Boring set of desktop background colours.

A few months ago, soon after I first bought my Mac, I managed to achieve a choice of the full spectrum of colours for my desk top background colour, ending up with a delightful shade of grass green. I've no idea how, but now, wanting a change I can't find anything in desk top / screen saver except the same old boring set of solid colors and I can't seem to access the spectrum ball at all in relation to desk top.
Incidentally, clicking on screen saver has of late resulted in a frozen screen and the beachball (Agh), necessitating the use of 'force quit' to return to normality.
Can anyone set out an uncomplicated route to help give a change to my desk top ? Big thank you in anticipation.

The background is just for the preview window.
The spectrum ball is a part of the built it colour menu, easily accessed with command shift C or show colours in various apps.
To get your apple green background using just apps available in Leopard.
Open TextEdit > Format > Show fonts which brings up the font menu with various options along the top of the window. Forth box from left contains a blank page icon > click on the blank page and choose your colour from the colour menu.
The TextEdit window will then be your colour > Make a big as possible > use command shift 3 to take a screen shot which will be on your desktop.
Double click screen shot which will open in preview > draw a cropping box with the curser as big as possible > Tools > Crop > Save in User > Pictures.
Access pictures folder from System prefs > Desktop >>
An easier way would be to use a graphics app but not as much fun
Maybe Paintbrush
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/32559

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Change the desktop background colour of Acrobat 9 Professional?

Is it possible to change the desktop background colour in Acrobat 9? The reason I ask is we are supplied newspaper ads and sometimes they have a black keyline on the border of the PDF.
The dark background on the desktop can make it difficult to see a fine keyline. We were previously using Acrobat 7 Professional which had a white background.

Doesn't work
^ ^
Obviously, I can't, in this particular screenshot show everything.
This is what the fellow is talking about. Naturally if his keyline item is in Black it ain't going to show up In Acrobat previous to 9 all this back Ground was grey.

How do I disable "Set as Desktop Background" as an option in Firefox 3.6 running on Mac OSX 10.5?

I'm trying to disable the "Set as Desktop Background" option for Firefox 3.6 in a Mac OSX 10.5 environment. I have a default image that I want as the background on my desktop and I don't want it to be changed.

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I belong to a graphic site dreamies.de and my images are disappearing from there since I right clicked on what I thought was set as desktop background. There wa

I belong to a graphic site dreamies.de and my images are disappearing from there since I right clicked on what I thought was set as desktop background. There was another entry under it that said block images from dreamies.de. That is the one that I clicked on by accident and no one knows how to reverse it. Does anyone here know how to reverse it? I was using firefox 3.6 beta 3 when this happened. I am now on firefox 12.
I already tried right-click the page, choose View Page Info, then click Permissions. The first item is the site-specific permission for images and you should be able to reset back to the default here. This did not work.
I also tried right-click View Page Info and click Media. Click the first image on the list and observe the Block Images checkbox above the preview at the bottom. Arrow down the list until you come to a site that is blocked and unblock it. There was no unblock just a delete, so I deleted it. This did not work either.
I know it is a firefox issue because the images are all there when I log in using Internet explorer, but on firefox there are many of my images missing.

This is the question that I need an answer to:
I belong to a graphic site dreamies.de and my images are disappearing from there since I right clicked on what I thought was set as desktop background. There was another entry under it that said block images from dreamies.de. That is the one that I clicked on by accident and no one knows how to reverse it. Does anyone here know how to reverse it? I was using firefox 3.6 beta 3 when this happened. I am now on firefox 12.
I already tried right-click the page, choose View Page Info, then click Permissions. The first item is the site-specific permission for images and you should be able to reset back to the default here. This did not work.
I also tried right-click View Page Info and click Media. Click the first image on the list and observe the Block Images checkbox above the preview at the bottom. Arrow down the list until you come to a site that is blocked and unblock it. There was no unblock just a delete, so I deleted it. This did not work either.
I know it is a firefox issue because the images are all there when I log in using Internet explorer, but on firefox there are many of my images missing.

