Description: I had this idea while I was deciding which background I should choose earlier! Basically, I think it would be fantastic to have backgrounds that, possibly as well as fading slowly from one to the next and having slight movement such as snowflakes falling, also changed according to the time of day, or maybe even season or other factor.
I'm not sure if this has been done before, but imagine if as it got darker outside, your pc switched to the background you had chosen for night-time, and then changed again for the day!
For seasons, maybe a range could be stored online, and KDE could consult the online server which would give it a range of suitable backdrops.
Taking it further, maybe it could be used for topical backgrounds, such as if there is an event on that day. I think the possibilities are pretty fantastic!
We would need to think of a really cool sounding name for it though, mine was just an idea =)
Thanks for reading!
Mike
PS As a small idea of what I mean, I have included pictures of my desktop with images from the rather cool vladstudio.com (which gave me part of this idea). One is at night, and one is of rain =)
Like inckie, I use this little script at my job:
#!/bin/bash
HORA=$(date +%H)
MANANA="/pictures/wpmanana.jpg"
DIA="/pictures/wpdia.jpg"
NOCHE="/pictures/wptarde.jpg"
if [[ "$HORA" -eq "9" || "$HORA" -lt "11" ]]; then
dcop kdesktop KBackgroundIface setWallpaper "$MANANA" 6
elif [[ "$HORA" -ge "11" && "$HORA" -lt "14" ]]; then
dcop kdesktop KBackgroundIface setWallpaper "$DIA" 6
elif [[ "$HORA" -ge "14" && "$HORA" -lt "19" ]]; then
dcop kdesktop KBackgroundIface setWallpaper "$NOCHE" 6
fi
Because I work between 9 and 18:30, this script changes my wallpaper three times.
It's included at /etc/init.d so it will start when I boot my system, and it's added into crontab:
0 11,14 * * * /pictures/changewp
so it will run at 11 and 14 o'clock changing the wallpaper.
:)
I have a script too that will change it to a certain picture based on time of day, and I made a 3D scene in Bryce 5 with different sky settings, so it's pretty cool :p
I tried once a script from kde-look which had this function in an hourly basis. It was designed for fedora 8, and tried it, working great, but now I can't find it.
I had a similar idea a couple years ago, though nothing came of it. I had a wallpaper I really liked from digital blasphemy that had a day version and night version and thought it'd be great to have the version reflect the real world.
I've never changed a background in the terminal, but whatever the command is, it'd be pretty simple to set up a chron task to take care of it.
Better to have a more robust version where you have conditionally dependent categories/tags you assigned to the wallpapers (be it weather, time, season, whether you're playing music, whatever) and randomly selects a wallpaper that meets all (or the most of) the tags that are applicable given the conditions. Sorry if that wasn't as clear as it could be.
I'm curious how Mandriva implements this.
What I'd like to see is taking any picture that you set as your wallpaper, and adjusting the hue or something like that subtly through out the day.
When I start up my PS3, the "wave" background of the PS3 adjusts colors depending on the time of day.
Obviously, the shifting color thing should be an option you can turn on or off.
You asked if this has been done before, it has... for Microsoft Windows. Company called Stardock (same ones that make WindowBlinds) has a little app that does this very thing, they used backgrounds from DigitalBlasphemy.com for the seasons and time changes.
I think they got the sunrise/sunset times for your town, then divided it up for 4 images: morning, afternoon, evening, night, and changed them appropriately. Seasons were pulled via the equinoxes.
This is still a great little thing, and I'd love to see more improvement on it, and it would be nice to have something cool like this on Linux. :)
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You could call it TIME WARP and as background music you could play tracks from The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Like inckie, I use this little script at my job: #!/bin/bash HORA=$(date +%H) MANANA="/pictures/wpmanana.jpg" DIA="/pictures/wpdia.jpg" NOCHE="/pictures/wptarde.jpg" if [[ "$HORA" -eq "9" || "$HORA" -lt "11" ]]; then dcop kdesktop KBackgroundIface setWallpaper "$MANANA" 6 elif [[ "$HORA" -ge "11" && "$HORA" -lt "14" ]]; then dcop kdesktop KBackgroundIface setWallpaper "$DIA" 6 elif [[ "$HORA" -ge "14" && "$HORA" -lt "19" ]]; then dcop kdesktop KBackgroundIface setWallpaper "$NOCHE" 6 fi Because I work between 9 and 18:30, this script changes my wallpaper three times. It's included at /etc/init.d so it will start when I boot my system, and it's added into crontab: 0 11,14 * * * /pictures/changewp so it will run at 11 and 14 o'clock changing the wallpaper. :)
sorry, old doc. I've removed the script from init.d. It won't start like that. It must start when you login, add a link to ~/.kde/Autostart
I have a script too that will change it to a certain picture based on time of day, and I made a 3D scene in Bryce 5 with different sky settings, so it's pretty cool :p
I tried once a script from kde-look which had this function in an hourly basis. It was designed for fedora 8, and tried it, working great, but now I can't find it.
I had a similar idea a couple years ago, though nothing came of it. I had a wallpaper I really liked from digital blasphemy that had a day version and night version and thought it'd be great to have the version reflect the real world. I've never changed a background in the terminal, but whatever the command is, it'd be pretty simple to set up a chron task to take care of it. Better to have a more robust version where you have conditionally dependent categories/tags you assigned to the wallpapers (be it weather, time, season, whether you're playing music, whatever) and randomly selects a wallpaper that meets all (or the most of) the tags that are applicable given the conditions. Sorry if that wasn't as clear as it could be.
That would be something like dcop kdesktop KBackgroundIface setWallpaper "$path_to_wallpaper" $mode , where $mode is an integer.
Mandriva is slated to do this very thing in their 2008.1 release. Obviously, this is an idea whose time as come.
I'm curious how Mandriva implements this. What I'd like to see is taking any picture that you set as your wallpaper, and adjusting the hue or something like that subtly through out the day. When I start up my PS3, the "wave" background of the PS3 adjusts colors depending on the time of day. Obviously, the shifting color thing should be an option you can turn on or off.
There not his orginal photos. You can download then from http://www.vladstudio.com/home/ Thanks for making the app~
Doesn't Fedora (with Gnome, I believe) have this feature? With KDE4 and Plasma, I don't think it would be very hard to do.
thanks.
I like your drawings very much, are they publicly available anywhere?
http://mundogeek.net/weather-wallpaper/ It changes the wallpaper based on weather station info ... and it's not windows :)
You asked if this has been done before, it has... for Microsoft Windows. Company called Stardock (same ones that make WindowBlinds) has a little app that does this very thing, they used backgrounds from DigitalBlasphemy.com for the seasons and time changes. I think they got the sunrise/sunset times for your town, then divided it up for 4 images: morning, afternoon, evening, night, and changed them appropriately. Seasons were pulled via the equinoxes. This is still a great little thing, and I'd love to see more improvement on it, and it would be nice to have something cool like this on Linux. :)