Wallpaper choice was a big thing 25 years ago. You could run 2 or 3 programs at the same time, but 16M of ram didn’t go that far, so I guess I returned to the desktop quite a lot.
Some habits persist, I still have xplanet on mine. I go weeks without seeing it.
Thanks for reminding me: you could actually set a webpage as the desktop wallpaper in old versions of Windows (XP and before). I used to have a cool animated wallpaper before it was cool.
Interestingly, this reminds me I have not seen the Desktop of my Mac in several years I think. I use spotlight, the dock and favorite places to move around. Plus a tabbed full screen view of several current folders. The Desktop should be behind all that, I assume ;)
I see my desktop at least weekly, but only because I shut down my computer on the weekends I’m not on call. I can’t remember the last time I used it to open anything, regardless of the OS. I use the taskbar/dock, and the start menu/search function to open via the GUI. Otherwise, everything opens from the CLI.
Right. I have mission control set up to one hot corner for when I want to switch between windows lazily with just one hand (mouse) and making out parts of my wallpaper underneath the scattered windows is the extent I see it.
I'm the exact opposite. Unless I'm watching a video, I'm usually not full screen. I keep my windows either side by side or centered with the desktop being visible on both sides. I absolutely hate it when apps like browsers, VS-Code-without-split-view-active or Slack are stretched the full width of 5120.
I'm using Lively Wallpaper[0] to show an audio visualizer (trough CefSharp). The CPU load as shown in Task Manager is around 1.5-2% on my Ryzen 5800X. Therefore I tend to activate it only when I actually play some music and have it show.
That second link seems to have some issues with credibility.
And if you think Antivirus Software selling users' browser data is a poopy thing to do, you should take a look at what Cell Phone Carriers do with your phone's data.
This looks pretty neat! Reminds me of the early 2000s when everyone around me was messing around with rainmeter (Which I believe is still around) but this seems like it might be much more accessible.
I had an idea for a similar project (1) a few years back, but abandoned it after reaching the state where I had a node module to attach an Electron window to the wallpaper in Windows.
Fun to see a project that has reached further, remember how cool I used to think dashboards/widgets for the PC stats were when I was younger.
This is cool though it contributes to the saturated "let's ship our own browser" space. I need a separate browser to play music, to play games, to communicate with people, to browse the web, and now to run a wallpaper. If only we had a way to use a single browser instance that is utilized by all of these. That's kind of been the selling point of the web all this time - write once and run almost everywhere. You shouldn't need to ship your own browser, though I understand we don't have that kind of capability standardized yet.
I have been working on a project with some similarities, an X window manager written in Electron. It uses browser windows for wallpapers as well as frame windows. Haven't gotten the API where I want it to be yet, but I use it daily.
OK: I want an animated wallpaper of desktop windows, with the windows moving from time to time. It's good to be distracted from the useful parts of your computer.
How often do most people see the desktop during a session? To me is when turning on the computer, just before before mail chat and browser open. After that I just switch between apps.
What I'm currently doing instead of a live wallpaper, is that I have a firefox plugin that on opening a new tab without url, shows me a site with status on things that matter to me.
I do, often. I keep my new tab page in all browsers blank for speed and minimal distraction, regularly hide all background apps (cmd-opt-H on Mac), close windows I'm not going to use for a while (especially anything that could have unsaved state), and use the set of items on my desktop as shortcuts into my key workflows.
My workflow is always closing everything when I’m done with one segment of work (a bug is fixed, a commit polished, an email replied, the day has come to an end, etc.), and take a big stretch after getting out of the chair.
So, I see my wallpaper quite a bit; though I don’t notice it much any more.
I find that the larger the monitor I have the more I appreciate windowed apps (vs. fullscreen) and as a result wallpaper choice makes more of a difference.
I currently use Wallpaper Engine, will have to give Octos a try.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 89.1 ms ] threadWallpaper choice was a big thing 25 years ago. You could run 2 or 3 programs at the same time, but 16M of ram didn’t go that far, so I guess I returned to the desktop quite a lot.
Some habits persist, I still have xplanet on mine. I go weeks without seeing it.
[0] https://github.com/rocksdanister/lively
[0]: https://trends.google.com/trends/hottrends/visualize
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22159385
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36728825
And if you think Antivirus Software selling users' browser data is a poopy thing to do, you should take a look at what Cell Phone Carriers do with your phone's data.
1.
> second link being a non-credible source
- Website is called "security detectives" which is an affiliate-link blog
- Article leads with the paragraph `Avast and AVG no longer pose a threat to user privacy, meaning both products are 100% safe to use.`
2.
> wireless carriers selling customer data
- https://www.govtech.com/network/wireless-carriers-face-200m-...
- https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-cell-carriers-selling-acces...
- https://medium.com/@philipn/want-to-see-something-crazy-open...
Fun to see a project that has reached further, remember how cool I used to think dashboards/widgets for the PC stats were when I was younger.
(1): https://github.com/robinwassen/electron-wallpaper
Relatedly, I always found it deeply odd that there wasn't a widely popular "Conky" alternative that just used HTML/CSS/JS?
Never figured out why not? Overhead?
Since I saw one of the Ascii Art styled ones:
If anyone is interested in more Animated Ascii Art, I created an interactive tool to generate it recently: https://www.gifcii.fun
https://github.com/wnayes/electron-wm
What I'm currently doing instead of a live wallpaper, is that I have a firefox plugin that on opening a new tab without url, shows me a site with status on things that matter to me.
So, I see my wallpaper quite a bit; though I don’t notice it much any more.
I have something that rotates my desktop wallpaper daily so it's fun to see a random wallpaper pop up.
I currently use Wallpaper Engine, will have to give Octos a try.