Got Tech? Will Hack.
My new laptop is a work box and doesn’t inherit the obsessive compulsiveness of File naming and sorting that my desktop hard disks have. I have, for this reason, dumped all wallpapers which are applicable to be used with my desktop (wallpapers with aspect ratio 16:9) into my “My Pictures” folder. Randomly, I have an urge to change the wallpaper and I really don’t want to go select one. So I thought I should have something that would change my wallpaper to a random image. I tried finding something but most such applications were installables and would change the wallpapers after periodic time intervals, something i didn’t want.
Thus was born the Random Selection Wallpaper Changer (RSWC). An extremely simplistic, single exe application that does what is required.
Default Values:
Pre-Requisite: A pre-requisite is that you have .NET 2.0 installed on your machine.
Future Plans: The exe is 416kb, something I wish to reduce. I might rewrite the code in C++ to get rid of the .NET dependency (despite Microsoft claiming .NET is common enough to no longer be a “requirement” and even reduce the file size. Also, I might contemplate creating a light weight application to change wallpapers at regular time intervals as well. (People requesting for such things would certainly compel me. I’m not motivated to do this for personal usage :))
If someone requires it, I might work a way in to set the source folder and mode of setting the wallpaper and still keep it portable and single filed. I could write to registry but that isn’t really portable in my opinion. Ideas/Suggestions/Feedback/Advanced Critique is always welcome ;)
Known Limitation: Setting png wallpapers sets the desktop to a plain coloured background (your default background color) because Windows doesn’t support png wallpapers. It converts pngs into jpgs and then applies them and I shall do the same in the next update.
Download: Random Selection Wallpaper Changer (RSWC) v1.00 (416 KB)