Description: A small utility to create and set the background.xml file needed for wallpaper slideshows in Gnome.
To use: 1) Extract 'gnome-wallpaper-slideshow' from the archive 2) Double click it and then click run when presented with a dialog 3) Click the 'Select' button and choose your folder containing the images you wish to use in your slideshow 4) Edit the picture duration and transition duration if desired 5) Click 'OK'...
A gnome-wallpaper-slideshow.xml file will be written to ~/.gnome-wallpaper-slideshow and the file will be set as your current background.
Update 5/26: 1.02 uploaded.
Update 5/25: 1.01 uploaded.
Update 5/24: When you click the 'Select' button to choose your folder, it will initially display your Pictures folder. In Ubuntu 9.10 and prior if you click OK without navigating to another folder and back to the Pictures folder, nothing will happen. This is a bug in GTK+ and has been fixed in GTK+ 2.20 shipping with Ubuntu 10.04.Last changelog:
1.02: - New command line mode which can be used via cron or startup applications to refresh xml when new files are added (ex, ./gnome-wallpaper-slideshow ~/Pictures) use --help for all options - Images are now sorted alphabetically in the xml file - Uses case insensitivity when searching for images
1.01: - Saves background xml file to ~/.gnome-wallpaper-slideshow instead of creating background-1.xml in each of your picture folders - Saves state on exit to ~/.gnome-wallpaper-slideshow so your last used folder and durations are reloaded on next run - Will not create duplicate entries in your gnome backgrounds preferences dialog - Fixed resizing bug on transitions - Refactored to use libxml2 instead of xml.dom, should be faster and writes the xml files nicer
if you selct a folder with a name like:
whatever 2 ,lol 5, wallpaper things
when you open the script again ,wont open.and you have to delete the config folder in home.
the problem is related with the space between names in foldername
works great just had to change one line to make it a bit more usable for me: For all my pix are not the same size and shape.
wallpaper.addChild(wallpaper.newChild(None, "options", "scale"))
Changed "stretched" to "scale". If I want to stretch now I can just go to the backgrounds settings and set stretch from there.
Thank You for the script.
works great just had to change one line to make it a bit more usable for me: For all my pix are not the same size and shape.
wallpaper.addChild(wallpaper.newChild(None, "options", "scale"))
Changed "stretched" to "scale". If I want to stretch now I can just go to the backgrounds settings and set stretch from there.
Thank You for the script.
I used this project in my new Perfect Ubuntu Desktop 10.10 Linux Video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWGX00hVtH4
Text version on my blog @ http://timashley.me/node/721
Thank you for making this, i was starting to curse Wallpapoz!
-Tim Ashley
Hi,
i have fedora 10 with following installations of python :
/usr/bin/python
/usr/bin/python2.5
however, when i execute the following from tcsh :
> ./gnome_wallpaper_slideshow
it returns me the following error :
File "./gnome_wallpaper_slideshow", line 133
except RuntimeError as strerror:
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
BTW : i did not try executing it from gnome window gui : double-click just opens the file in vim.
where am i going wrong ?
thanks !
akash
Unfortunately I do not have Python 2.5 available for testing. You can try to delete the ~/.gnome-wallpaper-slideshow folder and execute the program again. You are not getting the run dialog either because your old version of Gnome does not support it or because gvim is set as the default mime handler for .py files.
If deleting the folder does not work, you can create the xml file manually as described in my blog post which this program was written for http://blog.stewartgateley.com/2010/05/how-to-create-desktop-wallpaper.html.
You might try using the new command line mode. I have altered the exception handling in the command line mode so they should be compatible with 2.5 but this is still untested.
Hi
i read your blog, did some "research" on the net, experimented with my own xml files.
finally came to the conclusion that something is broken : the standard /usr/share/backgrounds/solar/solar.xml is not working ! (with duration changed to 5.0)
i wonder if i need to upgrade to recent Fedora / gnome.
thanks for the help !
akash
Very nice work! Finally something that works and is user friendly.
