Cool Desktop Wallpaper Tricks To Try Out?

danielwang · Post by **danielwang** » Sun Aug 03, 2003 1:20 pm

If you're reading this topic, you most likely have set your desktop wallpaper.
But a static desktop wallpaper?
Well, you may be thinking, "KDE and OS X have multiple wallpaper functions and Windows doesn't, so KDE and OS X wallpaper

system is better".
But you might not know about a feature called "Active Desktop" that makes the Windows desktop *infinitely* more flexible than

others.

You can use Active Desktop with any system function you want (\\UNCPath, res://dll.dll, etc), but the most common way is to

use HTML. Well, what does that get me? You can now run plugins, scripts, and even Active$eX I mean ActiveX viruses in your

wallpaper! I will be posting the shell files that Windows .NET Gundam ships with in a moment, here are fewtags you can use to

build your own:

Dynamic Wallpaper with Macromedia Flash:
Build a Flash file with the animation you want, say layered images, etc, and select Publish. Add the CSS code to remove the

margins and set height and width to 100% or resolution (usually 1024 by 768 et al unless widescreen). Export with option

"Full Document Size" (always overlap to prevent white margins) and set the HTML page as your wallpaper. Windows can find

theme from C:\%WINDIR%\Web\Wallpaper, or in the case of Dot Net GUndam, /usr/share/wallpaper and ~/Wallpaper.
You can add Calendars, etc, using Flash Components. Even ActionScript. I find this the best option.

Movies on Your Desktop with Windows Media Player:
Use a EMBED OBJECT tag to set up the Windows Media player in a HTML file. Make sure the path is absolute, use the Width

Height NoControls (otpional) Fullscreen attributes to set this up fullscreen. Point this to a stream or absolute file, for

stream set Persistent Connect, timeout never, retry 30 seconds and failsafe to wallpaper... for file set loop or send to a

looping playlist. Using Quicktime ActiveX etc is not recommended.
Please note, you can also use Flash to embed the movie or symlink to it (export without Self Contained option).

Fading Wallpaper and Scripts:
Usually use Macromedia Flash to do dynamically generated wallpaper, but VBScript (Java is lame) can als do image

manipulation. The problem with JavaScript, it has a stupid security model that can't tell that it is running locally and then

turn off restrictions - if MS code is running from "Local Computer" zone it can read files. So do whatever you want.

Web Pages:
If the web page is not saved from IE, use an IFRAME tag to send over to the webpage. Expand it and set a background color and

image to watch until page loaded. These types of setups are recommended only for intranet or always-connected boxes.

Hints:
Right click defaults to the page. Make sure right clicking won't do anything weird (use third party Flash player) and use the

Windows Control Panel to change wallpapers (under "Display"). Flash: don't use Drag functions to do custom cursor, do Follow

or you'll be stuck interacting with the Flash file. Don't "Lock Web Items On Desktop" for locking the icons and links,

disable interaction through the page if you want that, and if you want to lock icons, remove them and put them in the page.

I have plans to hide my icons and taskbar, then use a Flash file with dynamically generated movies from A**le wallpaper and

ActionScript to disguise my PC as a M*c... just add a 0% alpha button to the bottom and on mouse over script a movie which

contains a 70% alpha symbol blue box and buttons. Fun... until they discover the applications that come up are Windows Dot

Net Gundam with a Mac OS X Skin...

Never mind that, I'm probably going to get lynched by M*c fanatics for that trick, so I mgiht as well stick to dynamically

generated "Dot Hack" starfield effects with anime characters walking floating and flying past the screen. The Dot Hack

starfield should be simple... several transparent gradient cloudy layers in rainbow color, move each in a different direction

. Should take only a few years to complete.

Daniel Wang

P.S. Publishing example Flash file soon (today?) !

danielwang · Post by **danielwang** » Sun Aug 03, 2003 2:05 pm

I apologize for the hasty, half-baked report and the document layout. It looked good in Preview, until I realized I had forced carraige returns...

Having a few problems with Right Click Suppression, locking web items on the Desktop without ghastly pixelated shadows, and of course putting in the virus. But otherwise, expect the wallpaper demos to be up soon.

First, I'll try various KDE and RPG wallpapers with sliding effects; then I'll try to isolate characters against a starry background and slide multiple characters... or I'll just go with white and add "Switch" quotes.

Perhaps I will be lynched by both the M*c and Windows fanatics now that I have Dot Net wallpaper on my Slackware boxes and KDE wallpaper on my Dot Net boxes. Oh well!

Propyro · Post by **Propyro** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 8:36 pm

/fin

AznRAVEr1022 · Post by **AznRAVEr1022** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 9:40 pm

You shouldn't say lynched... that's a bad word.

Roke · Post by **Roke** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 9:40 pm

I wish I had a WTF mug...