bgswitch    

A small command line tool to change the desktop background settings on Haiku. It is possible to change the wallpaper, placement mode, offset/position, text outline, and background color. These settings can be changed for each individual workspace or all workspaces at once. This allows creating scripts that will rotate the background.

Build using cmake

This is the primary build system at the moment.

~> cd bgswitch
~/bgswitch> cmake .
~/bgswitch> make

Build using jam

You must have the jamfile_engine package installed.

~> cd bgswitch
~/bgswitch> jam

Help Output

Main help output (i.e. bgswitch -h):

Usage: bgswitch [--help] [--all] [--workspace VAR] [--verbose] [--debug] {clear,list,reset,set}

Get/Set workspace backgrounds

Optional arguments:
  -h, --help       shows help message and exits
  -a, --all        Modify all workspaces at once
  -w, --workspace  The workspace # to modify, otherwise use the current workspace
  -v, --verbose    Print extra output to screen
  -d, --debug      Print debugging output to screen

Subcommands:
  clear           Make background empty (same effect as: set -f "")
  list            List background information
  reset           Reset background to global default
  set             Set workspace background options

set command help output (i.e. bgswitch set -h):

Usage: set [--help] [--file VAR] [--mode VAR] [--text] [--notext] [--offset VAR...] [--color VAR...]

Set workspace background options

Optional arguments:
  -h, --help    shows help message and exits
  -f, --file    Path to the image file (ex. -f /path/to/file.jpg)
  -m, --mode    Placement mode 1=Manual/2=Center/3=Scale/4=Tile (ex. -m 3)
  -t, --text    Enable text outline
  -n, --notext  Disable text outline
  -o, --offset  X/Y offset in manual placement mode, separated by a space (ex. -o 200 400)
  -c, --color   Set background RGB color, separated by a space (ex. -c 20 100 255)

Specify one or more of the file/mode/text/offset options

Examples

Changing all workspaces:

bgswitch -a clear
bgswitch -a list
bgswitch -a reset

# setting a file
bgswitch -a set -f /path/to/file.jpg
# setting a file with scaled mode and text outline
bgswitch -a set -m 3 -t -f /path/to/file.jpg
# setting only the text outline mode on
bgswitch -a set -t

Changing a specific workspace (#2 in this case):

bgswitch -w 2 clear
bgswitch -w 2 list
bgswitch -w 2 reset

# setting a file
bgswitch -w 2 set -f /path/to/file.jpg
# setting a file with manual mode, no text outline, and offset
bgswitch -w 2 set -m 1 -n -o 600 400 -f /path/to/file.jpg
# setting only tiled placement mode
bgswitch -w 2 set -m 4

Changing the current workspace:

bgswitch clear
bgswitch list
bgswitch reset

# setting a file
bgswitch set -f /path/to/file.jpg
# setting a file in centered mode with text outline
bgswitch set -m 2 -t -f /path/to/file.jpg

Changing workspace 0:

Workspace 0 holds the global default settings. Any other workspaces which have not been customized will follow these defaults. Workspace 0 does not show up in the bgswitch -a list output unless the -v option is used. Specifying -w 0 is the only way to change these global defaults as they are not changed when using the -a option.

bgswitch -w 0 clear
bgswitch -w 0 list
bgswitch -v -w 0 list
bgswitch -v -a list

# setting a file
bgswitch -w 0 set -f /path/to/file.jpg
# setting manual placement mode with an offset of 0 0
bgswitch -w 0 set -m 1 -o 0 0

Note: Changing even one thing of a regular workspace will cause it to stop following the global defaults and keep its own settings until it is reset. (Color is handled differently by the system and not included in this)