Shell – Adding wallpapers in GNOME Shell

gnomegnome-shellwallpaper

When executing Activities → Settings → Background, you can find three background tabs:

[Wallpapers]
[Pictures]
[Colors]

In [Wallpapers] you can find backgrounds under /usr/share/backgrounds/, but which have been previously added to an XML configuration file in /usr/share/gnome-background-properties/. If you put new backgrounds in /usr/share/backgrounds/, but you don't add them to an XML file, they won't be displayed.

On the other hand, in [Pictures] you can find backgrounds under ~/Pictures/ and any new addition will automatically be detected and displayed by the application (this folder is "reloaded" or "refreshed" every time).

Is there any way I could set the [Wallpapers] tab to automatically find new pictures under /usr/share/backgrounds/ as well?

If not, is there a way I could change the configuration, so that, when clicking on the [Pictures] tab, it will look under /whatever/i/want/ instead of ~/Pictures/?

I know I could just edit the XML configuration file (myself, with a script, or even with existing GUIs), but I am not looking for that. I just feel curious about the customization level of GNOME Shell.

I am using Fedora 20 with GNOME Shell 3.10.

Best Answer

Is there any way I could set the [Wallpapers] tab to automatically find new pictures under /usr/share/backgrounds/ as well?

There's no such option. The [Wallpapers] tab shows the default choice of wallpapers (which may vary depending on distros/admins) available to all users. Distros/admins may choose to alter the content of /usr/share/backgrounds/ (along with the corresponding entries in the .xml file). I don't think it was meant to be customized by regular users.

is there a way I could change the configuration, so that, when clicking on the [Pictures] tab, it will look under /whatever/i/want/ instead of ~/Pictures/?

Yes, the [Pictures] tab is, to some extent, customizable. Pictures is one of the XDG user directories and is defined in ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs. Change the default value XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/Pictures" to XDG_PICTURES_DIR="/whatever/i/want", restart the shell and next time you click on the [Pictures] tab in the [Background] settings, it'll look under /whatever/i/want.
The downside is that some other applications that use XDG_PICTURES_DIR will also default to /whatever/i/want instead of ~/Pictures.

Related Solutions

Can We Have Different Wallpapers For Each Workspace under Gnome

The short answer is not without applying patches.

But you could use a different window manager / desktop environment. Enlightenment, for example, supports this feature.

Shell – Window with activity in GNOME, notifies but doesn’t show itself after Alt+Tab

For some apps (e.g. file-roller) this can be fixed by changing the StartupNotify key value from true to false in their respective .desktop files (e.g. /usr/share/applications/file-roller.desktop).

The above doesn't work for all apps (e.g. nautilus) so another way to fix the problem would be a custom shell extension; just to give you an idea, you could easily fix nautilus behavior like this: edit /usr/share/gnome-shell/js/ui/windowAttentionHandler.js and add these three lines of code:

    if (app.get_id() == "nautilus.desktop")
        Main.activateWindow(window);
        return;

after the following line:

    let app = this._tracker.get_window_app(window);

so you end up with something like this:

    let app = this._tracker.get_window_app(window);
    if (app.get_id() == "nautilus.desktop")
        Main.activateWindow(window);
        return;
    let source = new Source(app, window);
    Main.messageTray.add(source);

However, it's not worth writing your own extension unless you want to target only some specific applications. For a global change it looks like there is an extension:

just show the window

that overrides the "notification system" (it works fine here on gnome 3.8).
Keep in mind the two files (extension.js and metadata.json) have to be placed in:
~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/justshowthewindow@ryanlerch.org
Activate the extension via tweak-tool and restart the shell (Alt+F2 then r then Enter).

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Can We Have Different Wallpapers For Each Workspace under Gnome

Shell – Window with activity in GNOME, notifies but doesn’t show itself after Alt+Tab

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