Bing Picture of the Day as Desktop Wallpaper?

Probably the easiest thing to do would be to install variety. It is a wall-paper manager that really does an excellent job to change your wallpaper at the frequency you want.

Here are some of its settings:

  • the frequency of the download
  • the frequency of changing the image (once a day, at every reboot, every minute,...)
  • where you want to download your images from
  • where you want to store them on your computer
  • quotes (either automatically or from a source)
  • a nice clock.

There is also a setting to run it at login. If you enable that and then add your bing image of the day url (http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=picture+of+the+day&qpvt=picture+of+the+day&FORM=IGRE?), you are all set.

It can be found in the software center and it has a 5* rating!

Here are some screenshots:

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I wrote a little node script that does exactly that : https://github.com/dorian-marchal/bing-daily-wallpaper

To install it, you'll need nodejs :

sudo apt-get install nodejs npm

Installation :

In the command line, run :

sudo npm install -g bing-daily-wallpaper

Usage :

To change the wallpaper, do (you can add this command to your startup apps) :

bing-daily-wallpaper

Some time ago I found the following script (I don't remember exactly where in this moment, but when I will find, I will add the source also) which one I changed a little and which is working great for what you asked if is set as a cron job (see here how to do this):

#!/bin/bash

# export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS environment variable useful when the script is set as a cron job
PID=$(pgrep gnome-session)
export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=$(grep -z DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS /proc/$PID/environ|cut -d= -f2-)


# $bing is needed to form the fully qualified URL for
# the Bing pic of the day
bing="www.bing.com"

# $xmlURL is needed to get the xml data from which
# the relative URL for the Bing pic of the day is extracted
#
# The mkt parameter determines which Bing market you would like to
# obtain your images from.
# Valid values are: en-US, zh-CN, ja-JP, en-AU, en-UK, de-DE, en-NZ, en-CA.
#
# The idx parameter determines where to start from. 0 is the current day,
# 1 the previous day, etc.
xmlURL="http://www.bing.com/HPImageArchive.aspx?format=xml&idx=1&n=1&mkt=en-US"

# $saveDir is used to set the location where Bing pics of the day
# are stored.  $HOME holds the path of the current user's home directory
saveDir="$HOME/Pictures/BingDesktopImages/"

# Create saveDir if it does not already exist
mkdir -p $saveDir

# Set picture options
# Valid options are: none,wallpaper,centered,scaled,stretched,zoom,spanned
picOpts="zoom"

# The desired Bing picture resolution to download
# Valid options: "_1024x768" "_1280x720" "_1366x768" "_1920x1200"
desiredPicRes="_1366x768"

# The file extension for the Bing pic
picExt=".jpg"

# Extract the relative URL of the Bing pic of the day from
# the XML data retrieved from xmlURL, form the fully qualified
# URL for the pic of the day, and store it in $picURL

# Form the URL for the desired pic resolution
desiredPicURL=$bing$(echo $(curl -s $xmlURL) | grep -oP "<urlBase>(.*)</urlBase>" | cut -d ">" -f 2 | cut -d "<" -f 1)$desiredPicRes$picExt

# Form the URL for the default pic resolution
defaultPicURL=$bing$(echo $(curl -s $xmlURL) | grep -oP "<url>(.*)</url>" | cut -d ">" -f 2 | cut -d "<" -f 1)

# $picName contains the filename of the Bing pic of the day

# Attempt to download the desired image resolution. If it doesn't
# exist then download the default image resolution
if wget --quiet --spider "$desiredPicURL"
then

    # Set picName to the desired picName
    picName=${desiredPicURL##*/}
    # Download the Bing pic of the day at desired resolution
    curl -s -o $saveDir$picName $desiredPicURL
else
    # Set picName to the default picName
    picName=${defaultPicURL##*/}
    # Download the Bing pic of the day at default resolution
    curl -s -o $saveDir$picName $defaultPicURL
fi

# Set the GNOME3 wallpaper
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri "file://$saveDir$picName"

# Set the GNOME 3 wallpaper picture options
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-options $picOpts

# Remove pictures older than 30 days
#find $saveDir -atime 30 -delete

# Exit the script
exit

Tags:

Wallpaper

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