Bing Desktop Wallpaper Changer

Automatically downloads and changes desktop wallpaper to Bing Photo of the Day.

Synopsis

Python Script for automatically downloading and changing the desktop wallpaper to Bing Photo of the day. The script runs automatically at the startup and works on GNU/Linux with Gnome or Cinnamon. Works perfectly on Ubuntu and Linux Mint.

What does it do?

It grabs images exactly the same way Microsoft uses to put it up on its page - using XML/RSS/JSON. You can't scrape the website directly. After searching on the internet for long I found out the link - http://www.bing.com/HPImageArchive.aspx?format=xml&idx=0&n=1&mkt=en-US

Here we can get data in any of the formats but substituting the value of format=[value] in the link.

idx denotes the day before the current day. idx=0 means current day, idx=1 means yesterday and so on. n is an integer denoting the number of days before the day denoted by idx. It grabs data about all the n number of images. mkt denotes the area. The script will try to match your locale to one of the supported Bing Market areas, falling back to 'en-US' if it fails to do so. You can also force a particular market area (see list of valid markets in https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd251064.aspx) in the config file:

~/.config/bing-desktop-wallpaper-changer/config.ini

Example:

[market]
# If you want to override the current Bing market dectection,
# set your preferred market here. For a list of markets, see
# https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd251064.aspx
area = 'bg-BG'

To force your area to be 'bg-BG' (Bulgarian - Bulgaria).

All the wallpapers are stored in '/home/[user]/Pictures/BingWallpapers/'

Installer

Fully automated Bing-Desktop-Wallpaper-Changer installation and configuration! No need to add the script to your Startup list or edit main.py or copy paste it or etc.. The Installer does everything for you!

Information

Starting with Installer version 2.0+, the Installer works like a normal GNU/Linux binary commands (for example, ls, cd, etc..). Note that the Installer can request root permissions(sudo) for doing some tasks!

Prepare

When you first run the Installer, you need to:

1. Clone/download project

2. Move (cd) into the downloaded project's directory

3. Open a terminal and enter:

chmod +x installer.sh

4. All done! You can learn how to use the installer in Help (below).

Help

INFO: Complete Prepare before you use the Installer!

To install, use:

./installer.sh --install

and to uninstall, use:

./installer.sh --uninstall

All Usages & Arguments is listed below. (The following is equivalent to using ./installer.sh --help):

Usage: installer.sh [OPTION]...
       installer.sh [OPTION=*]...

 --help                display help about the Installer and tasks
 --version             display the Installer version
 --license             display LICENSE
 --readme              display README.md
 --detect              detect previous Bing-Desktop-Wallpaper-Changer installation
 --install             install Bing-Desktop-Wallpaper-Changer
 --uninstall           uninstall Bing-Desktop-Wallpaper-Changer
 --update              update Bing-Desktop-Wallpaper-Changer (needs git)
 --execute             run Bing-Desktop-Wallpaper-Changer

 For developers:
 --enable-devmode    enables Developer Mode
 --disable-devmode   disables Developer Mode
 --run-installer-command=*    runs internal functions or shell commands

 * Note that Developer Mode is disabled automatically when the Installer starts (because of security reasons),
 those who wish to run developer tasks will always have to put --enable-devmode in front of OPTION.
 For example, installer.sh --enable-devmode [DEVELOPER_OPTION/TASKS]

 * To directly run internal functions or shell commands, first you need to enable Developer Mode and use --run-installer-command.
 For example, installer.sh --enable-devmode --run-installer-command=[YOUR COMMAND]

 * For more information, please visit:
 GitHub: <https://github.com/UtkarshGpta/bing-desktop-wallpaper-changer>

 * And you know what? #This_Installer_can_moo (Try to find the Easter Egg!)

P.S. The Installer has a easter egg! (Any new easter egg ideas is welcome) Try:

./installer.sh --enable-devmode --run-installer-command=easter_egg

To do

• When installing, Ask user about : Schedule with crontab, Limit the size of all downloaded wallpapers, Start with timer
• Installer support for rpm-using distros (50% done - added support, but it will probably not work. needs feedback)

Any other suggestions welcome!

Author

Utkarsh Gupta and Contributors

License

MIT license.

Note

If you're on GNOME, you can use this extension by neffo which makes use of this script. I am using it myself. Peace :D