Author Topic: DONE - IDEA: change wallpaper at specific time - not timed intervals. (Read 71513 times)

nudone · « **on:** May 01, 2005, 03:47 AM »

i've checked out quite a few wallpaper managers - most have the ability to change the wallpaper at timed intervals, say, once every hour or so.

how about having a wallpaper manager that changed what was on display at a specific time set by the user?

this way you could set up your morning desktop wallpaper that you like to be greeted with, this could then change at midday (or whatever time you specified) and it could then change again in the evening (and again after that towards dusk).

obviously i'm trying to describe something that mimics the changing pattern of daylight outside your window - you would just have something similar presented to you on your monitor. you know, sunrise, sunset, starry night, etc.

taking things further you could have wallpaper set with different times displayed on it - the wallpaper then changes on the hour every hour (or whatever interval you have set that corresponds to the time prints on you wallpaper set).

if this has already been done elsewhere, please let me know, i've hunted around and can't find this specific feature.

i'm no programmer but i would think this a simple thing to code

mouser · « **Reply #1 on:** May 01, 2005, 05:22 AM »

i think this must exist, but if not it's definitely doable as a snack, and i'd be willing to do it, or someone else can.
can someone else find a sample series of nice hires images?

maybe what would be nice is if people who live outside could take a series of 24 hires pics and we could make some "sets" of images.

might be nice to have a screensaver that did similar, ie showed an image based on time of day.. not too hard, probably already exists..

i think both of these two apps probably exist.. we need to find them if so.. if not, they will be implemented this weekend as snacks.

nudone · « **Reply #2 on:** May 01, 2005, 06:18 AM »

that sounds very promising mouser - i'll eat my hat if anyone finds a util that does it already (i have a very small hat just in case).

if this wallpaper manager becomes a reality there is another feature i'd really love to see implemented if possible.

you might have seen/used a program called 'wallpaper drag' that allowed you to drag and resize your wallpaper around on the screen until you were satisfied with how it looked (before finally clicking apply to accept the position and scale of the wallpaper image).

unfortunately the program nolonger seems to be supported - the creators website has gone and there is no way of obtaining an official serial although you can still find the software available to download at http://www.winsite.c...in/Info?500000011102 (this is for version 2).

the other problem is that it doesn't appear to work very well with windows xp - i've had version 3 of the program but it never got on well with xp for some reason and i always had to uninstall it eventually.

if you ever used 'wallpaper drag' you'll understand how much better it was than all the other wallpaper managers - being able to drag the image around on your screen and resize at the same time was an fantastic feature - something i've still not seen implemented elsewhere. i've seen very clumsy methods of resizing and moving the image around on your desktop with other wallpaper managers but they were too annoying to use in my opinion.

as this 'drag and resize' feature doesn't appear to be used anywhere in current software that is available i'd be absolutely over the moon if it could be incorporated into the 'coding snacks wallpaper manager'.

i guess this could be a more ambitious project and beyond the scope of the few hours coding rules - i dearly hope not though.

mouser · « **Reply #3 on:** May 01, 2005, 06:32 AM »

well i was about to post a link to some freeware wallpaper changers that can change wallpaper at specific intervals, until i realized this is not sufficient. you really need to be able to tell it to change to a specific image at a specific time, regardless of when started etc.

i think this is worth coding.. im not sure ill get to it this weekend, but i'll comit to doing this, at least in some form.

i was thinking to have it parse a file that could specify what images to show and when. for example:

[Select]

// First the settings (position can be: center, tile, stretch, max)
position=center

// Then the files (file= DATEMASK|TIMEASK|FILENAME, where:
// DATEMASK is of the form DD/MM/YY-DD/MM/YY
// TIMEASK is of the form HH
// and * is allowed
// and FILENAME is relative path
// if multiple times match due to wildcards, the earliest match will be used.
// if multiple files are specified separated by ; then one will be chosen randomly
// For example
// */*/2005 - */*/2006 | *-* (the entire year of 2005)
// */*/* - */*/* | 01-02 (1am to 2 am every day)
//
*/*/* - */*/* | 01-04 | image1.jpg
*/*/* - */*/* | 04-08 | image2.jpg
*/*/* - */*/* | 08-12 | image3.jpg
*/*/* - */*/* | 12-16 | image4.jpg
*/*/* - */*/* | 16-20 | image5.jpg
*/*/* - */*/* | 20-24 | image6.jpg

or

[Select]

