dWall began as a 'testbed' for the new version of the wallpaper changer found in ShellOn. However, it quickly became clear when I tried to integrate dWall back into ShellOn, that a much better idea would be to have ShellOn and dWall as separate programs. When I started work on ShellOn v3, I decided not to implement a wallpaper changer as there had been in ShellOn v2. dWall and ShellOn are now separate programs, and I hope you like them both.
Send in any comments you have, however minor they may seem, because they'll all help me make dWall even better.
Enjoy the app...
Just unzip the program where you want it. I'd suggest it's own folder, but it is up to you. The program will create two additional files, dWall.ini and wallpaper.bmp. No settings are stored in the registry, so it's a 'clean' app in that sense ;)
The first thing to do is to launch dWall by double clicking the dWall.exe file. This will launch you into a pristiNe new install of dWall.
The first thing to do is add some folders to dWall's list. Click the Options button, in the bottom left, and add a couple of folders to the list. Check the check boxes for the folders to be included in any wallpaper changing. For example, I have one checked folder, and three unchecked ones. The unchecked are my 'archive' of wallpapers that I add and remove from the 'active' checked folder. This means that I can remove any wallpapers from the change list, but still have easy access if I want to re-add them.
Click OK and your folders will appear in the lefthand box. Double click a folder to expand it and show the wallpapers stored in the folder. Double click a wallpaper to apply it to the Desktop. Double clicking the preview image will open the image in your image editor.
Right click the list of wallpapers to access a menu which allows you to apply the wallpaper, preview it in your image editor and set some options for how it is applied.
The Options window contains four tabs. Each of these contains options relating to dWall's behaviour.
The Folders tab is where you add folders to dWall's library. The Add, Edit and Remove add a folder, change where a folder is and delete a folder from the library. You can also change the order of the folder using the Move Up and Move Down buttons. The check boxes next to each folder name control whether dWall includes the folder in any of its 'automatic' changing operations - change at startup, at intervals or using the Ctrl-Alt-C hotkey.
The System tab contains options for how dWall integrates with your computer. The top two options are self explainitary. The Context Menu Handlers controls whether dWall appears on the menu that appears when you right-click files in Explorer. Apply with dWall will attempt to apply the file as the desktop wallpaper when you click it. Add to dWall will add folders to dWall when it is clicked. The Hotkey setting controls whether you can use Ctrl-Alt-C as a system wide hotkey to change your wallpaper. It uses the same method (random or sequential) as the Change wallpaper at startup option
The Applying tab controls extra things that happen when dWall changes your wallpaper. Set Desktop icon backgrounds transparent clears the solid colour behind icons in OSs below Windows XP, where icon back grounds are already transparent. Timed Changing will set dWall to change your wallpaper automatically every few minutes. The Default Tile Style is used when none of the methods on the Apply tab can be applied to the current wallpaper.
The stretching tab is where much of the power of dWall lies. dWall can stretch and shrink wallpapers to fit your desktop and the Stretching tab defines how dWall decides what to do. with a given wallpaper.
You can set large wallpapers to be shrunk to the size of the desktop by checking the Resize checkbox in the Larger Wallpapers section.
For smaller wallpapers, the stretch setting will enlarge it to the desktop size, if the image is larger than the percentage you set. Tiling will be used if the image is smaller than the Tile percentage of the desktop. I'm sure you can figure the thing out with a little experimentation!
For both larger and smaller wallpapers, if the deformation to the wallpaper would be smaller than the amount in the Deformation slider, the wallpaper will be stretched to fill your entire desktop. I find a good value for this is 15% deformation. This is designed to allow a certain leeway in resizing wallpapers to fill the desktop without making them look too weird.
Just delete the dWall.exe file, dWall.ini and wallpaper.bmp (wallpaper.bmp may not exist, it is created when you apply a wallpaper).
Send me any and all comments, bugs and whatever to: delusional@dx13.co.uk.
Check the site for new versions : http://www.dx13.co.uk.
Kudos goes out to all the people who have supported me in the ShellOn project, and have given me the incentive to carry on with it. I owe you all!
Also to all the people who have mailed me with suggestions for dWall, this version wouldn't be here if you'd just sat quietly!
Key : + New Feature | * Bug Fixed | - Feature Refined
Mini recode due to the loss of some custom components used in the interface. Hence I changed the version number to version 1, as it's a no-known-bugs version. I also added and modified features to implement all the little things that had cropped up during day-to-day use.
dWall and all its associated material is copyright © Mike Rhodes 2001-2003.