Bing Wallpaper for Mac and Ubuntu

Information

A script which downloads the latest picture of the day from Bing.com and saves it to a directory.

The script was tested on: Mac OS X 10.8.2 and 10.8.3 Ubuntu 12.04 - 13.10

Blog entry

How to use?

• Just run the bing-wallpaper.sh script from the terminal. The script will download the bing image.
• If desired, change the default PICTURE_DIR in bing-wallpaper.sh to the wallpaper directory. If left unchanged the default value is ~/Pictures/bing-wallpapers/.

Configuration on Mac

• Open Mac's System Preferences -> Desktop & Screensaver, add the wallpaper directory, and configure to taste.

• To have the script run everyday automatically you will need to setup launchd (Mac only, for Ubuntu see below). I have provided a sample plist file, found in the Tools directory, which can be copied to $HOME/Library/LaunchAgents and loaded with the command launchctl load $HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/com.ideasftw.bing-wallpaper.plist Modify the plist as needed to point to bing-wallpaper.sh. For more information on configuring launchd see here.

• Another option on Mac (and arguably a little simpler) is to set the Calendar app to run the Tools/Bing Wallpaper.app at a recurring daily time. Modify the app (from within Automator) as it needs to point to bing-wallpaper.sh and the correct PICTURE_DIR.

Configuration on Ubuntu

TL;DR:

• To install Gnome background slideshow, in the terminal run:

$ git clone [email protected]:thejandroman/bing-wallpaper.git
$ bing-wallpaper/Tools/gnome-bing-slideshow/deploy-gnome-settings.sh

• Register bing-wallpaper/bing-random-pic.sh to run regularly.

• Change the background properties to use the new slideshow.

How to register bing-wallpaper.sh or bing-random-pic.sh to run regularly.

There are two ways to run the scipts regularly: cron jobs and startup applications.

• Cron jobs:
  • Change the path of bing-wallpaper.sh in Tools/bing-cron to the desired script location. If left unchanged the default value is ~/Pictures/bing-wallpaper.sh.
  • From the terminal run crontab /path/to/bing-cron to setup the cronjob.
• Startup programs:
  • From HUD, search for startup applications.
  • Add bing-random-pic.sh or bing-wallpaper.sh.

The Ubuntu script was tested in Ubuntu 12.04 - 13.10.

Acknowledgement

Original script by ktmud can be found at https://github.com/ktmud/bing-wallpaper.