12/25/* - 12/26/* | 01-24 | christmas.jpg
*/01/* - */10/* | 01-04 | image1.jpg
*/10/* - */20/* | 04-08 | image2.jpg
*/20/* - */32/* | 08-12 | image3.jpg

as for dragging wallpaper position and size.. i'll leave that for another more visual wallpaper tool.

frogblast · « **Reply #4 on:** May 01, 2005, 07:08 AM »

PowerPro http://powerpro.webeddie.com/ can do this. It has a function to change wallpaper, and you can schedule it for an arbitrary time of day. You can also schedule it to repeat at intervals.

mouser · « **Reply #5 on:** May 01, 2005, 07:25 AM »

powerpro looks very nice.
i think we're going to have to give frogblast an award soon for Superior Knowledge of Cool Freeware Tools.

mouser · « **Reply #6 on:** May 01, 2005, 07:28 AM »

ps. im still writing the wallpaper scheduled changer, just because i think it will be easier to use.

i hope some other people will be will make some themes for it
(a theme is just a series of images and a schedule for them).

nudone · « **Reply #7 on:** May 01, 2005, 07:49 AM »

yep, thanks frogblast - i'm sure i wouldn't have found powepro by myself.

and i'm still looking forward to see what mouser comes up with - like you say, should be something easier to use.

mouser · « **Reply #8 on:** May 01, 2005, 11:45 AM »

well, this was supposed be a snack but 6 hours later and not done..
i tell you, MS Windows MFC programming is pure evilness. i truly loathe it and im going to start doing bcb more for these little tools, even if it means the difference between an 80k program and an 800k program, MFC is just too F*CKED UP.

this tool will be done in a day or two. i would really appreciate people collecting some image "sets"

the way the program works is you can have and switch between "sets" of images, which can be set to arbitrary times/dates.

so you could have a wallpaper set with a dif pic for each day of the year (ie pics for holidays,etc),
OR
you could have a wallpaper set with pics synchronized to each hour of the day,etc.
or combinations.

so be nice to have some different sets.
if there are people who live in country with nice landscape, maybe they could take a series of 24 pics for us, at hi res! at each hour of the day?

mouser · « **Reply #9 on:** May 02, 2005, 07:17 PM »

with some help from jibz, i'm pretty much done with this..
the theme file syntax is very flexible but a little complex.

but before i upload i'd like to get some picture files to include.

if anyone feels like helping i'd like to include 2 sets of images, one based on time of day, and one based on month of year.

that is, i want two series of images, one tied to the hour of the day, ie 24 images showing outdoor photos at different hours of the day.
and another set of 12 images, one for each month.

mouser · « **Reply #10 on:** May 02, 2005, 08:09 PM »

how wonderful it would be to have 365 pictures of the same outdoor scene, from jan 1 to dec 31, and have wallpaper auto set to the matching day!

surely such a picture series must exist somewhere... if we can only find it..

mouser · « **Reply #11 on:** May 02, 2005, 09:45 PM »

Temporality Screens is now available on the Coding Snacks page.

https://www.donation...dingSnacks/index.php

nudone · « **Reply #12 on:** May 03, 2005, 08:09 AM »

just wanted to say many thanks mouser, great little program. extremely simple to configure - just got the hourly theme going at the moment.

looks like i'll need to create some wallpaper sets now.

mouser · « **Reply #13 on:** May 03, 2005, 08:28 AM »

id be happy to host any wallpaper theme sets anyone makes.

would be really nice to have some big sets, like imagine 365 pictures of some outdoor view, changing gradually over the course of a year..

there is another thing i thought could be added, which is the overlaying of some text on top of images, like maybe the current date, or even a calendar image, etc.

nudone · « **Reply #14 on:** May 03, 2005, 11:27 AM »

calendar or date would be a good feature - i think you would have to allow it to be positionable by the user in some way, otherwise it could become hidden by icons.

mouser · « **Reply #15 on:** June 08, 2005, 04:45 PM »

Temporality Screens has been updated.
It no longer uses Active Desktop, and instead makes a commandline call to ImageMagick to convert files to bitmap before setting them to wallpaper.
This also makes it easy to do further image processing automatically, including adding date/time to images, etc.

nudone · « **Reply #16 on:** June 09, 2005, 02:49 AM »

sounds good.

i'm currently working on a wallpaper set that i'll upload when i can finally finish it - it will be universal in appeal (depending on how much you hate microsoft) so anyone should be able to appreciate it.

now i've announced it i'll have to pull my finger out and get it done.

wr975 · « **Reply #17 on:** June 09, 2005, 06:24 AM »

Thank you for the update.

