command line to change wallpaper

[Jasper Huijsmans]

Hey,

I'm taking this to xfce4-dev list now.

Op za 25-10-2003, om 09:36 schreef Biju Chacko:

> Wouldn't life be much simpler if xfdesktop's pseudo-root-window was transparent?
> Then everybody's favourite root pixmap changer would work. Is this practical?
> 

I don't think it's that simple, unfortunately. It would indeed be a very
nice solution. Luca can perhaps comment on this as well.

A gtk toplevel window can not be transparent, I think. For that you need
an input-only window, which is fine as long as you don't want to add
other widgets (icons) to it. Also, instead of an input-only window,
luca's solution of using the root window directly is just as easy,
either through gdk or using xlib directly.

I believe a gtk window can be useful for displaying icons on the
desktop, for minimized apps or app launchers, because you get
anti-aliased fonts and alpha-blending for free. Also, I think it is more
efficient than managing lots of toplevel shaped windows. I believe these
are the reasons rox, nautilus and kde use this approach.

Both rox 1.x and gmc (gnome 1.x) have used the shaped window approach
and are now using the desktop window. I haven't spend much time
investigating these issues, but there must be some good reasons for them
to make the change. I don't know if those reasons fully apply to us,
though.

	Jasper