Setting the desktop background image via Powershell

UPDATE:
I found the solution that addressed my problem, which I posted in a post below. Keeping the original post for Internet historical reasons as I the hope this helps someone else later on in their search for a solution.
===============
I have Bing'ed and I have Google'd and I haven't found a solid answer to setting the desktop wallpaper programmically. I am trying to do this via PowerShell, but I would be happy for any other language flavor or application to work.
Below is the code I have tried to set the desktop background image. This has been scrounged from a few sources across the web. This solution works 25% of the time and I haven't figured out what the cause for success or failure of the execution. Or maybe
it's neither, but waiting for Explorer to refresh. The only way to see the change 100% is to log out and log back in.
I am running Windows 8.1 btw.
Thank you for looking.
Function Get-WallPaper()
$wp=Get-ItemProperty -path 'HKCU:\Control Panel\Desktop\' -name wallpaper
if(!$wp.WallPaper)
{ "Wall paper is not set" }
Else
{"Wall paper is set to $($wp.WallPaper)" }
Function Refresh-Explorer {
$code = @'
private static readonly IntPtr HWND_BROADCAST = new IntPtr(0xffff);
private const int WM_SETTINGCHANGE = 0x1a;
private const int SMTO_ABORTIFHUNG = 0x0002;
[System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError=true, CharSet=CharSet.Auto)]
static extern bool SendNotifyMessage(IntPtr hWnd, uint Msg, UIntPtr wParam,
IntPtr lParam);
[System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
private static extern IntPtr SendMessageTimeout ( IntPtr hWnd, int Msg, IntPtr wParam, string lParam, uint fuFlags, uint uTimeout, IntPtr lpdwResult );
[System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("Shell32.dll")]
private static extern int SHChangeNotify(int eventId, int flags, IntPtr item1, IntPtr item2);
public static void Refresh() {
SHChangeNotify(0x8000000, 0x1000, IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero);
SendMessageTimeout(HWND_BROADCAST, WM_SETTINGCHANGE, IntPtr.Zero, null, SMTO_ABORTIFHUNG, 100, IntPtr.Zero);
Add-Type -MemberDefinition $code -Namespace MyWinAPI -Name Explorer
[MyWinAPI.Explorer]::Refresh()
Function Set-WallPaper($Value)
echo "Setting background to: $value"
Refresh-Explorer
Set-ItemProperty -path 'HKCU:\Control Panel\Desktop\' -name wallpaper -value $value
rundll32.exe user32.dll, UpdatePerUserSystemParameters
#sleep 1
rundll32.exe user32.dll, UpdatePerUserSystemParameters
#sleep 1
rundll32.exe user32.dll, UpdatePerUserSystemParameters
#sleep 1
Refresh-Explorer
#Stop-Process -ProcessName explorer
NOTE: I left in a few commented out statements. I found that they do not offer any help in formulating a solution.
Thank you.

