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Idea #7832: Animated Wallpaper (video, gif, mng, webcam, ...)

bug This idea is a duplicate of Idea #406: Animated Desktop.
Written by krs the 29 Apr 08 at 14:18. Category: Look and Feel. Related project: Nothing/Others. Status: New
Rationale
Allow to use a video file as a wallpaper.

Or to use the webcam image as a wallpaper. (wallpaper will act as a mirror, or if you put your webcam on front of your windows you can have great live view )

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102
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Solution #1: Auto-generated solution of idea #7832
Written by krs the 29 Apr 08 at 14:18.
Ubuntu Brainstorm was updated in January 2009. Since the idea #7832 was submitted before this update, its rationale and solution are not separated. Please vote accordingly, and if you have the necessary rights, please separate the rationale from the solution. Thanks!

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Comments
tbrminsanity wrote on the 29 Apr 08 at 16:14
This would be sooo cool if it was done. I don't think any other OS does anything like this as well.

pturing wrote on the 29 Apr 08 at 17:18

Actually, you can have just about any program run as your desktop background, if you are willing to give up having the file browser icons there

See this post on disabling the file browser icons
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=171244&postcount=3


Then, you can use mplayer to loop a video (or animated gif) in the "root window"

mplayer -nosound -loop 0 -fixed-vo -wid 0 YOUR_GIF_OR_VIDEO

yochaigal wrote on the 29 Apr 08 at 18:29
Check this out.


http://www.ubuntu-unleashed.com/2008/04/howto-loop-movie-or-video-as-desktop.ht ml

I wrote a little bash script that made things a bit easier; but if some kind soul could just write up a python-gui for it that would be Sweeet. Then we could talk about including it by default!

Grayfell wrote on the 29 Apr 08 at 18:44
The possibilities are tantalizing. This would be easy to go overboard on, but with a little restraint could add a huge amount of 'wow' factor to the desktop.

daisy.code wrote on the 29 Apr 08 at 19:13
with xwinwrap the video is made transparent using AIGLX or whatever. This has one side effect; you can't use the icons. Nautilus needs to be extended/rewritten to support this.

Dudes, KDE/Blackbox/twm & Afterstep can support running executables or videos as backgrounds! How depressing is that?

loveandequalityforall wrote on the 29 Apr 08 at 20:05
it looks like is not possible!

Redrazor39 wrote on the 29 Apr 08 at 22:57
That would be so cool


Video, Picture, Webcam, More!

sf_007 wrote on the 29 Apr 08 at 23:29
excellent idea, it may be possible right now, but not in an easy way...

Auzy wrote on the 30 Apr 08 at 04:06
Actually, Vista has had this for ages now (its called dreamscapes).

Go to youtube and watch the dreamscape videos (I run vista and it actually looks really cool).

So +1

fazillatheef wrote on the 30 Apr 08 at 06:04
it is not a feature that ubuntu needs right now (somethings need more attention)

ubuntu is meant as a linux distribution for humanity(this includes people using old computers). It is good to have eye candy and desktop effects to some extent,but after sometime these effects can be boring.And some of these effect the functionality of the computer. I do belive there are some things like scale plugin in compiz etc.. have really good functionality.But there are some features that exaggerate eye candy like paint fire.

Compiz itself consumes lot of energy on laptops,thereby reducing battery backup.And I think compiz need to be optimized to give good battery backup.Then only we can think of these effects


Mårten Woxberg wrote on the 30 Apr 08 at 13:57
This is the most useless feature that comes with Windows Vista.

I tried it a few times but I always go back to using a static background. Your eyes will detract to the constantly moving background and you will have a harder time concentrating and thus be less productive.


ethana2 wrote on the 30 Apr 08 at 23:38
People don't realize how handy it would be to simply be able to use a laptop as a mirror.

Right now I'm using my desktop to display my ~/, but I usually just keep it turned off. If I want to see my files, I'll open something via Places. Playing a video from, say, diatonis, as a desktop background, should be as easy as setting an image or a gradient.

Right click. Change Desktop background. Select a video. That's it.

+1 (only because it's all I have..)

larryfroot wrote on the 2 May 08 at 00:13
If some users can run it then go for it as one of the options available to the user. Something should be done about nautilus being the only app that 'draws' desktop icons, though.

Infinity_ wrote on the 11 Jun 08 at 20:37
Anybody here played Warcraft 3 & Frozen Throne? I love the 3D theme of the game menu, rain dropping, snow falling, water waving, clouds moving and small bugs flying.

http://us.blizzard.com/support/images/articles/en_us/Networking/linksys/ss1.jpg

I think it's not too distracting and somehow more comfortable for eyes than static picture.

I'd be cool to have some 3D theme wallpapers on Ubuntu, to have a green forest swaying in the wind or something like that.


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