Random Wallpapers Script

Hello,
i'm a beginner. Can you tell me the name of file extension ?
thanks for this one,

hello fouck,
you only have to make the file you save the text to "executable". you can do it in the filemanager if you select the information/properties window of the file or you can use the terminal. In the terminal you have to type

cd the/folder/where/the/script/is
chmod +x script_name

obviously replace the names accordingly in the above. "cd" means "change directory" and will just do that (like clicking in a filemanager) and "chmod" means "change mode" and "+x" means "make this file executable" (or "add the right to execute this")
have fun.

@sunjack

(from here)
so it seems this does not hold for scripts
you could put some quotes around the dir and file names just in case you ever drop a file with a space in there.

there was an error when running ur script please help:
./script: line 18:feh :command not found

or you could do it without feh using corenominals favorite wallpaper manager (?)

just replace

feh --bg-fill "${Dir%/}/${RandomFile}"

with

nitrogen --set-auto "$Dir"/"$RandomFile"

Last edited by ali (2011-06-09 05:31:21)

the original doesn't seam to check recursively, i modified it a little so it does what you asked for (i hope he doesn't mind)

#!/bin/bash

Dir="/home/ali/.backgrounds/"

if [ ! -d "$Dir" ]; then 
    echo "Not Exist $Dir"
    exit 1
fi

SetBG () {
while IFS= read -rd '' file; do list+=("$file"); done < <(find "$Dir" ! -type d -print0)
TotalFiles=${#list[@]}
RandomNumber=$(( $RANDOM % $TotalFiles ))
test ! $RandomNumber = 0 || RandomNumber=1

RandomFile="${list[RandomNumber]}"

#echo "Selected File: $RandomFile"
feh --bg-fill "${RandomFile}"

}

while true; do
    SetBG
    sleep 20m
done

and yes, you will obviously have to start this process in the background every time you boot, best way to do it is to insert it in the autostart.sh (if you're on openbox, not sure where the autostart file is in xfce)

I replaced this

feh --bg-fill "${RandomFile}"

with

nitrogen --set-fill "$RandomFile"

I hope that's the setting for "zoomed fill" within nitrogen.  Also, I couldn't find the autostart.sh file within openbox.  Is there a way to insert it into conky to run at startup?

so I did some reading on the autostart.sh script, but I'm still unsure if I wrote the command correctly to execute the script.

exec /home/sunfizz98/bin/randomize_wallpaper.sh &

I was also wondering if there was a way to make this random wallpaper script to work for multiple users, rather than individualize them for each user.  I have all my wallpapers stored within dropbox. I would like to use a more flexible script within my dropbox folder and only have to edit the autostart.sh script to invoke them.

@ali
Your script works like a charm in openbox, but it seems to crash my conky and give me a black background in my xfce environment.  I thought it was just nitrogen so I tried out feh, but both give the same result.

Last edited by sunfizz98 (2011-08-27 22:22:41)

After the random_wallpaper script is executed, my desktop became a black wallpaper and the conky display disappeared.  Also, I would have to run conky again if I want it to be visible.

When I try to run this script, this happens:

dan@crunchbang:~$ sh .scripts/wallpaper.sh 
.scripts/wallpaper.sh: 24: arithmetic expression: expecting primary: "  % 17 "

Sigh. cron can be a real pain sometimes. I've modified the script:

#!/bin/bash

/bin/date >> /tmp/test1    # TO CHECK THE CRON JOB IS RUNNING

Dir="/home/XXX/images/wallpapers"

if [ ! -d "$Dir" ]; then
    echo "$Dir does not exist"
    exit 1
fi

SetBG () {
TotalFiles=$( ls -1 "$Dir" | grep jpg | wc -l )
RandomNumber=$(( $RANDOM % $TotalFiles ))
test ! $RandomNumber = 0 || RandomNumber=1

RandomFile="$( ls -1 $Dir | head -n $RandomNumber | tail -n 1)"

echo "$Dir"/"$RandomFile" >> /tmp/test1   # TO CHECK

/usr/bin/nitrogen --set-scaled "$Dir"/"$RandomFile"
}

SetBG

This is saved as ~/images/wallpapers/random.sh and is chmod to 744. If I run the script on it's own, the wallpaper changes.

I setup a new cron job:

*    *    *    *    *    /home/XXX/images/wallpapers/random.sh

And then tail the /tmp/test1 file. Every minute, the date and the full path and filename are appended to the file, so the script is running every minute. I've even inserted the path for nitrogen, but still the wallpaper will not change every minute.

Setting the wallpaper manually to "1.jpg" and then hard-coding the script (commenting out the existing nitrogen line and adding a new one) to set it to "2.jpg" also does not work. Adding the "--save" parameter to nitrogen also does not work. Clearly there is a trick to using nitrogen in cron...?

Last edited by SabreWolfy (2012-01-08 13:35:23)

^  Thanks! Just now found your thread on this ...

Edit: w00t! It works Thanks

Last edited by SabreWolfy (2012-01-08 13:41:10)