HOWTO: Animated .gif as a background

[asm_Coty]

Fascinating tutorial, I will be sure to pass this one on

[angels21usa]

Hey,

I just want to say thank you for the HOWTO. I got the xwinwrapper working with my gif images. When I start it the gifs initially show up in the background, but when I click on the image it covers up all of my other programs including the panels. I was wondering if anyone might know a way to keep the gif image on the desktop even when it is clicked.

Thanks for any help in advance

[Chiapo]

Awesome!

I especially like post #5) http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...79&postcount=5

What a wonderful concept using xml to change the image!

For myself, I prefer to create my own animations using gimp, or a free online service like http://imator.com/

Thanks for sharing!

[d3v1150m471c]

mplayer -gif89a yourvideo.avi

You can use mplayer like so to create gif animations from video.

[TheProphetJonah]

I couldn't get the .c file to "make" so make install just gave me the old familiar "no rule to make install -stop" message.
So I left out of that and went looking for a .deb file and found it on mediafire xwinwrap_1386.deb dl'ed it and dpkg'ed it.
I'm assuming it's going to work.

From my limited reading on the possible uses, it seems that I can use the gif as a background in any xwindow, yes/no?

Hopefully. But I've got this really cool word-by-word or chunk-by-chunk text reader called "dictator", got Orca and this really simple hipno-spiral that will stretch across the desktop or any window.

Bam, instant hypnosis session where I can insert any text I want.

Hopefully it will work, one other thing though, no worries or hurries, but does either the gif tool or xwinwrap make it a transparent layer?
Da Gimp has a tool that supposedly works for that but I've not advanced that far.

[el_itur]

This gif would make a great wallpaper



I would love to see some native solution

[Angelus-Michael]

Awesome. Respect man

[DrDunkMcNally]

This is after getting the stuff from the post before me and running the rest of the first post I could:



fail@dotroot:~/xwinwrap$ cd xwinwrap
bash: cd: xwinwrap: No such file or directory
fail@dotroot:~/xwinwrap$ make
gcc -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wmissing-declarations -Wredundant-decls -lX11 -lXext -lXrender xwinwrap.c -o xwinwrap
mkdir x86_64
mv ./xwinwrap ./x86_64
gcc -m32 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wmissing-declarations -Wredundant-decls -lX11 -lXext -lXrender xwinwrap.c -o xwinwrap
In file included from /usr/include/features.h:354,
from /usr/include/sys/types.h:27,
from /usr/include/X11/Xlib.h:52,
from xwinwrap.c:45:
/usr/include/gnu/stubs.h:7:27: error: gnu/stubs-32.h: No such file or directory
make: *** [all32] Error 1
fail@dotroot:~/xwinwrap$ sudo make install
[sudo] password for kyo:
make: *** No rule to make target `install'. Stop.
fail@dotroot:~/xwinwrap$

It seems like this is because you must choose which install you are going to run with from the "Makefile" if you wrote "sudo make install32" it would work for you, 64-bit would use "sudo make install64"

I followed all of the op's instructions but i'm facing an issue of my own, I got my exploding heads gif on my background (had to add sleep 5 to the script) but as soon as there are no windows open, xwinwrap jumps to the front again and I've got exploding zombie heads right in the middle of everything. any ideas how to prevent this?

here's the gif (it's small, but it's still great!)

edit: So upon further investigation, the gif will stay in the background unless I happen to click on it at which point it sits in the middle of the screen on top of everything. i haven't changed the gifbg.sh options.

[hanusjoe03]

This does not work for me. I have ubuntu 12.4 and when i entered the code:

bzr branch lp:xwinwrap

i get this error:

You have not informed bzr of your Launchpad ID, and you must do this to
write to Launchpad or access private data. See "bzr help launchpad-login".
bzr: ERROR: Already a branch: "xwinwrap".

How do i fix this and continue with the install so i can enjoy my Ubnutu with animated .gif?

Also Would this be something Ubuntu will add native with a new version of Ubuntu?

It would be nice to be able to use .gif as wallpaper as easy as it is to
change the wallpaper (.jpg) from a fresh install of Ubuntu.

[zach832]

Im really interested in this howto but im getting some strange errors that I dont know how to fix. This is right after running brz branch lpwinwrap. Im guessing im missing a package somewhere?

~/xwinwrap$ make
gcc -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wmissing-declarations -Wredundant-decls -lX11 -lXext -lXrender xwinwrap.c -o xwinwrap
/tmp/ccG67lai.o: In function `setWindowOpacity':
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0xdf): undefined reference to `XInternAtom'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x113): undefined reference to `XChangeProperty'
/tmp/ccG67lai.o: In function `findArgbVisual':
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x151): undefined reference to `XGetVisualInfo'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x19c): undefined reference to `XRenderFindVisualFormat'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x1ed): undefined reference to `XFree'
/tmp/ccG67lai.o: In function `find_desktop_window':
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x337): undefined reference to `XQueryTree'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x379): undefined reference to `XFetchName'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x3b2): undefined reference to `XGetWindowAttributes'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x444): undefined reference to `XFree'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x453): undefined reference to `XFree'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x488): undefined reference to `XFree'
/tmp/ccG67lai.o: In function `main':
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x5a7): undefined reference to `XOpenDisplay'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x6cc): undefined reference to `XParseGeometry'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x7f6): undefined reference to `XInternAtom'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x864): undefined reference to `XInternAtom'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x8c8): undefined reference to `XInternAtom'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x92c): undefined reference to `XInternAtom'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x990): undefined reference to `XInternAtom'
/tmp/ccG67lai.o:xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x9f4): more undefined references to `XInternAtom' follow
/tmp/ccG67lai.o: In function `main':
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0xe84): undefined reference to `XCreateColormap'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0xef9): undefined reference to `XCreateWindow'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0xfaf): undefined reference to `XCreateWindow'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x1021): undefined reference to `XCreateWindow'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x107b): undefined reference to `XSetWMProperties'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x10b1): undefined reference to `XCreateRegion'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x10f9): undefined reference to `XShapeCombineRegion'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x1108): undefined reference to `XDestroyRegion'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x112a): undefined reference to `XInternAtom'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x1169): undefined reference to `XChangeProperty'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x119e): undefined reference to `XCreatePixmap'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x11ca): undefined reference to `XCreateGC'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x1208): undefined reference to `XSetForeground'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x1242): undefined reference to `XFillRectangle'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x1260): undefined reference to `XSetForeground'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x12aa): undefined reference to `XFillArc'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x1315): undefined reference to `XSetForeground'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x134f): undefined reference to `XFillRectangle'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x136d): undefined reference to `XSetForeground'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x13a4): undefined reference to `XFillPolygon'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x13de): undefined reference to `XShapeCombineMask'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x13f7): undefined reference to `XMapWindow'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x141c): undefined reference to `XLowerWindow'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x1436): undefined reference to `XSync'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x1575): undefined reference to `XDestroyWindow'
xwinwrap.c:(.text+0x1584): undefined reference to `XCloseDisplay'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [all64] Error 1