Mac OS X Style Theme Windows Vista DreamScene Desktop Background Video - posted in Windows Customization: Mac OS X design and style lovers who want to convert to Mac OS X but unable to do so for some reason can now turn the Windows Vista into a Mac OS X lookalike machine instead. Mac OS X DreamScenes for Windows Vista has 9 full screen and 9 widescreen DreamScenes created from the. Mac OS X automatically manipulates how the background appears on your Desktop. If an image conforms to your screen resolution, fine — otherwise, click the drop-down list box next to the well and you can choose to. Tile the background. This repeats the image to cover the Desktop.

A wallpaper or background (also known as a desktop wallpaper, desktop background, desktop picture or desktop image on computers) is a digital image (photo, drawing etc.) used as a decorative background of a graphical user interface on the screen of a computer, smartphone or other electronic devices. On a computer, wallpapers are generally used on the desktop, while on a mobile phone they serve as the background for the home screen. Though most devices come with a default background image, modern devices usually allow users to manually change the background image.

The term 'wallpaper' was used in Microsoft Windows before Windows Vista (where it is called the 'desktop background'), while macOS refers to it as 'desktop picture'. On older systems which allowed small repeated patterns to be set as background images, the term desktop pattern was used.

History[edit]

The X Window System was one of the earliest systems to include support for an arbitrary image as wallpaper via the xsetroot program, which at least as early as the X10R3 release in 1985 could tile the screen with any solid color or any binary-imageX BitMap file. In 1989, a free software program called xgifroot was released that allowed an arbitrary color GIF image to be used as wallpaper, and in the same year the free xloadimage program was released which could display a variety of image formats (including color images in Sun Rasterfile format) as the desktop background. Subsequently, a number of programs were released that added wallpaper support for additional image formats and other features, such as the xpmroot program (released in 1993 as part of fvwm) and the xv software (released in 1994).

The original Macintosh operating system only allowed a selection of 8×8-pixel binary-image tiled patterns; the ability to use small color patterns was added in System 5 in 1987.^[1]MacOS 8 in 1997 was the first Macintosh version to include built-in support for using arbitrary images as desktop pictures, rather than small repeating patterns.^[2]

Windows 3.0 in 1990 was the first version of Microsoft Windows to come with support for wallpaper customization, and used the term 'wallpaper' for this feature.^[3] Although Windows 3.0 only came with 7 small patterns (2 black-and-white and 5 16-color), the user could supply other images in the BMP file format with up to 8-bit color (although the system was theoretically capable of handling 24-bit color images, it did so by dithering them to an 8-bit palette).^[4] to provide similar wallpaper features otherwise lacking in those systems. A wallpaper feature was added in a beta release of OS/2 2.0 in 1991.^[5]

Due to the widespread use of personal computers, some wallpapers have become immensely recognizable and gained iconic cultural status. Bliss, the default wallpaper of MicrosoftWindows XP has become the most viewed photograph of the 2000s.^[6]

Animated backgrounds[edit]

Animated backgrounds (sometimes referred to as live backgrounds or dynamic backgrounds) refers to wallpapers which feature a moving image or a 2D / 3D scene as an operating system background rather than a static image, it may also refer to wallpapers being cycled in a playlist, often with certain transition effects. Some operating systems, such as the Android operating system, provide native support for animated wallpapers.

Microsoft[edit]

Windows[edit]

Modern Windows systems can be configured to cycle through pictures from a folder at regular intervals. Windows does not natively support animated backgrounds, however, third-party software can be installed to have full support for placing animated images, video files, 2D or 3D scenes and web pages as wallpapers. Similar functionality could be found in the Active Desktop feature of Windows 98 and later versions.

Google[edit]

Android[edit]

Live wallpapers have been introduced in Android 2.0 (Eclair) to provide native support for animated wallpapers. From a technical point of view, live wallpapers are software applications which provide a moving background image and may allow for user interaction or utilize other hardware and software features within the device (accelerometer, GPS, network access, etc.).^[7]

Apple[edit]

macOS[edit]

macOS has built-in support, via the Desktop & Screen Saver panel in its System Preferences, for cycling through a folder collection of images on a timed interval or when logging in or waking from sleep. Since macOS Mojave, the user can also select a 'Dynamic Desktop' that automatically updates to visually match the time of the day.^[8]

Additionally, macOS has the native ability to run a screen saver on the desktop; in this configuration, the screen saver appears beneath the desktop icons in place of the system wallpaper. However, macOS does not come with a built-in interface to do this; it must be done through Terminal commands or various third-party applications.^[9]

iOS[edit]

Dynamically animated backgrounds have also been introduced in iOS 7 and later versions, however they are restricted to the ones provided by Apple. Jailbroken iOS devices can download other dynamic backgrounds.

Linux / Unix[edit]

GNOME[edit]

GNOME 2 also can be set to cycle through pictures from a folder at regular intervals, similarly to Windows 7.

KDE[edit]

KDE version 4 and later provide various dynamic wallpapers, including a slideshow, and other options provided by plugins, such as fractals and Earth map.

