Application: WallpaperSwitcher
Category: Utilities
Description: WallpaperSwitcher is an app for changing the wallpaper on your system. It supports ordered and random timed rotation or switching for a single image.
Download WallpaperSwitcher 1.0.2.8 [1.32MB download / 1.29MB installed]
(MD5: 5cd8ca343250ffdba5a9683b2f397d56)
WallpaperSwitcher requires Microsoft's GDIPlus (GDI+) to be installed to function. If you don't have GDI+ installed, you can try to use the included gdiplus.dll, or install it from here:
All settings are configurable and documented in the INI file.
Release Notes:
1.0.2.8 (2011-01-27)
- Recompiled and added missing includes
1.0.2.7 (2010-02-04)
- Removed splash screen and associated INI file
1.0.2.6 (2010-02-03)
- Windows 7 compatibility
- Some internal optimizations
- 256x256 icon
1.0.2.5 Dev Test 1 (2009-01-09)
- Added commandline argument "exit" to close a running instance of the app (scripting)
- Added crash recovery support - original settings are saved to the registry and removed upon a proper exit of the app
1.0.2.4 Dev Test 1 (2008-08-05)
- New wallpaper selection box, accessible via tray menu, complete with tooltip paths
- Reworked internal timers for compatibility with selection box
- Changed tray menu now appears on right-click
1.0.1.0 Dev Test 1 (2008-07-02): Initial release
Visit the Community page
Join our forums
Subscribe to our email newsletter
Subscribe with RSS
Follow us on BlueSky
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on LinkedIn
Follow us on Mastodon
Follow us on Twitter
It worked for me. This has potential.
How about holding the images for more than 2 secs, and/or looping back through again once they're finished? This is pretty far from a beta test, but it is an interesting concept. What's needed is something to automate the image moving & renaming thing. This could turn out to be a really neat app.
The 2 seconds and looping through images was just to test the concept here, and really has nothing to do with what the app might become. This was originally a request for something to change wallpaper when using portable apps, then change it back when you're done.
So yeah, if it works for enough people we can start talking about what everyone wants it to do.
Tested XP SP2. Works fine .bmp and .jpg
Overall Pass. I will run an additional test on a limited WXP and W2K profile later this week.
>==System Details==
With provided GdiPlus.dll {dated 2008-01-19, no local installed version}
Use BMP files - Yes. [No BMP in folder as of this run]
Passing Result = Error | Images not found.
Use BMP files - No. [26 JPG in folder as of this run]
Passing Result = 'needs conversion'.
Failing Result = Application popup: AutoIt v3: wallpaper.exe - Application Error : The instruction at "0x00432fcf" referenced memory at "0xfffffff8". The memory could not be "read".
With different GdiPlus.dll {dated 2006-04-18, copied from another portable edition folder, still no local version installed}
Use BMP files - Yes. [No BMP in folder as of this run]
Passing Result = Error | Images not found.
Use BMP files - No. [26 JPG in folder as of this run]
Passing Result = 'needs conversion'. conversion, display (26), delete temp conversion, exit.
With different GdiPlus.dll {same as Step 4, Run 2}
Use BMP files - Yes. [26 BMP in folder as of this run]
Passing Result =
Use BMP files - No. [No JPG in folder as of this run]
Passing Result = display (26), exit.
/s/ When life turns your dreams to dust, vacuum
Hmm, found out that I guess I can't just put gdiplus in the app directory. It needs to be installed in Windows (but Win2k SP4 and up have it already).
Thanks for all the tests. While thorough, this test was not designed to catch all errors, like no existing images in the directories (stop lying to my program
).
But I'm not sure I understand the results of your last run there. You final test should have not found any images (use JPG, but no JPG images in folder).
That is true that last run shouldn't have found and displayed anything. I can place the blame on copy n paste there.
As stated I was able to copy one of the GDIPlus files from I think OpenOffice Portable to make it work without actually installing it on the PC I was testing the time.
