[SOLVED] XFCE Slideshow Wallpaper - Fade animations

alexftw · 2014-01-14 21:56:28

Dear forums

As the title says, I wonder if there is any way to get nice fade animations like in Gnome or KDE for XFCE. I remember there being an inbuilt option in XFCE making it possible to select some images which would be cycled through, but other than using e.g. Variety on Ubuntu, there is no animation when the wallpaper changes. Does this depend on some library? Could it be that Ubuntu has a configuration which makes it possible to use those animations automatically in XFCE too?

I'm seriously considering leaving Ubuntu for good and use Arch Linux again, but since I'm using my Computer every day, I'd like my Desktop to look pretty.

Thanks in advance!

Last edited by alexftw (2014-03-16 04:43:48)

w201 · 2014-01-15 00:31:44

I was going to say ccsm or kwin will do that for you, but I just realized you want a wallpaper transition... when I first read it I thought you wanted window effects

Last edited by w201 (2014-01-15 00:33:17)

alexftw · 2014-01-15 07:06:46

w201 wrote:

I was going to say ccsm or kwin will do that for you, but I just realized you want a wallpaper transition... when I first read it I thought you wanted window effects

As far as I remember, compiz does have a plugin that manages wallpapers too...No clue, if it "overrides" the xfdesktop module though, or if it shows transitions like in Gnome or KDE.

w201 · 2014-01-15 15:25:28

alexftw wrote:

w201 wrote:
I was going to say ccsm or kwin will do that for you, but I just realized you want a wallpaper transition... when I first read it I thought you wanted window effects
As far as I remember, compiz does have a plugin that manages wallpapers too...No clue, if it "overrides" the xfdesktop module though, or if it shows transitions like in Gnome or KDE.

I'm not sure TBH- I just thought I'd throw that out there, but I haven't messed with compiz for quite some time.

alexftw · 2014-01-30 00:29:56

Bump

(wondering if this is allowed)

alexftw · 2014-03-14 22:00:27

Okay, I've got an idea, but something's still missing. With a compositing manager, in this case Compton (which is great with XFCE by the way), I can do this:

feh Wallpapers/ --randomize --borderless

That way, feh keeps on being a window but takes up the whole screen (given that the aspect ratio is right). Now my idea: Let's force this window to stay beneath all the other windows. How would I do that, with xfwm for example? I mean, I can right-click the border of a certain window and select "keep beneath other windows" (my system is set to german, I don't know the exact name of the option in english) and that would be it. Cycling through the Wallpapers, it would first fade to black and then fade to the next wallpaper.

I tried glslideshow too...

/usr/lib/xscreensaver/glslideshow -root

...but it doesn't work with compton. Without compton, it works perfectly, but I really need Compton. With compton running, glslideshow places itself on everything else, blocking the desktop. At the beginning the desktop flickers a little bit, and then xscreensaver stays there blocking everything. I might try it with other compositors too, but I don't really know anything better than Compton as of now.

twelveeighty · 2014-03-15 13:52:58

I don't use this method myself, but a Google search for "xfce wallpaper slideshow" produced: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/cre … ounds-xfce

progandy · 2014-03-15 14:01:37

You could try shantz-xwinwrap-bzr to force a window in the background.

alexftw · 2014-03-15 16:22:41

twelveeighty wrote:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/cre … ounds-xfce

This only explains how to get a slideshow with xfdesktop, I know that already. My question was how to get fancy animations when the wallpaper changes.

progandy wrote:

You could try shantz-xwinwrap-bzr to force a window in the background.

What a coincidence, I just figured that out myself!

In case anyone will need this:

xwinwrap -b -fs -sp -fs -nf -ov -- feh --bg-fill /path/to/your/wallpapers/

xwinwrap will say that feh died but the exit code is 0 so there's nothing to worry about (does feh run as a daemon in the background?). Fade duration is specified by the compositor itself (now the only thing that'd make it perfect would be making compton use a longer fade duration on feh only), for automatic switching I'll use this for now, file "wallpaper_randomizer":

#!/bin/bash

while true; do
	xwinwrap -b -fs -sp -fs -nf -ov -- feh --randomize --bg-fill /home/alexander/Bilder/Wallpapers/
	sleep 600
done

chmod +x wallpaper_randomizer

I'm using the XFCE settings to start it automatically, but adding it to .xinitrc would probably work too (useful if not using XFCE):

compton -b &
/path/to/wallpaper_randomizer &
exec start_xfce4

That makes me really happy somehow. Thank you, progandy, that would've really helped me if I've given up searching for a solution already.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-01-14 21:56:28

[SOLVED] XFCE Slideshow Wallpaper - Fade animations

#2 2014-01-15 00:31:44

Re: [SOLVED] XFCE Slideshow Wallpaper - Fade animations

#3 2014-01-15 07:06:46

Re: [SOLVED] XFCE Slideshow Wallpaper - Fade animations

#4 2014-01-15 15:25:28

Re: [SOLVED] XFCE Slideshow Wallpaper - Fade animations

#5 2014-01-30 00:29:56

Re: [SOLVED] XFCE Slideshow Wallpaper - Fade animations

#6 2014-03-14 22:00:27

Re: [SOLVED] XFCE Slideshow Wallpaper - Fade animations

#7 2014-03-15 13:52:58

Re: [SOLVED] XFCE Slideshow Wallpaper - Fade animations

#8 2014-03-15 14:01:37

Re: [SOLVED] XFCE Slideshow Wallpaper - Fade animations

#9 2014-03-15 16:22:41

Re: [SOLVED] XFCE Slideshow Wallpaper - Fade animations

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