Enlightenment[edit]

Enlightenment v17 supports image sequences, animated and interactive desktop backgrounds in its default configuration.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^Robert R. Wiggins, 'All systems go. (Software Review) (System Tools 5.0 with MultiFinder.)', MacUser (1 March 1988)
2. ^Franklin N. Tessler, 'Mac OS 8 arrives,' Macworld (1 September 1997)
3. ^Gus Venditto, 'Windows 3.0 brings icons, multitasking, and ends DOS's 640k program limit,' PC Magazine (1 July 1990)
4. ^Charles Petzold, 'Working with 24-bit color bitmaps for Windows,' PC Magazine (10 September 1991)
5. ^Wendy Goldman, 'New version may tiop scales in IBM's favor over DOS, Windows: A look at OS/2 2.0,' Computer Reseller News (24 June 1991)
6. ^Sweeney, Cynthia (March 26, 2014). 'Say goodbye to 'Bliss''. St. Helena Star. Retrieved May 19, 2014.
7. ^'Live Wallpapers (Technical Article)'. developer.android.com. Retrieved 5 November 2010.
8. ^'macOS Mojave's dark mode makes late-night computing less painful'. Engadget. Archived from the original on June 5, 2018. Retrieved June 6, 2018.
9. ^Set a Screen Saver as the Desktop Background Terminal. Mac OS X Tips (2006-11-09). Retrieved on 2013-07-21.

Power users like to tweak their Mac OS X Desktops just so, with that menu color, this background, and those applications in the Dock. Non-computer types just can’t understand the importance of the proper arrangement of your virtual workplace: When things are familiar and customized to your needs, you’re more productive, and things get done faster. In fact, if you’ve set up multiple users on your computer under Mac OS X, the Big X automatically keeps track of each user’s Desktop and restores it when that person logs in. (For example, when you use the Mac, you get that background photo of Farrah Fawcett from the ’70s while your daughter gets Avril Lavigne.) You can produce a Desktop that’s uniquely your own.

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You may be wondering whether you really need a custom background. That depends completely on your personal tastes, but most computer owners do change their background when presented with the opportunity. Favorite backgrounds usually include

• Humorous cartoons and photos that can bring a smile to your face (even during the worst workday)

• Scenic beauty

• Photos of family and friends (or the latest Hollywood heartthrob)

• The company logo (not sure it does much for morale, but it does impress the boss)

If you do decide to spruce up your background, you have three choices: You can select one of the default Mac OS X background images, choose a solid color, or specify your own image. All three backgrounds are chosen from the Desktop & Screen Saver panel, located within System Preferences (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: To select a background, go to System Preferences.

You can also hold down Control, click the Desktop, and choose Change Desktop Background from the pop-up contextual menu (or right-click, if you’re using a mouse with multiple buttons).

Picking something Apple

To choose a background from one of the collections provided by Apple, click one of these groups from the list at the left:

• Apple Images: These default backgrounds range from simple patterns to somewhat strange and ethereal flux shapes.

• Nature: Scenic beauty: blades of grass, sand dunes, snowy hills . . . that sort of thing.

• Abstract: Even weirder twisting shapes in flux, this time with bright contrasting colors. Good for a psychiatrist’s office.

• Solid Colors: For those who desire a soothing solid shade.

• Pictures Folder: This displays the images saved in the Pictures folder by the active user.

• Choose Folder: You can open a folder containing images and display them instead.

If you see something you like, click the thumbnail, and Mac OS X displays it in the well and automatically refreshes your background so that you can see what it looks like. (By the way, in the Apple universe, a well is a sunken square area that displays an image — in this case, the background image that you’ve selected.)

Notice your iPhoto albums in the list? That’s no accident — Tiger automatically offers your iPhoto Photo Library so that you can choose images from your iPhoto collection.

Mac OS X automatically manipulates how the background appears on your Desktop. If an image conforms to your screen resolution, fine — otherwise, click the drop-down list box next to the well and you can choose to

• Tile the background. This repeats the image to cover the Desktop. (This is usually done with pattern images to produce a smooth, creamy, seamless look.)

• Fill the screen. This can be used with a solid color to get uniform coverage. The original aspect ratio of the image is preserved, so it’s not stretched.

• Stretch the background to fit the Desktop. If your Desktop image is smaller than the Desktop acreage, this works, but be warned — if you try to stretch too small of an image over too large a Desktop, the pixilated result can be pretty frightening. (Think of enlarging an old Kodak Instamatic negative to a 16 x 20 poster. Dots, dots, dots.) The original aspect ratio of the image is not preserved, so you may end up with results that look like the funhouse mirrors at a carnival.

• Center the image on the Desktop. This is my favorite solution for Desktop images that are smaller than your resolution.

Note that this drop-down list appears only if the Desktop picture that you select is not one of the standard Apple images. All the pictures in the Apple Background Images, Nature, Abstract, and Solid Colors categories are automatically scaled to the size of your screen.

To change your Desktop background automatically on a regular basis, enable the Change Picture check box and then choose the delay period from the corresponding drop-down list box. To display the images in random order, also enable the Random Order check box; otherwise, Mac OS X displays them in the order that they appear in the folder.

Choosing a solid color

If you want your favorite color without the distraction of an image as a background, you can choose from a selection of solid colors. You can choose from these colors the same way that you’d pick a default Mac OS X background image.

Selecting your own photo

You can drag your own image into the well from a Finder window to add your own work of art. To view thumbnails of an entire folder, click the Pictures Folder (to display the contents of your personal Pictures folder) or click Choose Folder to specify any folder on your system. Click the desired thumbnail to embellish your Desktop.