As for the over thoroughness, I am Quality Assurance Analyst and was in the 'groove' as it were when I tested the app.
/s/ When life turns your dreams to dust, vacuum
I also had another idea for you. I love your EraserDropTarget, so I had this idea https://portableapps.com/node/13535
... using whatever GDI is installed on the system. It ran through all the images in each folder (I used different images for each set, and a different number of images in each set) and returned to the desktop's setting when done.
I wasn't quite sure whether you were kidding about the images being named image1, image2, etc. but I discovered easily enough that you weren't. It gave me the "no images found" error until I renamed the files to that scheme. (Good thing I copied instead of moved them into the folders; I have a strong aversion to meaningless file names, so it wouldn't have been much fun to have to rename them again later. :/ )
This app-ears (lol) to have great potential. I can't wait to see it fully fleshed out with options! I'd keep using it now, if it could loop and I could set the interval.
I will try it later tonight on my Vista Home Premium laptop and report back.
Cheers!
---Fox
Cool, glad it worked for you.
This thing kinda got lost and didn't seem like anyone had interest, since wallpaper switching is part of the PApps platform now.
But if enough people show some interest with some reasonable feature ideas, I might devote some time to it.
... except that it didn't stretch the jpgs like it does in XP; it only centers them. I'm back at work so am not at the Vista machine at the moment. I can tell you it's an HP Pavilion dv6700, 1.83 GHz, Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5550 chipset but I haven't got the display driver details. It's a widescreen display, if that helps, whereas the dual monitors I run off the XP machine are not. LMK if you need more details and I'll provide them later when I'm able.
As for the PortableApps wallpaper switcher, I think yours would be far more preferable. For one, the PA version can only swap one image, and that image has to be a bitmap renamed to portableapps_wallpaper.bmp in the Documents\Pictures directory. Yours already handles multiple images, which is what I'm looking for (I run dual monitors at work, so it's nice to have a "slideshow" of wallpapers; and sorry I forgot to mention the dual monitors earlier; works so well that I didn't think of it as a relevant detail).
Features? The ones that come immediately to my mind are listed below, ranked by priority as I perceive it. Personally, I'd be happy with just the top five, at least to begin with. Some of these I'm not sure are even possible; just ideas.
- User's preference: use a single image, or randomize images, or loop through images
- For randomizing or looping, user selects display interval
- Both bmp and jpg images in same directory
- Use current image filenames
- User specifies directory or directories of images
- User chooses tile, stretch, or center images
- Show app in system tray so user can see that it's running and can use it to change options easily... or make options available in desktop right-click menu. (I see it does run in the system tray currently. Just wanted to note how to get to options.)
- If looping or randomizing, allow user to "pause" and "resume" (also does this already, from the system tray)
- If looping, user specifies sort order for images (ascending or descending by file name, by size, by date modified)
- Could limit number of images to... 100?
- Optional saturation/fade level of image display...? Sometimes boldly colored wallpapers make desktop shortcuts and icons difficult to see
- Option to display system clock on desktop (maybe can integrate an existing program)... would be cool to choose analog vs. digital format, and "embossed" into desktop image or displayed on top of it
I've been unable to find anything online that does this, especially not GPL open source portables. I've seen suggestions for ways to get some existing programs to run portably, but am not convinced they are entirely portable, and they only support Windows up to XP. I'd like to be certain that what I'm running is not only designed to run portably, but supports at least Windows XP and Vista, if not earlier versions. That's why I'm convinced you're onto something with this little program... it would fill a niche.
Cheers!
---Fox
Wow, that's a lot to chew on
Only things I see a problem with -
1. tile / stretch / center - not sure how to change that yet. It's not in the SystemParametersInfo() function, so i'm guessing it's a registry setting.