Great news! I found the solution and all props and credit goes to
jsd1982 of the XKCD comic
forum from a post he made in 2007 and some deep search kung-fu Googling on my part. Here is the
direct link to the post.
This solution has worked for me 100% of the time on Windows 8. The only gotcha I found (minor detail) was when setting this process to run as a scheduled task, I had to run it as elevated privileges for the code to compile in memory. Running this function
from PowerShell at the command prompt was fine.
NOTE: The code below is a slight trimmed down version posted by jsd1982 to just set the desktop wallpaper. I removed the image fetching from the Internet and the color inversion.
# Credit to jsd1982
function Compile-Csharp ([string] $code, $FrameworkVersion="v2.0.50727",
[Array]$References)
# Get an instance of the CSharp code provider
$cp = new-object Microsoft.CSharp.CSharpCodeProvider
# Build up a compiler params object...
$framework = [System.IO.Path]::Combine($env:windir, "Microsoft.NET\Framework\$FrameWorkVersion")
$refs = new-object Collections.ArrayList
$refs.AddRange( @("${framework}\System.dll",
# "${mshhome}\System.Management.Automation.dll",
# "${mshhome}\System.Management.Automation.ConsoleHost.dll",
"${framework}\system.windows.forms.dll",
"${framework}\System.data.dll",
"${framework}\System.Drawing.dll",
"${framework}\System.Xml.dll"))
if ($references.Count -ge 1)
$refs.AddRange($References)
$cpar = New-Object System.CodeDom.Compiler.CompilerParameters
$cpar.GenerateInMemory = $true
$cpar.GenerateExecutable = $false
$cpar.CompilerOptions = "/unsafe";
$cpar.OutputAssembly = "custom"
$cpar.ReferencedAssemblies.AddRange($refs)
$cr = $cp.CompileAssemblyFromSource($cpar, $code)
if ( $cr.Errors.Count)
$codeLines = $code.Split("`n");
foreach ($ce in $cr.Errors)
write-host "Error: $($codeLines[$($ce.Line - 1)])"
$ce |out-default
Throw "INVALID DATA: Errors encountered while compiling code"
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Drawing") > $null
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Runtime") > $null
# C# code to post to wallpaper
$code = @'
using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Drawing.Imaging;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.IO;
using System.Net;
using Microsoft.Win32;
namespace test
public class Wallpaper
const int SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER = 20 ;
const int SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE = 0x01;
const int SPIF_SENDWININICHANGE = 0x02;
[DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet=CharSet.Auto)]
static extern int SystemParametersInfo (int uAction , int uParam , string lpvParam , int fuWinIni) ;
public static void SetWallpaper(string uri)
System.IO.Stream s = new WebClient().OpenRead(uri);
Image img = System.Drawing.Image.FromStream(s);
Bitmap copy = new Bitmap(img.Width, img.Height);
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(copy);
Rectangle rect = new Rectangle(0, 0, img.Width, img.Height);
g.DrawImage(img, rect, 0, 0, img.Width, img.Height, GraphicsUnit.Pixel);
g.Dispose();
img.Dispose();
// Save to a temp file:
string tempPath = Path.Combine(Path.GetTempPath(), "wallpaper.bmp");
copy.Save(tempPath, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Bmp);
RegistryKey key = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey( @"Control Panel\Desktop", true ) ;
key.SetValue(@"WallpaperStyle", 1.ToString( ) ) ;
key.SetValue(@"TileWallpaper", 0.ToString( ) ) ;
SystemParametersInfo( SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER,
0,
tempPath,
SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE | SPIF_SENDWININICHANGE );
function Set-Wallpaper([string] $imgurl)
compile-CSharp $code
[test.Wallpaper]::SetWallpaper($imgurl)

How do I set the desktop background to automatically change every so often?

I had my desktop background set to change every five seconds, with the photos coming from a folder in my iPhoto files. I then made a new folder of background pictures in iPhoto, but when I switched to them and tried to make it "change every 5 seconds", or 1 minute etc., it would not change. I then reverted back to the original group of files and it STILL wouldn't change, even though it had been doing so for the many months that I had been using this set of background photos before.
I have clicked on "change every 5 seconds" and "random order", but for some reason I can now only change the pictures manually by clicking on them in the right hand pane of the system preferences window. Please can someone tell me how to make them change automatically again...?

Have you tried restarting your computer and attempting it again?
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but a lot of people run their machines 24/7 and sometimes a little reboot helps.

