Filed under: Software, Tips and tricks
Change desktop wallpaper with an Automator action
Sometimes randomly rotating your desktop wallpaper through the Desktop System Preferences pane is just a little overkill. Wouldn't it be nice if you had a simple drag-and-drop Automator action for setting your own wallpaper whenever your heart desired a change of pace? Then why not use this macosxhints post to make one. A few simple steps creates an action that you save as an app somewhere (I named my action 'Wallpaper') and simply link to in your Dock. For added convenience I saved it as a Finder plugin so I can right-click any picture I find to quickly chose Automator > Wallpaper from the context menu. Handy.As an extra tip: make sure you turn off automatic wallpaper rotation in the Desktop Preferences pane if it's on. Otherwise, at least from my testing, this action won't work.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
kevin said 3:12PM on 7-28-2006
can't see the photo anymore at all. thank you so much.
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Lee Webb said 4:03PM on 7-28-2006
David, you're not going to like me! Slow down man, you're missing out letters all over the place. Automator has an 'a' in it. Check your title.
Nice tip though
Lee
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Fornya said 4:26PM on 7-28-2006
What is with the endless Automator actions of this sort? Changing the desktop wallpaper? Is it really that hard to do this without Automator? It's not even worth writing about on any site… except maybe Mac OS for morons. It's like driving a Hummer down the block. Too much muscle for the job.
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nosidam said 4:57PM on 7-28-2006
This is more a question than a comment. Is there a way, through AppleScript or the underlying file system, to find the filename of the currently displayed wallpaper? I have over 5,000 in my random wallpaper folder, and every now and then I see one that I would like to use for other things (like cell phone wallpaper), but don't have the time to go through all the files to find the right one.
Thanks.
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Derek said 5:43PM on 7-28-2006
Its nice cause you can right click-> set as wallpaper
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Tice said 6:18PM on 7-28-2006
Much easier: Try my free drag'n'drop app Desky. Just drag an image file on it - boom - a desktop image!
http://blog.tice.de/software.php?page=Desky%20engl
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Shaaheen said 6:47PM on 7-28-2006
Interesting, so you all have "Wallpapers" on your desktops? Wallpapers used to be on the walls, before Windows misuses the correct "Desktop Picture" name.
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Jay Serna said 12:00AM on 7-29-2006
Is there a Automator script/action to deactivate the desktop picture rotation? I like this workflow if I want a particular image as the desktop picture now, but I want to keep my normal picture rotation.
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David said 12:06AM on 7-29-2006
I like this a lot!
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Jay Serna said 3:11AM on 7-29-2006
Does anyone have an Applescript to disable the Change Picture feature that I can add in Automator?
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Steve Troughton-Smith said 3:37AM on 7-29-2006
Make this automator action even cooler by adding it to the Finder as a plugin (File->Save As Plugin). Then you can right-click any image and click "Automator -> Set as Desktop". I've been using this since before Tiger GMed.
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David Chartier said 12:46PM on 7-29-2006
#11: That's the same trick I added in the post itself Steve. Were you possibly thinking of something different?
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Darkshadow said 2:43PM on 7-29-2006
I wrote a little app for switching the desktop picture fairly quickly. It puts an item up in the menu bar, and you use the menu to switch between pictures. You can also set the various options (fill screen, etc) and the rotation period from there. There's also an option to view the pictures.
It's a free app (all of mine are).
Picture Switcher:
http://homepage.mac.com/darkshadow02/apps.htm#picswitch
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Mac Lover said 6:21AM on 7-30-2006
Oooh. I like this tip. Mainly because I'm lazy and can't be bothered to open Sys Pref... go to Desktop & Screen Saver... blah blah blah so on and so forth... Ouch. my wrist hurts just thinking about it.
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james said 6:12PM on 7-30-2006
I use DesktopControl, a free app. I include it in my Finder window and simply drag any image file onto it. It is certainly simpler than using an automator action
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