2. image saturation / fade / level - i'm very basic with GDI+ functions, so any image manipulation is not gonna happen. Some kind of fading would require not changing the wallpaper, but creating a fake GUI to cover the dekstop and setting the image to that. Then I have to make clicks go through. That's a totally different concept from what I've got here, I'm afraid.
3. system clock - again, would require some advanced GUI manipulation and really is another program altogether.
Nice suggestions though. Your top 5 should be easy to do. I'll keep this in mind for my next project. I'm just about ready to release ArkeType, so it could be soonish.
Those other items really aren't important anyway. (I have to confess I thought you had a handle on #1, because it was stretching my images... until I realized it's probably just using my local setting. LOL. However, my local setting on Vista is stretched, not centered... I think. I dislike the look of centered wallpapers, so I'd never let it remain set that way; and the default wallpaper is stretched. But I will double-check that setting.)
I guess that one other thought I just had might be equally difficult to achieve: to temporarily change the text size and color of desktop shortcuts, overriding the local settings. This seemed it might work better/more easily than trying to fade the image, for making the shortcuts easier to see.
(I had wondered if fading the image might have to involve altering a temporary copy of the file using an image editor, because not even the Windows system allows the user to alter the wallpaper display, only to choose which image is displayed. In that case, altering a copy for display would use too many resources, and actually require an embedded image editor because there's no telling what any given user might have access to. So I pretty much expected that idea to not happen.)
Cheers!
---Fox
To add on to what has already been said...
example:(the actual, rounded numbers are used)- venom.jpg ~300 KB
- venom.bmp ~1.2 MB !!
- venom.7z ~560 KB
If zipped I can save a ton of space for large "HD" pictures.
self.path = path if self.path == None else self.path
... except number 4, which is a great idea, especially considering users would naturally keep the images on portable devices. I'll vote for that! Apparently we think alike on the other suggestions.
Cheers!
---Fox
You've found your own solution for #1, just use the JPGs. Vista is the only OS that natively supports JPGs for wallpaper. XP and below convert the JPGs to BMPs first, then set the wallpaper. Since the JPG is smaller than even the archived BMP, just use that. My program will convert it to a BMP first on XP and below.
Incidentally, I've recently figured out how to resize pictures. So I'm thinking about resizing the images to the native desktop resolution first, to avoid any centering / stretching issues.
Re: desktop shortcuts. I'm pretty sure this would involve changing the system wide fonts and colors. This program is not intended to go this far I'm afraid. Someone else suggested a program to take portable OS settings with you, but I don't want to get myself that deep into a project like that right now.
I keep forgetting the complications Vista introduced in user profiles... I don't know how it works, but under my personal account it was using the system default wallpaper, even though on my account the wallpaper was set to center. I changed that to stretch and the jpgs look fine now.
So that's only going to be a concern if people want to override the local setting temporarily, instead of changing the local setting.
In the meantime, I'm using the tester version and just pausing on an image I like; removing the pause to change to another one; and getting along just fine. But I do look forward to development on this project!
Cheers!
---Fox
Put it in PAF format and stick on a Dev test number, and we can add it to the development list.
Simplifying daily life through technology
Heh, all in due time. Development on this starts after I get a version of ArkeType released (very soon), get a PAF friendly version going, and do my EDT modifications.
I just realized, the menu HAS a built in wall paper switcher. (It could be a bit more straight foward though)
Simplifying daily life through technology
... see my earlier post about its limitations and about why I think this new app would be very useful.
Cheers!
---Fox
I'm a P Start user and need something that's menu independent.
self.path = path if self.path == None else self.path
... that someone at work noticed my wallpapers changed during the day (I just run the app and pause it on an image I want; I've got maybe thirty now in the jpg folder!) and I showed them your little tester app. They wanted it... and I've had eight or nine other people coming and asking for a copy since then, so apparently the word is out here at work. I am careful to let them know it's just a little tester and that they need to rename the images, but they're having fun with it anyway, as am I.
(The individual who was most excited about it is a new grandmother. She's very happy to be able to choose and change wallpapers so easily.)