I found a few problems though:
- files with JPG extension instead of jpg are not used for slideshow (might happen with PNG etc, didn't test)
- images added/deleted/renamed on the folder where the images are placed require us to run the script again so the changes are reloaded)
- To get to the settings I have to run the script again, didn't find other way
It would be great to have an option to use pictures online also.
I will try to publish a new version this week that uses case insensitive file extensions and adds a command line execution mode which would allow you to execute it from a cron script or your startup items. I could add a 'Watch this folder for changes' option but that would require the application to write itself to your local crontab or to run continuously and listen for dbus events, which are a bit outside of its scope. It is meant to be a execute and halt script.
The settings are stored in ~/.gnome-wallpaper-slideshow/gnome-wallpaper-slideshow.config.
It would be nice to use online galleries, but gnome does not allow URLs for the filenames and it would be impossible to parse all of the different sites. I thought about a new tool which would subscribe to a 'Wallpaper of the day' rss feed but I could not find any such feeds.
Thanks for your answer!
About the wallpapers: Windows 7 and others have online pictures of the day, maybe this could be used, unless there's any copyright problem.Mac I think also have something like that. I'll try to find some free sites.
About the slideshow, an option for it to be sequential or random would also be cool.
thanks ;)
New command line version is available for download. You can use this for adding to your crontab or startup items. Both the GUI mode and command line mode now use case insensitive searches and sort alphabetically.
There is no Random mode as you cannot specify this in the XML, but they can be shuffled which should be sufficient if the script is being ran via some scheduler. The one I just put up now is a bit of a quick hack, I will need to do some refactoring as there is now a lot of duplicate code for the GUI and command line modes and I will incorporate shuffling into the next one via a command line option.
I've got some other projects I am working on right now but eventually I would like to add an advanced mode to the GUI that would allow you to order the images any way you want and set the durations for each image individually.
This is why the community benefits ! you put your time in to give us this work !! such great things are here ! I wish to submit to you my request to have your permission to submit this to Theemahn for the up and coming release of the new Ultimate Edition ! I think this a GREAT piece of work !! KUDOS !!
I am glad you like it enough to want to submit it for inclusion in Ubuntu Ultimate Edition. You are free to do with it whatever you please, that includes modifying it and redistributing it. That said however, for inclusion with a distribution release I would want to include the requests of erosenninrho above for saving state and package it as a deb.
With out a doubt! Your name and contribution will, And would be acknowledged! I have released and submitted your effort! with much fan far! I have only given this link so you will receive the #s and comments! You have done Good my friend! you benefit the entire community! KUDOS !!! it is for this we strive! and things like this make things happen! in any language !!!
I put up a new source version here and created a new google code project @ http://code.google.com/p/gnome-wallpaper-slideshow/. I will try to get a deb up shortly. Please use the google code project as the official version. It also includes the GPL license and author information.
You might also be interested in my Rhythmbox Dynamic Mode plugin. It keeps your playlist full with recommendations from Last.fm. Default values are set for a very cohesive playlist, but all values can be tweaked through the Rhythmbox UI and are saved in gconf.
Thanks for your consideration in UUE, I am very flattered. I had an idea to extend this app even further with an advanced mode to show a preview of all the images in the directory selected, allow you to re-organize and delete them and set the duration, transition and effects per file. I am starting to kick off a new GoogleTV media player project though so that will likely be on hold for a bit.
Hi man, really good stuff. It works perfect!!!
It will be nice to have some extra features like:
-remember last input in "time boxes"
-remember last folder location
Its really good, congratulations for your excellent work!
...one last thing.
¿any recomendations for packs of wallpapers to have?
All the best man,
It would be really simple to implement saving the settings as either gconf keys or in a .conf file. I thought about doing so, but I shied away from it since it is just a downloadable and executable python file. If you deleted it, the config file or gconf settings would still be littered on the system... something I am not a fan of. To implement that I would want to package it up as a deb file so I could remove the settings upon uninstall. I could do that if there was enough demand (and there may be judging by the number of downloads so far), or I could simply provide a patch or alternate copy for you.
