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maoyu

Member

Registered: 2015-11-28

Posts: 5

autobgch - a simple wallpaper changer and slideshow app

autobgch(AUR), auto background changer, is a simple wallpaper changer supporting various backends: gnome 3, mate and feh(for lightweight window manager, such as openbox, i3...etc.). It runs as a daemon and changes your wallpaper periodically. It has two parts: bgchd - the daemon, and bgctl - the controller.

• bgchd - the daemon. Usage:

usage: bgchd [-h] -dir BG_DIR [BG_DIR ...] [-intv MIN_OR_SEC] -bcknd SCRIPT
             [-rpl]

random wallpaper changer daemon

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -dir BG_DIR [BG_DIR ...]          wallpaper directories
  -intv MIN_OR_SEC      interval of changing wallpaper(i.e. 10s or 5m). default: 30s
  -bcknd SCRIPT         script in /etc/autobgch/scripts/ as backend. official support: mate, gnome3, unity, feh
  -rpl          replace exsiting daemon if any

• bgctl - the controller. Usage:

usage: bgctl [play|pause|prev|next|info|config -dir BG_DIR -intv MIN_OR_SEC]

controll program for bgchd

Commands:
  play      Start playing
  pause     Stop playing
  prev      Previous Wallpaper
  next      Next Wallpaper
  info      Show information of bgchd
  config    Change configuration of bgchd. check 'bgctl config --help' for detail

• autostart template for gnome 3 and mate users are in:

/etc/autobgch/autostart/

This application also aims to be less dependant on 3rd library, and I hope this application could be useful to the users who just want a simple plain wallpaper slideshow.
If you encounter any issue, please report it on github. Thanks!

Last edited by maoyu (2016-10-09 13:02:08)

fiddlinmacx

Member

Registered: 2011-03-02

Posts: 89

Re: autobgch - a simple wallpaper changer and slideshow app

@maoyu
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you ;-)
I just spent a couple of hours trying out all the wallpaper changers available with my i3wm setup. None of them were at all suitable. I wrote a script awhile ago to do this, but it's not quite good enough. Then I installed your script. It's perfect. I can't believe some of the memory footprints of some of the wallpaper changers out there. They're ridiculous.

maoyu

Member

Registered: 2015-11-28

Posts: 5

Re: autobgch - a simple wallpaper changer and slideshow app

@fiddlinmacx
I'm glad that this small toy can help you!

maoyu

Member

Registered: 2015-11-28

Posts: 5

Re: autobgch - a simple wallpaper changer and slideshow app

Bump to version 0.4
changelog:

• add multiple directories support

• performance improvement on randomly selecting wallpaper

jaergenoth

Member

Registered: 2015-01-16

Posts: 85

Re: autobgch - a simple wallpaper changer and slideshow app

I made a very similar script in bash, also with multiple wallpaper changing backends.

I found these to work with LXQT and XFCE, if you want to add these to your script.

LXQT:

pcmanfm-qt --set-wallpaper="$1" --wallpaper-mode=stretch

XFCE: (xfconf-query belongs to the package xfconf)

props=$(xfconf-query -c xfce4-desktop -l | grep last-image);

for p in $props; do
    xfconf-query -c xfce4-desktop -p "$p" --set "$1"
done

XFCE keeps separate entry for every workspace on every monitor, that's why it's like that.

Last edited by jaergenoth (2016-10-09 14:19:48)

maoyu

Member

Registered: 2015-11-28

Posts: 5

Re: autobgch - a simple wallpaper changer and slideshow app

@jaergenoth
Thanks. I'll add these scripts.