Cheers!
---Fox
no download.
I just tried it, and instead of a download starting, I got sent to the nascent website and the browser screen filled with iconic junk, like diamonds with question marks in them, bullets, etc.
Like this: 7z��'�t��id�����$�������I�3m���`�", A��
Tried it again, still the same. At the bottom of the page, it says "Done"
Don't be an uberPr∅. They are stinky.
It works for me at the moment.
@foxcole
Haha, nice.
I'm working on the new version now. First release will be INI driven.
to save it. I was expecting a regular download.
Don't be an uberPr∅. They are stinky.
Left clicking brings up the download as normal for me. Maybe a browser issue with the .7z file (mime type thing)? Server hiccup? Dunno. Works on IE and FF3 for me.
I got the page of gibberish as well.
EDIT: BMP's and JPG's both worked fine on XP Home SP2, and Vista Business SP1.
It's got to be a .7z or mime type thing then. Next versions I'll just do a regular .zip. In the mean time just right-click, saveas.
First major release is out. I think I got all the big feature requests in there. Settings GUI will be in a later version.
Vista Home Premium (where the tester version worked just fine)
I thought at first this would use a single directory for images, as that was one of the requested features and the download only contains one folder named "Source" (image source?). So I copied the original (not renamed) image files into there... but got the error "No files found. Exiting..." (though it doesn't exit until I click OK).
Figuring it might be a filename issue, I deleted the original files and copied the renamed images instead. Same error.
So, I copied the two folders bmp and jpg from the test version, so the app directory now contained three folders, and tried again. Same error.
Where is it looking for images and what do I need to do to get this running?
EDIT -- Oh. :oops: Of course after asking that, NOW I see the note that everything is documented in the .ini and I need to manually configure that. Sorry!
Cheers!
---Fox
Oh, this is incredibly cool!!! I now have it pointing to three folders containing images, for ten seconds per image, looking for bmp, png, gif and jpg. It's awesome!
What I like also is the ability to specify different folders of images, so I've set up themed folders and in the .ini typed in various folder selections that I can comment out or uncomment, so it's easy enough to pick whatever I feel like looking at for the day.
Very cool!! Very nice job! Thanks!!!!
Cheers!
---Fox
I recommend making the tray menu show on right click instead of left click. Right clicking seems more natural to me.
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
Me too :).
Some command line parameters would be nice. For example, "-q" to exit the application.
Wanna script it, huh? I'll see what I can do. If I'm doing one commandline thingy, what else would you like to see available? Basically it'll launch a second instance that will just send a windows message to the running instance. So once I create the framework for it, it's a matter of adding more messages. Might as well do it all at once.
How about setting a specific wallpaper and style by commandline, with relative path of course.
Pretty nice, working well.
Glad it's working. I've updated to Dev Test specs with a PAF installer. It will prompt you on your first run to configure the INI and tell you to restart the launcher when you're done, then it will exit.
wraithdu, you don't happen to know any delphi do you? If you did I know of a really great freeware skinnable wallpaper changer project that you could take over. It's called Quickchanger, the developer told me the other day he'd be willing to give someone the source that he has left. Some of it was lost in a HD crash. He just doesn't have the time to work on it anymore
Unfortunately the skinning engine he used isn't OSS, so it couldn't be an official app here. It is a great app though, I still use the last released version on my home PC.
Sorry. Delphi is something I want to learn, but haven't started yet. I'll keep this in mind down the road if I get good enough, but somehow I doubt that will be anytime soon.
I think I'm going to finally try and get started after I get this next version out - will have an options GUI and a nice thumbnail view selection window for manual switching.
Ok, well I'll probably still try to get someone to take over this project. Just getting a launcher for the last released version would be great.
