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Idea #22516: Synchronize desktop wallpaper with xsplash background

Written by phrizek the 17 Nov 09 at 17:51. Category: Look and Feel. Related project: Nothing/Others. Status: New
Rationale
Once you change your wallpaper on on your desktop, the overall look and feel of ubuntu becomes inconsistent when it concerns the xsplash background and the user's desktop. This leaves the user to find hacks and workarounds to make their desktop theme consistent.

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Solution #1: Make a checkbox to easily synchronize desktop wallpaper with xsplash background
Written by phrizek the 17 Nov 09 at 17:51.
Take a look at this script here:
http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/desktop+background+as+xsplash+%2B+gd m?content=114984&PHPSESSID=183f5f0adfa276aa6310278b4caa0979

It enables you to change the xsplash background to automatically match your current desktop wallpaper. It would be fantastic if Lucid Lynx had a similar feature installed by default. There could be a checkbox in Appearance Preferences under the background tab that allows you to quickly enable or disable this feature. Having such a feature would not only make ubuntu feel more personal, but would give a more consistent desktop appearance as well, from splash to desktop.

This feature could be disabled by default and left up to the user to enable.
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Solution #2: Make another tab where the user can select a xsplash background
Written by Peter-Alexander the 24 Nov 09 at 01:20.
The comments are good and I like the idea of changing the splash screen so the easiest would be a new feature:
The user can customize the splash screen.

Benefits:
- the user would know the image he has set.
- the contents of the tab can be greyed out and need to be unlocked which is only possible via permissions and can be locked by root for multiuser systems.
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Solution #3: default setup review
Written by Cypher2 the 24 Nov 09 at 04:30.
..or at least make the initial default load of xsplash and default background the same as in Xubuntu 9.10...

that's a major plus in terms of uniformity...

BUT... if we are to reach the 10 second boot.. xsplash really needs to go! (I have disabled it to speed up the X startup process)

AND MAKE THE USPLASH THROB DAMMIT!!!
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Solution #4: Perhaps xsplash do not waste to much memory...
Written by heru.htl the 24 Nov 09 at 09:40.
Some users just annoyed when xsplash just load to heavy and sometime just crash with some incompatible VGA drivers... perhaps there is a solution to make it faster and lightweight... no more memory exhausted and no more conflicting with hardware...
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Solution #5: solution 2 + an option to change xsplash gtk & icon theme too
Written by daas88 the 29 Nov 09 at 22:27.
Xsplash uses by default humanlogin theme, with elementary login icons, and it looks very nice like that, but it would be nice if that was easily customizable. I guess all this should go on a separate tab inside gdm settings, just like the old gdm.
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Solution #6: Integrate XSplash Background Settings with Star-up Manager
Written by misku the 25 Jan 10 at 15:15.
Integrate XSplash Background Settings with Star-up Manager. Link to XSplash Background Settings you can find in Solution #1.

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Comments
Darwin Survivor (Brainstorm moderator) wrote on the 17 Nov 09 at 21:08
Each user can have their own wallpaper, and each DE (gnome/kde/xfce) they use will have yet ANOTHER, how do you decide which to use?

phrizek wrote on the 17 Nov 09 at 21:23
Of course this could be a little tricky for multiple-user systems. Maybe a message pops up that lets you know that another user already set a background, or perhaps the checkbox would be grayed out for users without administrator privileges. As for other DEs, I hadn't really thought of that. This would be a feature for Ubuntu/Gnome. I don't think it would be that difficult to figure out for other DEs.

Shady3D wrote on the 18 Nov 09 at 05:13
lets just do it for single user account then figure out later a way to do it to multiple users

wil-m wrote on the 18 Nov 09 at 20:18
I installed it today in single user system and it works perfectly. In multiuser system it has to be a problem. But its a realy nice idea.

manuelciosici wrote on the 19 Nov 09 at 10:57
I think it would confuse new users. Showing the wallpaper will make the new users think that their computer is on already, but not being able to use the computer will frustrate users.

coolen wrote on the 20 Nov 09 at 06:25
I think the loading animation would kind of give them a clue that their computer is still loading...

However, I do not like this idea. It's a great hack, but Ubuntu is not meant to be a single-user system (whatever it may end up being).

futwick wrote on the 20 Nov 09 at 13:16
"Ubuntu is not meant to be a single-user system" but I would guess most installations of Ubuntu are single-user.

Can we maybe have this as an option when there is only one user account?

Dataphile wrote on the 22 Nov 09 at 19:29
I like this idea. It reduces the time to an environment which the user has direct control of (albeit not immediate), which I believe is an important perceptual benefit.

I'm sure most users would want this on single-user systems. On multi-user systems, I like phrizek's suggestion to gray out the selection except for administrators. If admins want to fight over the background, let them; one of them surely trumps the rest anyway.

Caveats:

If I remember right, there's already been a battle over showing the user a "desktop" before it was usable, though. We probably shouldn't reopen that discussion lightly.

Also, in the opposite direction... are the current xsplash artwork images available as background images in the default UI? If the user can override the system, seems like they ought to be able to restore it easily to the default from the OS/desktop environment.


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