[SOLVED] Set background image without feh

Question

I've been setting my background image by using "feh --bg-fill [path to image]" but I would like to move to a simpler alternative such as imlibsetroot, hsetroot, xsetbg, etc.  The problem is that I haven't been able to find a way to get any of these programs to do exactly what feh's --bg-fill option does.  That is, the image should scale up or down, while maintaining its aspect ratio, until either its horizontal or vertical edges meet the sides of the screen and there is no empty space visible.  Basically, I want the program to push part of the image off the screen if that's what it takes to fill the whole thing.
Is there a way to do this that I'm just missing?
Last edited by zcal (2012-08-05 16:29:50)

Answer 1

Trilby wrote:Use an image editor to scale/stretch your image to match your screen's resolution.  Then use one of the *setroots.
This was my first thought, but I move between three separate screens of different resolutions.  I've resigned myself to being stuck with feh for now.    Thanks for your suggestion, though!
Edit:
Worked up a solution similar to this but that doesn't require editing any image files.  imlibsetroot has an option (-s X,Y) for scaling an image to a set X and Y number of pixels.  Since I use a couple of custom shortcuts to toggle screens with xrandr, I just tacked on imlibsetroot with the appropriate number of pixels for each screen.  This allows me to set the image width or height to be wider or higher than the screen if necessary to completely fill up the background, it just means I need to do some simple math to get the right dimensions.
Here's an example for an image of 1440x864 on my 1280x1024 monitor:
xrandr --output LVDS --off --output VGA-0 --auto && imlibsetroot -s 1707,1024 -p c ~/look/background
Admittedly this solution would suck if I changed my background on a regular basis, but I don't. 
Last edited by zcal (2012-08-05 16:32:25)