It has a skinnable interface, that the skinner can decide how many preview panes to show. Here is a skin I ported for it http://dragonmage.deviantart.com/art/Sputnik-QC-212917 The filters is the coolest part about it. You can apply different filters to smooth jagged edges on the wallpaper. It also has a scaled style, in addition to center, stretch, tile, which expands the image until it hits the screen resolution limit, but maintains the aspect ratio, so it doesn't distort.
I'd like to request a way to exit the program using the command-line. Also, if for some reason the programs exists unexpectedly (lets say you kill it from the task manager), then the wallpaper will not change to the original and it will keep a folder (the name begins with ~) in the TEMP folder with the wallpaper that was displayed in it, and if you happen to run the program again, it will think that whatever wallpaper was left behind IS the original one. A few months back I was working on a script to change the wallpaper, and the way I decided to solve this was to get the computer name, user name and date, and if any of the three changed, it will read the information of the original wallpaper, if not, it will keep whatever information was already saved.
"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." -- Robert Frost
"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: baby ain't mine." -- Adam Holguin
We really shouldn't be killing things from Task Manager unless absolutely necessary, now should we? Same thing as using most of the NSIS CloseProcess type commands, it's bad karma. At one point I wrote a PoliteClose function that requests an app to close the right way for this point. Killing an app doesn't give it the opportunity to close correctly, causing problems (as you noted).
Commandline support is coming, just exit via commandline has been requested so far. I'll consider how to handle the "crash" scenario as well.
EDIT - yeah, ${CloseProcess} in my ProcFunc.nsh header.
I haven't had much time to work on this for a while, but I've had this update just sitting there. I thought I should release it since I really like the selection box feature. The settings GUI and commandline are not implemented yet.
Would it be possible to get this to close via a command? I use an eject script with PStart to dismount and eject. It'd be nice if I could have this start with PStart, then use my eject script to shut it down.
(I know there are other ways to do this, just thought it might be a nice feature built-in)
I've had this requested for several of my apps...it's not too hard to implement. I'll post an update when it's done.
Just want you folks to know I installed it on a new set of computers and it still works great!
Any other development on it?
Don't be an uberPr∅. They are stinky.
Not lately. I'm glad to know it's still useful though. I will eventually get some commandline implemented to support closing the app via script.
Updated to v1.0.2.5. Added an "exit" commandline argument, and some crash recovery support. The original settings are saved to the registry and removed after a proper exit of the app. Restarting after a crash will preserve the original settings, so everything will go back to normal after exiting.
Thanks, I've just discovered the latest version, quite nice, especially the new "exit" command-line argument.
Why still in beta, anyways?
Very few original apps have made it to official PApps releases. I'm like Google, forever beta
At least it's out there.
See first post for details.
wraithdu,
the DisableSplashScreen setting in the INI doesn't seem to be working - I've tried setting it to both "true" and "True", and neither one works. The INI is, of course, located beside WallpaperSwitcherPortable.exe
There really shouldn't be a splash screen at all, honestly (I was just going to complain about this, actually). wraithdu, we both know this is never going to be an official PA.c app, so why not ditch the splash screen entirely? PFA doesn't have one either, after all.
/me votes for wraithdu making his own splash screen.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
Nah, a splash screen seems like too much bloat for an app that doesn't even display a window, just a tray icon. Also I have WallpaperSwitcher and PFA both set to start with the Platform; seeing a series of splashes every time I ran the Platform would be annoying.
My bad, I changed the app "name" and forgot to fix the INI setting. Until I release an update, change the INI file name to 'WallpaperSwitcher.ini' and the section name inside the file to '[WallpaperSwitcher]'.
You guys really think I should remove the splash? I have no problem with that, just figured the PA.c spec nazis would complain. Eh, who am I kidding, I don't care what they say. Next update will have the splash removed.
The PAF spec makes no mention of "splash screen" or even "splash" anywhere in the document. Most official apps have one, but I don't think it's strictly necessary. Heck, Google Chrome Portable doesn't have one either.
