[Nautilus-list] Desktop Wallpaper Changer

[Ryan Boder <boder cmu edu>]

A friend pointed me to this todo, which is similar to a project I wanted
to do. I tried to email the contact but it was returned. So I figure,
I'll send it to the mailing list and see what everyone says.

http://www.gnome.org/todo/view.php3?id=72

Hi,

I saw this todo in gnome and I want to pitch an idea I have.

What is suggests is to cycle through a list of background images, the
way KDE does right now. That's nice and all but not really interesting.

I am one of those guys who talks everyone I know into using Linux, and
ends up administrating for them when something in Gnome is not as user
friendly as in Windows (I hate to admit it but it's true in many cases).
Out of this I also get a good deal of non-biased usability testing from
people who don't know squat about computers.

For the KDE users I am administrating, none of them use the background
changing capability, because they still have to find decent images, save
them (and name them) in the file system, and then configure KDE to use
them.

On the other hand, I look at Windows users who use a program called
Webshots. They love it. Not only do they use it, but they are willing to
install a new program just to use it. It's very easy, just a couple
clicks to do it all.

What I suggest is to design something like that which is built into
nautilus. It has the ability to the following...

1. Display a single image as the background (like it works right now)

2. Cycle through images in the file system (like KDE does it)

3. Cycle through images on a background server

The interesting part is of course number 3. It allows users to pull
images from a background server. These images are catergorized by
channels. So Nautilus would be able to connect to a server, and each
server would support a number of channels (dogs, cats, gnome, ximian,
horses, fish, etc.). The user can easily choose which channels on that
server to subscribe to, and then their background would be updated with
new images as the server supplies them.

The advantages of this are,

1. The user does not have to waste time looking for nice images.

2. The user does not have to name them in a file system (that is a big
deal for many non-computer geeks).

3. The images are verified by the service provider so they all look
nice.

4. It gives companies like ximian another way to provide useful service
to gnome users, possibly generating more money for gnome and nautilus.
It would be the service providers job to supply new images daily or
weekly or something and the user would never have to touch it unless
they wanted to change channels.

I have been wanting to do this on my own as a gnome applet, but after
seeing your todo, I think, why not build it into nautilus?

It would use ORBit for networking so that exceptions would be handled to
keep it from crashing natilus. All in all, I think it would be a small
addition to nautilus that would make a big difference in the user
experience.

Plus I have been looking for a way to contribute to Gnome and this is
how I could do it.

What do you think?

Ryan Boder