Setting a page background colour

Hi everyone,
Im new to InDesign, and am (or at least i thought i was), in the final stages of completing a brochure (A4 landscape format) for my photography business.
The brochure Im creating is intended as both a downloadable pdf and also for viewing on screen.
My issue is this:
Ive somehow managed to set it up so that the page background colour is black, which is what I want, as my text alternates between white and a shade of grey.
However, when I PDF this document, or try to physically print it, the pages show up as white, and so a lot of my white text does not show and the grey text looks almost invisible.
Can someone please enlighten me as to how I actually achieve what i would like to - i.e. black pages.
Many, many thanks in advance.
Stevieboy1970

Thanks for your reply.
I figured that would be the way to go. Though I'm getting a glitch when using image gallery widgets where the background colour flashes white when zooming on an image on the final ipad book. The background fade effect when zooming is set by default to start from white I presume. Hope they fix that soon.

Setting up desktop background from iphoto resets after restarting my Mac OS..

Hello,
I have the Mac Os X 10.7.3 version on 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 processor. I use Iphoto '11 version 9.2.3. My iphoto library shared on /Users/Shared/Ress.sparseimage and it's formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Two users are using same library and we have no problem while sharing this library.
The only problem occurs when I tried to set up the desktop background from iphoto. When I change the background from iphoto application and restart my computer, the desktop background resets to Andromeda Galaxy.
The reason it resets the background to Galaxy because the volume that contains shared library starts slower. I know this for sure because when I check the Devices section from Finder as soon as the computer starts I can’t see my shared volume on Devices and it takes up 5 or 10 seconds to appear in there.
In my opinion, somehow late launch for this shared volume changes the background’s path to /Library/Desktop Pictures and the first picture in there Andromeda Galaxy.jpg.
We can fix this problem by copying the picture to the path /Library/Desktop Pictures. But unfortunately this solution is very basic and will not satisfy me because I don’t want to copy my pictures from one path to another every time I want to change the background. That’s very frustrating.
I would like change my background from iphoto application. In fact when I use iphoto without sharing and setup the background from iphoto application, I don’t face this problem. This problem only occurs when I share my iphoto library on a volume as a sparseimage.
Best Regards,
HB

Just grab a bunch of photo's you want and place them into a new folder in your User/Pictures named desktop pics or something.
Then you can drag and drop copy certain ones from the shared iPhoto Library.
I keep my desktop and iPhoto Libraries seperate, iPhoto is personal and desktop pictures are just that. No need to waste space in iPhoto as I have over 680 desktop pictures and about 8000 iPhoto pictures, so I don't want to overload iPhoto anymore that it is already.
Once you get large enough desktop pictures the matter becomes mute, just rotate them every 30 or so minutes and it toss in a few new ones from iPhoto when you wish.
If you didn't know, you can point the system preferences > desktop pictures at a new folder in your Pictures folder, there is no need to use the iPhoto Library or drop them into /Library/Desktop Pictures, this is rather risky to be messing inside that folder, in fact in 10.7 Apple has made it invisible to stop people from messing around in there.
Just click the little "+" sign to add a new folder in System Preferences > Desktop & Screensaver preferences.

I am using Firefox 3.5.9 in Linux Gnome and need to remove the "Set As Desktop Background" from the right click menu or at least disable the users ability to change it from Firefox as I am running a kiosk.

USeing Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 11SP1 with gnome desktop and Firefox 3.5.9. I have created a firefox user profile and need to remove or restrict the ablitiy of the users to change the desktop background.

See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Chrome_element_names_and_IDs
Add the code to [http://kb.mozillazine.org/UserChrome.css userChrome.css] below the @namespace line.
<pre><nowiki>#context-setDesktopBackground {display:none!important;}
</nowiki></pre>
See also http://kb.mozillazine.org/Editing_configuration

In linux, saving a background image (set as Desktop)feature doesnt download my image to wallpaper folder..or even to standard "Save download" feature. Can I tell firefox where (what folder) to save my "Set as Desktop" picture?

