Linux Mint Forums

Greetings:

I just want it reaffirmed by the Mint mavens here: It's not possible to have different backgrounds with different desktops yet because there's no Compiz Wallpaper plug-in which users on Ubuntu sites claim you must have to do it in XFCE and MATE, is that correct?

Thanks for any input,

Jim in NYC

I would be interested in this one too, I just yesterday got compiz and virtual desktops working, Ive tried getting the compiz-extras deb from many sites but as yet Ive had no luck as i always run into dependancy issues.

Who says not possible? Running Xfce with E17 on top. Take a walk on the wild side.

palo wrote:Who says not possible? Running Xfce with E17 on top. Take a walk on the wild side.

That;s great then! How do you do it because other Xfce blogs can't! Help me learn linux, thanks!

Jim in NYC

I have not used this myself, but you can try SyncWall
http://thehive.xbee.net/index.php?module=pages&func=display&pageid=1

Interesting bunch of features....

rakeshsingh wrote:I have not used this myself, but you can try SyncWall
http://thehive.xbee.net/index.php?module=pages&func=display&pageid=1

But what do you use yourself to get those kind of image results?

Jim in NYC

[quoteWho says not possible? Running Xfce with E17 on top. Take a walk on the wild side.][/quote]

Wild, indeed.
I wonder if I can do this in KDE?

Wow, don't know what I did. Quote did not work right, double posted, came back to edit. Hope it is more presentable.

What was the question?

homerscousin wrote:Wow, don't know what I did. Quote did not work right, double posted, came back to edit. Hope it is more presentable.

What was the question?

That's Ok - we understand - you're using KDE

homerscousin wrote:I wonder if I can do this in KDE?

Sure - you have to set it to have different - oh wait I bet you know.

Pat

KDE supports different wallpaper different monitors out the gate.
Just recently had one image I took and applied to each desktop.

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/orb9220/9017492175/][img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8536/9017492175_3c0e098f0c_n.jpg[/img][/url]
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/orb9220/9017492175/]Desktop Dual Monitors June 12th[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/orb9220/]Orbmiser[/url], on Flickr

Then did a crop and made two halves so I could get same image to span across both.
As KDE doesn't support spanning across two monitors. Tho Cinnamon and others do if image is large enough.

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/orb9220/9021354880/][img]http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2848/9021354880_869667c81c_n.jpg[/img][/url]
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/orb9220/9021354880/]Desktop June 12th Spanned Dual Monitors[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/orb9220/]Orbmiser[/url], on Flickr

But you can assign any wallpaper to each monitor.
Just right-click on specific monitor and choose Default Desktop properties.
.

To All:

Please report any progress on this issue ASAP. I really want to implement this feature like yesterday!

Thank you!

Jim in NYC

your question is unclear to me. Do you want to assign a different desktop background for each monitor or for each workspace on a single monitor ?

I'm not sure what everyone above was thinking, but I thought having a different wallpaper for every desktop workspace (same monitor) might be nice. Switching desktops and applying a new paper applies it to all. I first tried this 2 minutes ago, so I probably haven't tried everything in KDE.

Oh, heck. I opened system settings to virtual desktops and checked the box for 'different widgets for each desktop'. Well that changed my wallpaper to something I did not even have in my papers folder. I can't recall seeing this as a default KDE paper. Couple other thing chanded as well. I'm logging out to fix it.

Easy fix, just untick that box. However it seems to be needed for separate wallpapers and also I had to: right click desktop--default desktop settings--change 'layout' from default to folder view. I didn't try much, but it appears you can customize what you want for each virtual workspace. You just start at a default point for each one.

Thanks for replies all, but please slow down! I'm on XFCE not KDE and wish to assign specific wallpaper to specific workspaces (on one monitor) but I see no "virtual desktops" or folder view layouts in XFCE either, so the basic question is only KDE can perform this feature, correct?

Jim in NYC

jimwg wrote:question is only KDE can perform this feature, correct?

