Wallpaper choice was a big thing 25 years ago. You could run 2 or 3 programs at the same time, but 16M of ram didn’t go that far, so I guess I returned to the desktop quite a lot.
Some habits persist, I still have xplanet on mine. I go weeks without seeing it.
Thanks for reminding me: you could actually set a webpage as the desktop wallpaper in old versions of Windows (XP and before). I used to have a cool animated wallpaper before it was cool.
Interestingly, this reminds me I have not seen the Desktop of my Mac in several years I think. I use spotlight, the dock and favorite places to move around. Plus a tabbed full screen view of several current folders. The Desktop should be behind all that, I assume ;)
I see my desktop at least weekly, but only because I shut down my computer on the weekends I’m not on call. I can’t remember the last time I used it to open anything, regardless of the OS. I use the taskbar/dock, and the start menu/search function to open via the GUI. Otherwise, everything opens from the CLI.
I'm the exact opposite. Unless I'm watching a video, I'm usually not full screen. I keep my windows either side by side or centered with the desktop being visible on both sides. I absolutely hate it when apps like browsers, VS-Code-without-split-view-active or Slack are stretched the full width of 5120.
Right. I have mission control set up to one hot corner for when I want to switch between windows lazily with just one hand (mouse) and making out parts of my wallpaper underneath the scattered windows is the extent I see it.
How often do most people see the desktop during a session? To me is when turning on the computer, just before before mail chat and browser open. After that I just switch between apps.
What I'm currently doing instead of a live wallpaper, is that I have a firefox plugin that on opening a new tab without url, shows me a site with status on things that matter to me.
My workflow is always closing everything when I’m done with one segment of work (a bug is fixed, a commit polished, an email replied, the day has come to an end, etc.), and take a big stretch after getting out of the chair.
So, I see my wallpaper quite a bit; though I don’t notice it much any more.
I do, often. I keep my new tab page in all browsers blank for speed and minimal distraction, regularly hide all background apps (cmd-opt-H on Mac), close windows I'm not going to use for a while (especially anything that could have unsaved state), and use the set of items on my desktop as shortcuts into my key workflows.
I have been working on a project with some similarities, an X window manager written in Electron. It uses browser windows for wallpapers as well as frame windows. Haven't gotten the API where I want it to be yet, but I use it daily.
I'm using Lively Wallpaper[0] to show an audio visualizer (trough CefSharp). The CPU load as shown in Task Manager is around 1.5-2% on my Ryzen 5800X. Therefore I tend to activate it only when I actually play some music and have it show.
That second link seems to have some issues with credibility.
And if you think Antivirus Software selling users' browser data is a poopy thing to do, you should take a look at what Cell Phone Carriers do with your phone's data.
This is cool though it contributes to the saturated "let's ship our own browser" space. I need a separate browser to play music, to play games, to communicate with people, to browse the web, and now to run a wallpaper. If only we had a way to use a single browser instance that is utilized by all of these. That's kind of been the selling point of the web all this time - write once and run almost everywhere. You shouldn't need to ship your own browser, though I understand we don't have that kind of capability standardized yet.
I find that the larger the monitor I have the more I appreciate windowed apps (vs. fullscreen) and as a result wallpaper choice makes more of a difference.
I currently use Wallpaper Engine, will have to give Octos a try.
I had an idea for a similar project (1) a few years back, but abandoned it after reaching the state where I had a node module to attach an Electron window to the wallpaper in Windows.
Fun to see a project that has reached further, remember how cool I used to think dashboards/widgets for the PC stats were when I was younger.
This looks pretty neat! Reminds me of the early 2000s when everyone around me was messing around with rainmeter (Which I believe is still around) but this seems like it might be much more accessible.
OK: I want an animated wallpaper of desktop windows, with the windows moving from time to time. It's good to be distracted from the useful parts of your computer.
Wallpaper choice was a big thing 25 years ago. You could run 2 or 3 programs at the same time, but 16M of ram didn’t go that far, so I guess I returned to the desktop quite a lot.
Some habits persist, I still have xplanet on mine. I go weeks without seeing it.