the NVIDIA driver.

guywithcable
April 26th, 2009, 03:51 AM
It's working for me on 9.04, partially. The transitions are not working for me either. :( Can you paste the output from:

lspciand

lshw -c video

Bob63
April 26th, 2009, 06:50 AM
It's working for me on 9.04, partially. The transitions are not working for me either. :( Can you paste the output from:

lspciand

lshw -c video

Here's mine: From lspci:


00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 0 (rev a2)
00:00.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 1 (rev a2)
00:00.3 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 5 (rev a2)
00:00.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 4 (rev a2)
00:00.5 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.6 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 3 (rev a2)
00:00.7 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 2 (rev a2)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:03.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:05.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation C51 [Quadro NVS 210S/GeForce 6150LE] (rev a2)
00:09.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:0a.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 LPC Bridge (rev a2)
00:0a.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP51 SMBus (rev a2)
00:0a.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Memory Controller 0 (rev a2)
00:0b.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a2)
00:0b.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a2)
00:0d.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 IDE (rev a1)
00:0e.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev a1)
00:0f.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev a1)
00:10.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 PCI Bridge (rev a2)
00:10.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
00:14.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Ethernet Controller (rev a1)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
04:07.0 Serial controller: Rockwell International HCF 56k Data/Fax Modem (rev 01)
04:09.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 61)
04:09.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 61)
04:09.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 63)From: lshw -c video:


*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: C51 [Quadro NVS 210S/GeForce 6150LE]
vendor: nVidia Corporation
physical id: 6
bus info: pci@0000:00:05.0
version: a2
width: 64 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=nvidia latency=0 module=nvidia

zero7404
April 26th, 2009, 11:56 PM
i downloaded this for 8.10, but i can't find it in add/remove programs and can't find it in the last when i click add to panel....

uninstalled it and reinstalled it and it's still nowhere.

tbone7
April 27th, 2009, 12:20 AM
Try System --> Preferences.

zero7404
April 27th, 2009, 02:01 AM
it finally appeared after a few restarts, found it in Applications/Graphics

deekshlap
April 27th, 2009, 06:38 PM
I tried wallpaper-tray again and now there is a fade transition. It seems that it automatically comes with 9.04 :P.

matairangi
May 29th, 2009, 02:23 AM
The hint that wallpaper-tray settings are in Gnome was a lifesaver.
I'd put a change time of 0.3 minutes into wallpaper-tray which it had read as 0 and then taken over processor time completely, changing as fast as possible. Oops!!

Fortunately I was able to change user to root and found the errant time inthe /home/<user>/.gconf/apps/wp_tray .xml file

Now back to enjoying the changes

guywithcable
May 30th, 2009, 10:16 PM
Well, it seems that the new version of Gnome broke the slideshow support for slideshows based on intervals rather than times of day, so for now, XML-Wall is no more. All is not lost though, as the new version of Gnome has blessed us with background transitions on *all* changes, so XML-Wall is mostly unnecessary now anyway.

Nixie Pixel
June 6th, 2009, 07:04 AM
Can wallpaper-tray also handle different wallpapers for different desktops in Compiz?

guywithcable
June 6th, 2009, 07:25 AM
Can wallpaper-tray also handle different wallpapers for different desktops in Compiz?

I'm not sure. I don't use it. :(

If you find out, could you post it here?

hekar
June 6th, 2009, 10:32 PM
I've made a little python script if don't wish to install a program just to change your wallpapers.

You just have to set your folder of images (by default ~/Pictures/) then give it an interval in seconds (ie. --time 50).

run with nohup ./ScreenChanger --time 50 &

dailyacts56
July 6th, 2009, 03:58 PM
Hi,
I need some help finding a wallpaper changer. I tried to use Drapes and Wallpaper-tray, but I cannot find the icon under graphics after I installed them. I would like something which would fade. I also need a little instructions about how to install it. Sorry if I maybe repeating this post. But I tired AutoWallpaper 2.0.4.2 and it worked really good for a couple of days. Then when I writing on Scribus, the changer crashed and I got an error message. No need to tell you what the error message was because I got rid of it. I tried to reinstall the wallpaper changer program, but it would not do it. Anyway, I would greatly appreciate the help.

carfield
July 6th, 2009, 04:44 PM
Wallpaper-tray is now a gnome-applet. From the taskbar, click "Add to panel", you can find it

sandeepraj
July 26th, 2009, 05:41 PM
i used wallpaper_tray but i made some changes in it's preferences and the wall papers change very raipdly( like each every sec) and it is not even allowing me to open preferences or to do right click on it.. how can i reset preferences in any other way.. i'm newbie to linux so can any 1 explain clearly procedure.. :confused::confused:

guywithcable
July 26th, 2009, 06:47 PM
i used wallpaper_tray but i made some changes in it's preferences and the wall papers change very raipdly( like each every sec) and it is not even allowing me to open preferences or to do right click on it.. how can i reset preferences in any other way.. i'm newbie to linux so can any 1 explain clearly procedure.. :confused::confused:

I'm not that familiar with wallpaper_tray, but the two ways programs usually store their preferences is in dot folders in your home directory, or in gconf. Go to your home folder and go View -> Show Hidden Files. Look for something like ".wallpapertray". Also check the .config and the .gnome2 folders. If you find it, delete it, then restart wallpaper tray (ie, logout and login). If you don't find anything, run "gconf-editor" (Alt+F2) and search around in there for its settings.

sandeepraj
July 27th, 2009, 09:43 AM
wow.. thanx guywithcabel.. gconf-editor worked.
jst want to clarify do all preferences of ubuntu programs changed from gconf-editor? and what else can we do in it?

guywithcable
July 27th, 2009, 05:29 PM
wow.. thanx guywithcabel.. gconf-editor worked.
jst want to clarify do all preferences of ubuntu programs changed from gconf-editor? and what else can we do in it?