As for a wallpaper pack, check out Day of Ubuntu: http://dylanmccall.googlepages.com/DayOfUbuntuSlideshow.tar.gz
What's cool about this pack is it will continuously morph all day. It already includes an xml file with hard coded paths to /usr/share/backgrounds/day_of_ubuntu, but if you wanted to just extract the images and use my tool, set the picture duration to 1 hour and the transition duration to 5 hours.
Yeah! Awesome work!!!!
Thank you for taking into account my suggestions, really appreciated.
Keep going! And lets move for this to be incorporated in at least in ubuntu repos!
Thanx again
Ratings & Comments
26 Comments
if you selct a folder with a name like: whatever 2 ,lol 5, wallpaper things when you open the script again ,wont open.and you have to delete the config folder in home. the problem is related with the space between names in foldername
works great just had to change one line to make it a bit more usable for me: For all my pix are not the same size and shape. wallpaper.addChild(wallpaper.newChild(None, "options", "scale")) Changed "stretched" to "scale". If I want to stretch now I can just go to the backgrounds settings and set stretch from there. Thank You for the script.
works great just had to change one line to make it a bit more usable for me: For all my pix are not the same size and shape. wallpaper.addChild(wallpaper.newChild(None, "options", "scale")) Changed "stretched" to "scale". If I want to stretch now I can just go to the backgrounds settings and set stretch from there. Thank You for the script.
I used this project in my new Perfect Ubuntu Desktop 10.10 Linux Video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWGX00hVtH4 Text version on my blog @ http://timashley.me/node/721 Thank you for making this, i was starting to curse Wallpapoz! -Tim Ashley
thanks for the help - i shall try out these within a day and post the results here.
i was using Fedora 10 and this was not working somehow. works well on fedora 13 ! thanks.
Hi, i have fedora 10 with following installations of python : /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/python2.5 however, when i execute the following from tcsh : > ./gnome_wallpaper_slideshow it returns me the following error : File "./gnome_wallpaper_slideshow", line 133 except RuntimeError as strerror: ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax BTW : i did not try executing it from gnome window gui : double-click just opens the file in vim. where am i going wrong ? thanks ! akash
Unfortunately I do not have Python 2.5 available for testing. You can try to delete the ~/.gnome-wallpaper-slideshow folder and execute the program again. You are not getting the run dialog either because your old version of Gnome does not support it or because gvim is set as the default mime handler for .py files. If deleting the folder does not work, you can create the xml file manually as described in my blog post which this program was written for http://blog.stewartgateley.com/2010/05/how-to-create-desktop-wallpaper.html.
You might try using the new command line mode. I have altered the exception handling in the command line mode so they should be compatible with 2.5 but this is still untested.
Hi i read your blog, did some "research" on the net, experimented with my own xml files. finally came to the conclusion that something is broken : the standard /usr/share/backgrounds/solar/solar.xml is not working ! (with duration changed to 5.0) i wonder if i need to upgrade to recent Fedora / gnome. thanks for the help ! akash
Very nice work! Finally something that works and is user friendly. I found a few problems though: - files with JPG extension instead of jpg are not used for slideshow (might happen with PNG etc, didn't test) - images added/deleted/renamed on the folder where the images are placed require us to run the script again so the changes are reloaded) - To get to the settings I have to run the script again, didn't find other way It would be great to have an option to use pictures online also.
I will try to publish a new version this week that uses case insensitive file extensions and adds a command line execution mode which would allow you to execute it from a cron script or your startup items. I could add a 'Watch this folder for changes' option but that would require the application to write itself to your local crontab or to run continuously and listen for dbus events, which are a bit outside of its scope. It is meant to be a execute and halt script. The settings are stored in ~/.gnome-wallpaper-slideshow/gnome-wallpaper-slideshow.config. It would be nice to use online galleries, but gnome does not allow URLs for the filenames and it would be impossible to parse all of the different sites. I thought about a new tool which would subscribe to a 'Wallpaper of the day' rss feed but I could not find any such feeds.