I'll update tomorrow morningish while I'm at work... not working. Might just pull all splashes from my apps in their next updates too.
remember the issue that was had with autoclose? May I suggest switching it to the 1 pixel by 1 pixel that shows for 0 seconds?
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
This particular launcher runs and exits, no ExecWait, so it's not an issue. But thanks for the reminder, I'll keep it in mind on my other ones.
no problem
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
See first post for details.
One thing I've noticed, is that when you switch wallpapers or use the slideshow feature in Windows 7 (and possibly Vista, but I haven't used Vista in forever so I don't remember) and Aero is enabled, it fades smoothly from the old wallpaper to the new one, so as not to distract you. Any possibility WallpaperSwitcher could change the background in such a way as to trigger Windows' built-in fade to occur?
My app uses the SystemParametersInfo API with the SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER flag. I don't know how Windows does it, but I assume it uses DWM (the Desktop Window Manager) somehow. If you can find out how this is done, I can try to implement it.
Hmm. There doesn't seem to be an API to trigger the fade. Oh well.
However I did find a bug: If you have a slideshow set as your background in Win7, when WallpaperSwitcher quits and reverts the original settings, it sets the background back to a single image--whatever image the slideshow was displaying last.
We have the same issue with the built-in wallpaper swapper on the PortableApps.com Platform. I don't know that there's a workaround for the bug though as there doesn't appear to be an API to re-enable it. Anyone know of one?
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I spent today researching drawing to the desktop... to no avail. Damn waste of time.
I'll start researching the slide show thing tomorrow.
I investigated a bit more, and I don't think I can do it. I wanted to try and create my own window or draw the transition myself, but the main problems are 1) I cannot draw behind the desktop icons, 2) in my test it took 1/3 of a second to draw the transparent image over the desktop... 3 fps is just BAAAADDDD animation.
Yeah, I can live without the fade effect, but any chance you could fix the bug I mentioned above?
Love this
I want to play with the code, but missing the following files when I try to compile ...
Can you please tell me where I can find these and any other dependencies?
I'm using AutoIT 3.3.6.1 with the customized SciTE 1.79 (both latest currently)
Great, very cool
Thanks
If it's possible, I've a suggestion ...
In the ini, for "style", a fourth possibility : stretch by keeping the height/width ratio...
hoping that you can consider this,
cordially
Recently, both AVG and McAfee started to indicate that WallpaperSwitcher.exe contains a virus. I've tried at VirusTotal, four out of the many engines alerts several - presumably false - alarms.
It is possible to do something with this issue? Or, would You mind to release the source code?
I've recompiled and added the missing includes. Outside of that, this is a PApps release, so the source is always in the Other\Source directory.
Thanks for the update!
Is broken for me. Anyone else having this problem? I just end up with 0 kb files. DL'd from a couple places no luck.
I just tried from here at work and it downloaded correctly.
It's the antivirus here blowing it away. Explains much.
For some unknown reason the zip file is now password protected. The password is in the filename of the zip but as Windows tends to truncate long filenames few will see it. The password is zer0dev but as I've already said what's the point in password protecting the zip file?
It's only me.
Аvoids being flagged as malware by (lower quality) AV programs during downloads. Simple solution, also helps the author not get into trouble with his web-hoster (IIRC, his hoster is also using a crappy AV)
My posts are old and likely no longer relevant.
If the AV is going to flag it as a virus it will do so once the file is extracted anyway so makes no difference.
It's only me.
It will not do so during download, which would make it impossible for some users to even get the program. Say for example, if you're downloading from work / school / some other public computer with a crappy AV, you would never get the chance to save this file in the first place. Another point is his web-hoster's "second rate" AV which has in the past falsely flagged AutoIt apps as malware.
AV providers often fix their mistakes once they get reported, but even so it still damages reputation of legit (AutoIt) programmers.
https://portableapps.com/node/15583?page=3#comment-172765
My posts are old and likely no longer relevant.