Not all of them. In fact, most don't use it. Gnome programs will use it, but most other programs use a dot directory in your home folder. Also, system stuff, like servers, store their settings in the /etc directory.

ttilberg
November 8th, 2009, 10:52 PM
This is becoming frustrating.
I was first introduced to the XML wallpaper slideshows when I noticed the Cosmos wallpaper after doing a fresh install of Karmic. I was intrigued and amazed. The pictures were horrible, but the idea was beautiful.

Since then, I've been looking for more information on the XML wallpaper concept, and the best I've been able to find is the Day of Ubuntu stuff (which is fantastic).

Why are there no resources describing how to fully utilize the XML file? And why isn't this a more prominent feature? I got so excited when I saw the XML-Wall app here, only to find out it doesn't work.
I'd use wallpaper-tray but I can't stand how it has to be visible on a panel.

Does anyone know where we can find better resources on this? And how to elongate the transition effects? I'm sad the best answer people have is to set a cron-tab and use .py scripts. While I am not opposed to using such actions, this should be a prominent and easy-to-access feature, especially being that it is already inherent within Gnome.
As the fellow above mentioned doing a Desktop Linux presentation, wouldn't it be a great attraction to... make this easy?

Dullstar
November 9th, 2009, 12:28 AM
There is a really nice app available in the repos, called wallpaper-tray.

It stays on the system tray, and looks for images in any directory of your choice, and then changes them at certain user-specified intervals (the minimum interval being 1 minute).

There is another one, called gbackground, which does the same, but can be set to change the background image at a faster rate (any given number of seconds --even 1 second). It is also available in the repositories.

A, perhaps, "geekier" approach, would be to write an xml file to set the background and then change it after some time, with --even-- a nice fade in/out transition. Then you could just go to system > preferences > appearance > background > add > all files, and select your xml script.

It would look something like this:


<background>
<static>
<duration>1.0</duration>
<file>/background/image/one</file>
</static>
<transition>
<duration>2.0</duration>
<from>/background/image/one</from>
<to>/background/image/two</to>
</transition>
<static>
<duration>2.0</duration>
<file>/background/image/two</file>
</static>
<transition>
<duration>2.0</duration>
<from>/background/image/two</from>
<to>/background/image/one</to>
</transition>
<static>
<duration>1.0</duration>
<file>/background/image/one</file>
</static>
</background>where duration is measured in seconds.

But then, if you ask me, I'd say wallpaper-tray. :-)
It's a lot easier.

I should try that script....

b1uesm4n
June 24th, 2010, 12:05 PM
That script works nice! But i'm lazy... I've automated the process writing a python script though it's a very simple command-line script.

I've uploaded it to sourceforge so you can download it if you want.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/pyslidemaker/

marsters256
September 4th, 2010, 09:25 PM
There is a really nice app available in the repos, called wallpaper-tray.

It stays on the system tray, and looks for images in any directory of your choice, and then changes them at certain user-specified intervals (the minimum interval being 1 minute).

There is another one, called gbackground, which does the same, but can be set to change the background image at a faster rate (any given number of seconds --even 1 second). It is also available in the repositories.

A, perhaps, "geekier" approach, would be to write an xml file to set the background and then change it after some time, with --even-- a nice fade in/out transition. Then you could just go to system > preferences > appearance > background > add > all files, and select your xml script.

It would look something like this:


<background>
<static>
<duration>1.0</duration>
<file>/background/image/one</file>
</static>
<transition>
<duration>2.0</duration>
<from>/background/image/one</from>
<to>/background/image/two</to>
</transition>
<static>
<duration>2.0</duration>
<file>/background/image/two</file>
</static>
<transition>
<duration>2.0</duration>
<from>/background/image/two</from>
<to>/background/image/one</to>
</transition>
<static>
<duration>1.0</duration>
<file>/background/image/one</file>
</static>
</background>where duration is measured in seconds.

But then, if you ask me, I'd say wallpaper-tray. :-)
It's a lot easier.


Erm... how would that xml file tell the wallpaper app or whatever it is to change the background image i just don't understand. could you explain how it works a bit please?

Bob63
September 5th, 2010, 01:20 AM
The XML code is just a skeleton (I think), and not actually meant to run.

alexds9
September 25th, 2010, 02:41 PM
I built a small C program that does what we need. In other words, from given folder with pictures it creates 2 xml files in folders:
1) "/usr/share/backgrounds/"
2) "/usr/share/gnome-background-properties/"
Which specify pictures in random order, time of showing and transition time, given by user.
It also can delete existing collections(xml files) of pictures with command-line switch: "-r".
You can read help info
./wallpapers --help.
Instructions:
1) Extract it from archive.
2) Compile it for your system with
make.
3) Use example

sudo ./wallpapers -cn \"wallpapers 4.9.2010\" -cp \"/media/D/Wallpapers/4.9.2010\" -vt 45 -tt 04) Choose the collection in "Appearance Preferences".
I plan to make it possible combining few folders to one collection.
For bug reports and suggestions, contact me: alexds9@gmail.com.