DeskChanger

DeskChanger is a gnome-shell wallpaper slideshow extension with multiple profile support. The extension allows you to switch profiles on the fly without reloading the extension. The service runner will also stay running when the lock screen is active, allowing wallpaper changes to still happen at specific times or intervals.

Screenshots

Requirements

The requirements are for the most recent version of the plugin. Previous releases support older versions of gnome-shell.

• gnome-shell 45 or higher
• gnome-extensions app for installing the zip
• For development requirements see CONTRIBUTING.md

Install

Download a release zip file from the releases page which will be named desk-changer@eric.gach.gmail.com-version-##.zip Do NOT download the Source Code archives as they contain source code and not the compiled files that are ready to install. Once the file is downloaded, you can use gnome-extensions app to install the zip.

gnome-extensions install ~/Downloads/desk-changer@eric.gach.gmail.com-version-##.zip

Once the install completes, restart gnome-shell and enable the extension. Use the preferences to add more profiles and wallpapers. The default profile provided by the extension will recursively load the /usr/share/backgrounds folder with rotation enabled for every 30 minutes.

Uninstall

To fully remove the extension you can use gnome-extensions with the uninstall option. You do not have to have a copy of the ZIP file to run this command.

gnome-extensions uninstall desk-changer@eric.gach.gmail.com

This should completely remove the extension and the icon from your gnome-shell panel if the extension was enabled.

General Information

Daemon

The daemon is now part of the extension itself and has no command line interface. The only interface available to the daemon now is the DBus interface.

DBUS Interface

IMPORTANT - The DBUS Interface has changed since version 36 of the extension

The DBUS Interface name was previously org.gnome.Shell.Extensions.DeskChanger.Daemon since it ran as an external program separate from the extension. Now everything is part of the extension and there is not an external daemon. This is reflected in the new name of the service org.gnome.Shell.Extensions.DeskChanger.Service

The DBus interface is available for interaction with the service itself. The interface exposes most of the service runner as well as read only properties for pulling information from the service and current profile. There are also signals available for specific events within the service.

Name: org.gnome.Shell.Extensions.DeskChanger.Service

Path: /org/gnome/Shell/Extensions/DeskChanger/Service

Methods

• Load(String profile) Loads the specified profile and respective locations
• Next() Switches to the next wallpaper, returns the uri
• Prev() Switches to the previous wallpaper, returns the uri
• Restart() Automatically issues a Stop/Start, service must be running
• Start() Enables automatic rotation and makes the service available
• Stop() Disables automatic rotation and makes the service unavailable for use.

Properties

• GameMode - Read only boolean value if GameMode is detected and enabled
• History - Read only array of history
• Preview - Read only URI of the next wallpaper
• Queue - Read only array of the queue
• Running - Read only boolean value if the daemon is stopped or started

Signals

• Changed - Emitted when the wallpaper is changed, uri to wallpaper file
• Start - Emitted when the service is started
• Stop - Emitted when the service is stopped

dconf-editor

To view the settings in dconf-editor, just use the GSETTINGS_SCHEMA_DIR= environment variable to open dconf-editor with the extensions schema available to the editor.

GSETTINGS_SCHEMA_DIR=~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/desk-changer@eric.gach.gmail.com/schemas/ dconf-editor /org/gnome/shell/extensions/desk-changer

This should automatically navigate to /org/gnome/shell/extensions/desk-changer and you will see all of the available settings for the extension.