Thanks for your answer! About the wallpapers: Windows 7 and others have online pictures of the day, maybe this could be used, unless there's any copyright problem.Mac I think also have something like that. I'll try to find some free sites. About the slideshow, an option for it to be sequential or random would also be cool. thanks ;)
New command line version is available for download. You can use this for adding to your crontab or startup items. Both the GUI mode and command line mode now use case insensitive searches and sort alphabetically. There is no Random mode as you cannot specify this in the XML, but they can be shuffled which should be sufficient if the script is being ran via some scheduler. The one I just put up now is a bit of a quick hack, I will need to do some refactoring as there is now a lot of duplicate code for the GUI and command line modes and I will incorporate shuffling into the next one via a command line option. I've got some other projects I am working on right now but eventually I would like to add an advanced mode to the GUI that would allow you to order the images any way you want and set the durations for each image individually.
I had search somethink like this for long time . . .
100 great nature wallpapers I've found for just this reason. http://www.2shared.com/file/QuiQKHnz/Backgrounds.html
This is why the community benefits ! you put your time in to give us this work !! such great things are here ! I wish to submit to you my request to have your permission to submit this to Theemahn for the up and coming release of the new Ultimate Edition ! I think this a GREAT piece of work !! KUDOS !!
I am glad you like it enough to want to submit it for inclusion in Ubuntu Ultimate Edition. You are free to do with it whatever you please, that includes modifying it and redistributing it. That said however, for inclusion with a distribution release I would want to include the requests of erosenninrho above for saving state and package it as a deb.
With out a doubt! Your name and contribution will, And would be acknowledged! I have released and submitted your effort! with much fan far! I have only given this link so you will receive the #s and comments! You have done Good my friend! you benefit the entire community! KUDOS !!! it is for this we strive! and things like this make things happen! in any language !!!
I put up a new source version here and created a new google code project @ http://code.google.com/p/gnome-wallpaper-slideshow/. I will try to get a deb up shortly. Please use the google code project as the official version. It also includes the GPL license and author information. You might also be interested in my Rhythmbox Dynamic Mode plugin. It keeps your playlist full with recommendations from Last.fm. Default values are set for a very cohesive playlist, but all values can be tweaked through the Rhythmbox UI and are saved in gconf. Thanks for your consideration in UUE, I am very flattered. I had an idea to extend this app even further with an advanced mode to show a preview of all the images in the directory selected, allow you to re-organize and delete them and set the duration, transition and effects per file. I am starting to kick off a new GoogleTV media player project though so that will likely be on hold for a bit.
Hi man, really good stuff. It works perfect!!! It will be nice to have some extra features like: -remember last input in "time boxes" -remember last folder location Its really good, congratulations for your excellent work! ...one last thing. ¿any recomendations for packs of wallpapers to have? All the best man,
It would be really simple to implement saving the settings as either gconf keys or in a .conf file. I thought about doing so, but I shied away from it since it is just a downloadable and executable python file. If you deleted it, the config file or gconf settings would still be littered on the system... something I am not a fan of. To implement that I would want to package it up as a deb file so I could remove the settings upon uninstall. I could do that if there was enough demand (and there may be judging by the number of downloads so far), or I could simply provide a patch or alternate copy for you. As for a wallpaper pack, check out Day of Ubuntu: http://dylanmccall.googlepages.com/DayOfUbuntuSlideshow.tar.gz What's cool about this pack is it will continuously morph all day. It already includes an xml file with hard coded paths to /usr/share/backgrounds/day_of_ubuntu, but if you wanted to just extract the images and use my tool, set the picture duration to 1 hour and the transition duration to 5 hours.
New version saves state as requested. Enjoy!
Yeah! Awesome work!!!! Thank you for taking into account my suggestions, really appreciated. Keep going! And lets move for this to be incorporated in at least in ubuntu repos! Thanx again
It works perfectly :D