I'm using Irfanview to convert using following ini entries:

shellconversioncommand=C:\PROGRA~1\IRFANV~1\i_view32.exe
shellconversioncommandargs="$origfile$" /resample=(1024,768) /aspectratio /convert="$bmpfile$"

mouser · « **Reply #18 on:** June 09, 2005, 09:07 AM »

thx wr975!

i was hoping that we might be able to share some good commandline conversion/processing calls..
i will keep a list of them and make them available in a readme in future releases.

i'm open to the idea of adding stuff so you can
1) specify a series of commands to run, not just the one
2) specify per-theme file commands for conversion

and in this way be able to do some fun stuff.. i'm sure with some cleverness we could make it dynamically overlay calendar, clock, datestamp, etc over the image.. and border effects, etc.

wr975 · « **Reply #19 on:** June 10, 2005, 01:13 AM »

I've already mentioned it by mail, but here I'll write it again.

For hourly themes it'd be a good idea to use following code for midnight.

[Select]

*/*/* - */*/* | 24-24 | hour24.jpg
*/*/* - */*/* | 0-0 | hour24.jpg

24-24 is for systems using 12h time format
0-0 is for systems using 24h time format

mouser · « **Reply #20 on:** June 10, 2005, 01:19 AM »

im trying to remember the value it uses for midnight but..
we dont want to have two redudant entries, we should just pick one..

i see in the sample file it uses
24-24 for midnight

but ive not confirmed that works..

i could change that to 0-0 for midnight if you think that would be better, since the data file format uses a 24 hour clock.

wr975 · « **Reply #21 on:** June 10, 2005, 06:40 AM »

I agree. Using 0-0 would make more sense.

I'm not sure how your tool is calculating the time, but adding a routine like "if hour = 24 (12 AM) then read ini_hour 0" should work.

alecjw · « **Reply #22 on:** December 24, 2005, 03:37 PM »

Maybe even using a wmv, avi, mov etc as a video desktop background. Or maybe even swf.

AbteriX · « **Reply #23 on:** December 26, 2005, 03:48 PM »

Iam discovert this nifty tool and like it.

I know you make no nonsens with my system, so i ask you
if is possible to improve this app a lil bit?

I miss this things:
- allow folders instead of single images , TemporalityScreens should select one image by himself:
i.e. (1/0/* - 1/31/* | 01-02 | D:\Pictures\Desktop\Anna*.jpg)
i.e. (1/0/* - 1/31/* | 03-04 | D:\Pictures\Desktop\Anna*.jpg)
i.e. (1/0/* - 1/31/* | 05-06 | D:\Pictures\Desktop\Anna*.jpg)

- Maybe with an another parameter for randomly or sequential pic selection?
Ø = sequential
1 = randomly
i.e. (1/0/* - 1/31/* | 01-25 |Ø D:\Pictures\Desktop\Anna*.jpg)

- allow change now
i.e. What is "Force update now"??? It do nothing for me?
I suggest an double click on the tray icon to change the current picture till i found one i just like this time
and then i want to disable the update process.

- hide tray icon
'cus if "TemporalityScreens.exe" runs once it need no further interaction(till CLOSE,
what could be done by TaskManager or by deleting the autorun entry.)
The place in the TNA is mostly rar.

---
Or is there another little tool without install and without registry access who do that?
I had once one tool and after use i didn't saw my desktop icons anymore and i had do to a few tricks to get them back

superboyac · « **Reply #24 on:** November 03, 2006, 05:26 PM »

Hi everyone, I was just checking this fine utility, and I can't figure out how to use it. The help dialog doesn't have anything in it, I don't know how to make these thm files, and even if I could understand how to write the code posted in this thread, I don't know where to put the code. Also, there's some mention of a temporalityscreens.ini file which I don't know where it is. I should have been a CS major...