Don't forget the Enlightenment desktop manager

If you really are determined to get it working with Compiz in Xfce you may find some clues on how to do it with this old video [url=http://youtu.be/mwKfmKibmKM]here[/url]. My Maya install with Compiz does have the wallpaper plugin but I don't mess around with it.

Good luck
Pat

Edit - more links:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1287776
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1861037

Greetings:

I'm no programmer or hacker or anything near that sharp, but I was wondering off the cuff whether there was a way to write a script or a "macro"(?) that executes all the key or mouse clicks it takes to select and pop up a specific wallpaper and somehow tie or link that "macro" to an action like when you want to switch to a another workspace. In other words, can a key or mouse click to move to another workspace be "monitored" in such a way that when such is activated it also triggers the macro to execute popping up a new specific wallpaper? Hope I'm saying all this right. It's just a wild hope/suggestion. Thanks for steering me straight!

Jim in NYC

by jimwg on Wed Jun 19, 2013 1:10 am
Thanks for replies all, but please slow down! I'm on XFCE not KDE and wish to assign specific wallpaper to specific workspaces (on one monitor) but I see no "virtual desktops" or folder view layouts in XFCE either, so the basic question is only KDE can perform this feature, correct?

Jim in NYC

I am a KDE lover. I don't know the other desktops as well. In my 30 minute experiment above, I did a little Google searching. I found an Ubuntu or KDE forum thread and someone said KDE is the only desktop to make this easy. I believe it. Actually they said KDE is the only desktop to do it. Workarounds and plugins can get complicated. Compiz is not maintained. No new wallpaper plugin, sorry. My motto: Get Kurrent, get Kool, get KDE.

Flash! A fascinating mention by ToZ!!

From ToZ:

Try this simple memory-resident script. You can load it manually from the terminal or add it to your startup applications. It cycles continuously and every second checks to see if the workspace has changed (using wmctrl) and if so, changes the wallpaper. Not ideal, but it will work.

You need to edit the script to change NUMBER_WORKSPACES to be the number of workspaces that you have and also edit the values in the WORKSPACE_WALL array to point to the wallpapers that you want to use for every workspace.

#!/bin/bash
# The Poor Man's Wallpaper/Workspace solution
# Requires: wmctrl
# Make sure you edit the NUMBER_WORKSPACES and WORKSPACE_WALL array to suit.
# Remember: Xfce starts counting workspaces at 0.

lockfile=/tmp/.wspm.lockfile
if ( set -o noclobber; echo "locked" > "$lockfile") 2> /dev/null; then
trap 'rm -f "$lockfile"; exit $?' INT TERM EXIT
echo "Locking succeeded" >&2

###### EDIT THESE VALUES
NUMBER_WORKSPACES=4
WORKSPACE_WALL[0]=/usr/share/backgrounds/space-01.jpg
WORKSPACE_WALL[1]=/usr/share/backgrounds/space-02.jpg
WORKSPACE_WALL[2]=/usr/share/backgrounds/space-03.jpg
WORKSPACE_WALL[3]=/usr/share/backgrounds/space-04.jpg

###### DO NOT EDIT BELOW
CURRENT_WORKSPACE=$(wmctrl -d | grep \* | cut -d' ' -f1)

while true
do
sleep 1
NEW_WORKSPACE=$(wmctrl -d | grep \* | cut -d' ' -f1)
if [ $CURRENT_WORKSPACE -ne $NEW_WORKSPACE ]; then
wmctrl -s $NEW_WORKSPACE
xfconf-query -c xfce4-desktop -p /backdrop/screen0/monitor0/image-path -s ${WORKSPACE_WALL[$NEW_WORKSPACE]}
CURRENT_WORKSPACE=$NEW_WORKSPACE
fi
done

rm -f "$lockfile"
else
echo "Lock failed - exit" >&2
exit 1
fi


I'm no techie but does this solution do the job?

Jim in NYC