Changing the version number because this wishlist item is still valid.

The user interface for this is a bit tricky; if we are going to do
this I'll have to consult a UI designer. It would not be *too*
difficult to implement this without a UI.

*** Bug 58949 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Updating all cc bugs that have the GNOME2 keyword set to the GNOME2.0 milestone,
to help jrb triage/prioritize cc bugs. Filter on 'luis doing GNOME2 work' to
ignore this spam.

I agree with this feature. Would be nice to have althought it will
make the interface not as easy to use.

*** Bug 87635 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

SPAM as discussed last night. Search for 'SPAM as discussed last night' to catch
these all and delete them. :) 

Does Nautilus use FAM to monitor it's background file?
If so, one could point nautilus to a file and then write a script to
change it every so often.

It wouldn't be for beginners, but that would at least work.

Hacky, though, Ben :)

The UI in mac os/x does this quite nicely, and although it'd have to
be adapted a bit, I think it could be worked in nicely.  Basically
(and I'm going from memory here), you have a drop down of the types of
backgrounds you get to choose from (nature, abstract, animals) and
when that is selected you get shown a list of NN images thumbnailed
that can be chosen as a background.  Below that there's a checkbox
with "rotate background images".  This applies to whatever background
set you have (I believe that "all" is an option in the background sets).

Personally I think that the addition of a checkbox and browse button
at the bottom of the backgrounds capplet (labeled something like
"rotate through images in this directory" or something like that) with
hidden gconf keys for duration (default of 10 min?) and recurse
through subdirs (off by default).

Not sure how the usability team thinks of this, but it'd be a nice
feature to add so that I can get rid of my chgbg.pl script :)

*** Bug 138939 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

*** Bug 169172 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Raising the version number because this wishlist item is still valid.

isn't it better to have this handled by an other program since it is an option
that not a lot of users will use/need.

adding more options will decrease usability

I don't know if control center makes it easy for third party apps to change the
background.

Meanwhile the following script will change your background to a random image from the list in gnome-background-properties. The 'grep -A6' should make it fairly robust. You could add it to your cron or set it to run at startup (though adding it to gnome-session startup will make GNOME no longer boot; delete the entry from ~/.gnome2/session-manual if you run into this problem).

#!/bin/sh
t=`grep -A6 '<wallpaper deleted="false">' ~/.gnome2/backgrounds.xml \
        | grep '<filename>' \
        | sed 's#[^<>]*<filename>##' \
        | sed 's#</filename>[^<>]*##' \
        | grep -v '(none)'`

c=`echo "$t" | wc -l`
((p=($c+1)*$RANDOM/32767))

f=`echo "$t" | head -n$p | tail -n1`
gconftool --type=string -s /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename "$f"

I've been thinking about this feature, too.  There is a proliferation of scripts out there to change your background (I've written a few myself), so it's obvious that people want this.

I'm not sure that we necessarily need "categories" of wallpapers like OS X does -- why not simply use the list of wallpapers that the user has currently put into the dialog?  

One of the problems with many existing scripts that choose a random file from a directory is that some images need to be scaled, whereas others need to be stretched.  In other words, it's best if the user can choose this setting specific to each image.  Luckily the existing UI already does this, and saves the settings to an XML file.

In terms of implementation, my thought is that cron would be well-suited for changing the background.  Most distros come with this capability; we could sniff to see if cron is available, and if so, display the following line at the bottom of the existing dialog:

 [X] Change wallpaper every [hour]  (where [hour] is a dropdown with several time intervals.

If the box is checked, you add a job to the user's crontab, with a marker embedded in a comment so it can be found an removed automatically if the user later unchecks the box.

I've written a python script which reads the existing XML file and changes the background via gconf.  It probably needs to be rewritten in C to reduce dependencies, but here it is for reference:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import os
import sys
import random
from xml.dom import minidom

def getTag(wallpaper, tag):
    tag = wallpaper.getElementsByTagName(tag)
    tag = tag[0]
    child = tag.firstChild
    assert child.nodeType == child.TEXT_NODE
    return child.data.strip()

def setGconfKey(key, value):
    os.system('gconftool-2 -t str -s "%s" "%s"' % (key, value))

def setRandomWallpaper():
    xmldoc = minidom.parse(os.path.expanduser('~/.gnome2/backgrounds.xml'))
    wallpapers = xmldoc.getElementsByTagName('wallpaper')
    wallpapers = filter(lambda w: w.attributes['deleted'].value == 'false', wallpapers)

    while 1:
        if not wallpapers:
            # nothing to do
            sys.exit(0)
        selection = random.choice(wallpapers)
        if not os.path.exists(getTag(selection, 'filename')):
            # image file doesn't exist; remove entry from list and try again
            wallpapers.remove(selection)
        else:
            setGconfKey('/desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename', getTag(selection, 'filename'))
            setGconfKey('/desktop/gnome/background/picture_options', getTag(selection, 'options'))
            break

if __name__ == "__main__":
    setRandomWallpaper()

Another application that does this and also supports settings a different background per workspace:
  Wallpapoz - http://wallpapoz.sourceforge.net/

Listed on:
  http://live.gnome.org/PowerUserTools

*** Bug 338410 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

*** Bug 341768 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

quoting Kristof Vansant: "adding more options will decrease usability"

A lack of features isn't usable either. It's just how you interpret usability.



Really, is adding one checkbox to turn on auto changing in the Background Preferences that much of a problem, usability wise? Of course, it's not essential at all, but it would be convenient if the feature would be available.

And downloading extra software for this functionality doesn't seem like an optimal solution to me. All you need is a single checkbox for turning it on in the Background Preferences, IMO.

Would be nice implement this for upcoming gnome versions :-)

Thanks

Well, as of Windows 7, this feature is now supported by pretty much everybody else but GNOME. At what point does a feature change from being confusing by its presence, to being confusing by its absence?

Although i'm also looking for that feature (random background on each startup) and not for the one in Bug 570685 (Change wallpapers every X minutes) which may concern less users, i guess that mockups for GUI implementation could be shared between that é reports

Please note that, as far as i'm concerned, i didn't need that feature (random background on each startup) until i get a netbook.
A netbook (or a laptop) is like a phone : you use it in public and while your leisures and you pay more attention to that details.
If i'm right, since people use more and more netbooks and laptops, that feature could be more and more wanted

We won't be adding tools to create slideshows, or random backgrounds, as there
are already applications that do this kind of thing quite well, and their UIs
are clearly focused around that. For example, Wallpaper gallery at
http://www.olmec.co.nz/

In my experience, toying with the wallpaper is one of the top things that beginners do.
Regarding their computer competence, can we seriously ask them to install an application for that ?
Or could we imagine adding a tick under the wallpaper chooser that would basically say : "Change wallpaper on every startup choosing an image randomly"

*** Bug 637773 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

*** Bug 570685 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

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