[HOW TO] Create your own Dynamic Wallpaper on ZorinOS 16

Tutorials & Guides
1

Here's a short tutorial I made for adding custom dynamic wallpapers on ZorinOS (like the mountain one)

6 Likes
2

Tried the exact thing yesterday :smiley: . Based on the post by timothys_monster.
Wish I saw your post then ^^ - thx for the video .
My solution was as follows:

  • For heic conversion:
    sudo apt install libheif-examples
  • And then a dirty python script to create the .xml with equal timings per picture:
import os
SEC_TOTAL = 24*60*60
str_Out = "<background>\n\t<starttime>\n\t\t<year>2021</year>"+\
		"\n\t\t<month>3</month>\n\t\t<day>28</day>\n\t\t<hour>5</hour>"+\
		"\n\t\t<minute>0</minute>\n\t\t<second>0</second>\n\t</starttime>"
DIR = os.path.dirname(__file__)
content = os.listdir(DIR)
for fileName in content:
	if fileName.lower().endswith(".heic"):
		#sudo apt install libheif-examples needed!
		os.system('heif-convert "'+ fileName+ '" dynWp_Pic.jpg')
n_pics = len(os.listdir(DIR)) - len(content)
tim4Step = SEC_TOTAL / (2*n_pics)
#sure xml can be done nicer :D
for n in range(1,n_pics+1):
	str_Out += "\t<static>\n\t\t<file>"+DIR+"/dynWp_Pic-"+str(n)+".jpg</file>\n" +\
	"\t\t<duration>"+str(tim4Step)+"</duration>\n\t</static>\n" +\
	'\t<transition type="overlay">\n\t\t<duration>'+str(tim4Step)+"</duration>\n"+\
	"\t\t<from>"+DIR+"/dynWp_Pic-"+str(n)+".jpg</from>\n"+\
	"\t\t<to>"+DIR+"/dynWp_Pic-"+str(n%n_pics+1)+".jpg</to>\n\t</transition>\n\n"
str_Out+="</background>"
with open("dynWp.xml","w") as f:
	f.write(str_Out)

As timothys_monster pointed out this should work for everyone using GNOME (via gnome-tweaks, selecting the .xml as wallpaper) or MATE.
Hope this is useful :slight_smile:

1 Like
5

I was aware of the manual conversion and xml generation but for my tutorial I chose the easiest and the most simple method anyone can follow :slight_smile:

6

This is so much easier!! Thanks for sharing :slight_smile:

1 Like
7

the link to the website with dynamic wallpapers doesn't exist anymore

8

Post is over 30 days ...which website link is gone and did you do a search via a search engine to find dynamic wallpaper? Took me a few seconds of my time to locate these for you.... google or bing or DuckDuckGo are real amazing results

Dynamic Wallpapers

9

I don't get the desired result. my search end to a normal wallpaper and nothing like in the tutorial