Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
A while back I was working on a slideshow screensaver..A recent poster caused me to revive the project..Here is where I am so far..
Part the first....
I have a slideshow Pet, attached below, which works fine now, I think..No one has tested it yet..In my tests it worked on 431, 412, Quirky, and UPup..
On one occasion it failed to place the `loop link in /usr/share/backgrounds. (keeps the slideshow repeating..) Other than that it seems to work well..Places a menu entry under "desktop" and uses backgrounds for its source..
Part the second...
I have a script that checks mouse/keyboard activity, and it starts the slideshow fine after the 2 minute timeout.. The problem is after another 2 minutes it starts it again.. I`ve tried a "killall pidof" statement, to no avail..
Also the only way to currently stop the slideshow is "esc".. I would like to add another loop to check for mouse activity while it is running, to kill it that way.. I will eventually hack my way to an answer, but tips would help..
If I post the script in a tarball, would any one like to check it out, and see where I went wrong..Be nice..LOL..I have been "out of the loop" for a while and I`ve probably missed something stupid..

Otherwise, please test the slideshow pet and tell me where and when it works for you..
Thanks...Jay..

[Lookinglass360]

Hi puppyluvr

Thanks for this slide show pet is way over due.
I’v been happily using for about 7 months although I down loaded it over a
year ago.
When I first tried it in lupu-511, I installed it while running puppy pfix=ram and then placed
pictures in usr/share/backgrounds.
Then ran the slide show, but only the backgrounds that shipped on the iso worked all the pics I added gave error.
It was some time before I discovered that adding the new backgrounds or removing the old first (before installing the pet) worked like a charm.
This works on all the puppy's I’v tried, but I have by no means tried them all.

I have not yet found a way to create more than one slide show, is it even possible?

I always include this and “xscreensaver-5.07“ when I am making a remastered puppy.iso
To be include on a Multipup .iso that I am intending to give to someone for their first look at
puppy, (also added to the extra pets file on the cd or dvd for use by all the puppys there in).

Hope theres some thing useful in this for newbies like me.

Thanks to all who have made puppy and this forum what it is!

Bob

[majorfoo]

Here is a different take on this.

From Desktop, open Nathan Wallpaper Setter.

In top left corner, click on file, which produces three choices
1. Start/stop slideshow (this directory)
2. Options
3. Quit

Clicking option 1, will start a slideshow of all images in /usr/share/backgrounds. Once started, I suggest minimizing nathan wallpaper setter, which will allow you to stop the slideshow by maximizing and clicking option 1 again.

Clicking option 2, will allow you to change the delay seconds between slides. I DO NOT recommend changing the directory as this will cause problems with puppypin file.

I have over 100 jpg images in my /usr/share/backgrounds and it cycled all of them.

majorfoo

[icosahedron]

For my second post, from one newbie to another, a discovery by trial and error:

Ten easy steps to use Slideshow 1.0 on a live RAM installation of Puppy 5.2.5:

1. Create a folder of desired images called slideshow-images, or a name of your choice.

2. Copy the folder into /usr/share.

3. Right click the new folder and click ‘link...’

4. Replace the current address in the symlink box with /root/puppy-reference/slideshow-images. This link seems to tell Puppy where you’ve put the pictures.

5. Click on the Slideshow pet package to automatically install it in /root.

6. Go to the application in /root, right click, open as text and change the default ‘backgrounds’ to ‘slideshow-images’ and perhaps alter the number of seconds before advancing frames from 5 to whatever you prefer. Save and close.

7. Drag and drop the Slideshow icon onto the desktop to make a shortcut.

8. Click on the Slideshow icon. (you can also find a button in the startup menu, in the desktop submenu.)

9. Watch your slideshow.

10. To switch off the slideshow, click Esc.


If these tasks are performed in a different order, the slideshow will not find the images.

The slideshow does not appear to support .png images and gives a warning of:

failed loading libpng.so.3: libpng.so.3.

For simplicity, convert your pngs to jpgs before adding them.

You can add images to the folder after you’ve installed the slideshow app, contrary to the info in some posts I’ve seen here.
You can even add a whole sub-folder of images within the slideshow-images folder.

This means that you can install the images folder empty, along with the link and slideshow app as described above, remaster, then simply insert any folder of pics for your current session.

The slideshow follows the same order each time it starts, and begins with the latest images added, so if instead of remastering with an empty folder, you put a linux/puppy logo in, that will be the last image to be displayed, and when your current slideshow selection has run through, the logo will sit on your screen until you hit esc or the screen switches off.

It’s looking good, thanks Puppyluvr, I thought I'd lost use of my LotR pics when I came over from the Dark Side - but now they’re just a click away.

[Lookinglass360]

Thanks for the tips Guys!

I have just now found my way back to this thread.

Your tips have given me an idea that I will have a
play with when I have some more time.
If it works out I'll post it back here.

Cheers!

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
The pet installs a recursive link in /usr/share/backgrounds to keep it cycling..
If you create a new directory, which works fine, do this:
right click, window, parent/new window
And link your directory into itself..
So, like, /mnt/home/pictures inside /mnt/home/pictures..
When it runs out of images, it will recurse into the new directory, and loop back on itself...
Ok???
Or you can link several different directories of images, as long as the last link leads to the first..
So for example, if you have pics1/pics2/pics3/pics4/pics5
put a link into pics1 to pics2, and pics2 to pics3, till pics5, which links back to pics1..
Easy to add directories later that way...
Just create a new directory, link it to #1, and then link it into the one before it... Ta-da..

[icosahedron]

Hi Puppyluvr, thanks for the reply, but I'm afraid you lost me - I'm just way too new at this, I've only been using Linux for a couple of weeks. I'm just poking about with zero knowledge, confident only that I can't wreck a live ram install...

I've found the window, parent, new window thing, but I'm not sure what that achieves apart from opening a duplicate window.

Every time I try to link the file into itself I get an error message saying file already exists and it won't let me link to itself. What am I doing wrong?

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
It is easier than it sounds..

Open the directory with your pics, so you can see the image files..
"Parent/New Window" opens up 1 level higher, where you can see the directory that is open in the other window..
Click and hold to drag the directory into the other window along with the images, and drop it. You will be asked:
Copy / Move / Link (Relative) / Link (Absolute)
Choose "Link (Absolute)"
An image of the directory will appear, with an arrow on it..
Thats it..

When the slideshow runs out of images, it will look in the linked directory, which links it back to where it is already, thus starting the slideshow over..

Normally, the pet creates this in /usr/share/backgrounds but if you want to use another directory, you must create the linkback manually, as above..

Jay...

[icosahedron]

Got it, thanks, it works a treat.

Thanks again for a really great app.