When I find a suitable picture to use as wallpaper" I often right click and use the menu item "Set as Desktop Background". The file ""example.jpg" is saved in directory\folder "/home/user" rather than for example "/home/user/my wallpaper" or in the directory
"/home/user/Downloads". The latter as being set under the "Downloads" section on the "General" tab in the "Preferences" dialog box.
Is there a configuration file where I can change the default location to save my "Set as Desktop Background" images. Or better still can the menu be customized to launch the application that allows me to set my desktop wallpapers?
I am using the "PCLinuxOS" Linux OS but I have encountered this issue in many if not all the Linux distributions I have sampled.

Don't use "Set as Desktop". Use ''' "Save Image As..." ''' instead, and file it with your other "wallpaper" images so the operating system has access to those images.
IIRC, Firefox saves a "desktop image" to the Profile folder, and it will only save one image, at that. Change the image and the previous one is gone.

[noob question] setting window background colour?

Hi,
Am just getting to grips with basics of Xcode, Coacoa and IB, been looking at some easy examples and just set myself my first exercise; to build the C# Introductory Video example app
OK, basically all I want to do is open the colour picker from a button and set the window background colour. But still with nothing more than an empty window in IB I can't find any obvious means to define it's background colour (not even statically)?
Hope someone can help with this dead easy question... (my Coacoa programming book is still on it's way from Amazon
Ceers,
Rich
PS. just looking for a nudge in the right direction, please - not a step by step description how to write my sample app, as well meant as that might be. cheers

+Although I'm guessing from the underlying tone you're already pretty experienced and it's been a long time since you sat down yourself and first started to "look through the documentation"?!?+
Sorry didn't mean to let the tone bleed through that much.
But seriously I assumed there was an NSWindow function that did it, checked the documentation, found it, mocked it up in 5 minutes (alright 10 I'm still getting used to IB in Xcode 3), tested it to make sure it worked as expected and then answered your post. Not that you should have been able to do that as quickly but I could do it because I have slogged through the process for other objects I had used.
Really this is a pretty basic Cocoa kind of operation. I have object X supplied but Cocoa (eg NSWindow, NSTextBox, etc.) and I want to do operation Y. Operation Y is almost always already there for you just waiting to be used. Learning this process of finding these things in the documentation and using them is really crucial to being a proficient Cocoa developer.
In Xcode 2 Help > Documentation will give you the searchable API and just type in NSWindow. In Xcode 3 selecting an object - like NSWindow - will change the Help > Documentation menu to point to NSWindow directly.
Cocoa is a very "lived in" API and it has clearly been evolved by people who really used it so it has the buttons and levers right where you want them most of the time. I assumed that NSWindow had a function to change the color simply because it would make sense that it would. And when I checked it did, but my making that assumption and being able to find the function comes from doing the heavy lifting already on other objects.
I'm just hoping you take this as an example of how to do this and next time dig into the docs and find the function. There is no way to be good at it without doing it and getting good at it gives you access to Cocoa's rich API and will get you very far because you get all that programming other people have done for you for (almost) free.
Good luck,
=Tod

Some iphoto pictures not usable as desktop background

I want to set my desktop background as a slideshow of my favourite iPhoto'08 pictures. While experimenting, I've discovered that some of my iPhoto pictures don't seem to work as a desktop background.
Here's what I do (and note that I'm translating from a Swedish version of OSX here):
Right-click on the desktop, choose 'Change desktop background'. In the 'Desktop and Screensaver' dialog, Desktop tab, scroll down the left-hand side list of iPhoto albums (among other things), and select my favourite iPhoto album (Flagged). Wait for the previews to load. Select one of the pictures.
Now, what happens can be one of two things. Either I'll see a slightly bigger preview in the left upper corner of the dialog and I'll see the desktop background change to the picture in question. Or I'll only see the slightly bigger preview in the left upper corner, and the desktop background will turn a boring solid color.
Now, iPhoto itself has no problems with these pictures, and shows them properly. Also, if I use the little + below the left-hand side list to add a folder on the harddrive directly to the list, I can get the broken pictures to show up correctly, as long as I don't go through iPhoto.
So, yeah, that gives me a potential workaround: Export my favourite album now and then, and use the exported folder as background slideshow source. I'd rather have a better solution, where things just work like they're supposed to.
The pattern I've noticed is that iPhoto-modified pictures work fine, non-iPhoto-modified pictures don't seem to work. (That is, if right-clicking on a preview in iPhoto has the menu item 'Show original file' active, the picture will work, if the item is greyed out, the picture won't work.)
A relevant detail in this may be that I've set iPhoto to not copy imported pictures into the library.
Any hints, clues? Now what?

Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
I think this relates to using a Referenced Library:
iPhoto-modified pictures work fine, non-iPhoto-modified pictures don't seem to work.
In other words, iPhoto will share the files it controls (the modifieds are inside the Library Package) and not the ones that it wont.
Simple test: Create a Managed Library (Hold down the option (or alt) key key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Create Library', import a few pics and see if that works as expected.
Regards
TD

Desk top background colours.

Some time ago I was able to use the colour palette to achieve a more acceptable desktop background colour than that supplied by Apple. And I've now forgotten how I did it!! Strangely, none of the formal books seem to recognise that this offers a hugely pleasing alternative to Apple's solid colours.
Could anyone draft a step by step path to achieve this aim.

Hello
There is a way, but it's a little more complex than the usual "Mac way".
Create (or find) a 1-pixel-square transparent image (.png format is fine). If you can't locate one, here's one I made earlier: http://public.me.com/thecliftonfamily (download the 1x1.png file)
Save this file somewhere, and go into your Desktop Background chooser (through System Preferences - Desktop, or by right-clicking on your desktop). Now drag your 1x1 image into the image well (or browse for it). Here's the trick: change the "Fill" option next to the well to "Center". You will now see a colour box to the right - click it and it'll generate a colour wheel from which you can set the colour of your choosing.
Best,
Matt

Black desktop background

Hi everybody: I have a very strange issue here.
In my wife's iBook G4 the ability to change the desktop background colour while the picture is centered is out. Anything she does, the colour remains black (maybe very dark blue). We tried everything, repairing permissions, trashing finder and desktop .plist, playing with calibration, re-installing basic system, with no results. With Panther, and for the first week of Tiger use, it was possible to change the colour, now is stuck to black, out from the blue. I know it is not a serious problem, but is annoying that one cannot control such a simple thing, don't even knowing why. Anybody can help?
Thanks.

i am having the same problem. how did you solve it? it seems to be, the black background issue is only occurring with pdf files (pictures in pdf format, not changeable text) that i am trying to use as desktop photos. however, the problem only started when i just recently tried to change the background, and then decided to change it back. before, i had it set to the white background i wanted, so that the image would blend in without having to stretch. now, the photo (pdf) that was working fine before will only appear with that black background when set to "center" the image. can't get it to change colors to white or anything else.
the image won't appear at all when i change the format from .pdf to .jpg or anything else, and when i did a save-as to a new file (.jpg), it's all stretchy... not what i wanted.
any suggestions? how did you fix yours?

How do you save pictures in Safari directly as desktop background?

I just switched from Firefox because I'm thinking of getting a Mac someday and wanted to adjust to some of the software. I love Safari but it's missing something Safari had. When you right-click on a picture in Firefox there's an option to 'set as desktop background'. Is there a way to do that for Safari? Thanks.

As the other poster says, it doesn't look like this option exists yet. (I expect it will appear sometime, especially given that it's in the Mac version of the product ..they probably just had other priorities with what they wanted in the first non-beta release.)
But in the mean time, it's just one more step: Right-click and use the "Save image to Desktop" option, or whatever save option you have, or drag it to the desktop, then double-click on it (it will probably open in the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer), and from there you can right-click and use the "Set as Desktop Background" option.
Me, I'm a bit of a perfectionist with these things: I prefer to save it, then open in Photoshop and crop and tweak it so it looks perfect. (IrfanView is a good Photoshop-substitute for these kind of tasks.)

Boring set of desktop background colours.

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