[dasos]

---

Oh it does? Yea, im running 6.5.22, is the config string like the other or is it different?

Syntax is:

Code:

background "[display name]"
default "-image [filename with path]"

There was also a script someone had written (forget who) to populate the backgrounds file.

Copy the following to a shell script, save it and make it executable:

Code:

#!/bin/sh
BGDIR=$HOME/Backgrounds
#cp /usr/lib/X11/system.backgrounds $HOME/.backgrounds
chmod 644 $HOME/.backgrounds
cd ${BGDIR}
for x in *.jpg *.xpm *.png *.bmp; do
case ${x} in
'*.jpg'|'*.xpm'|'*.png'|'*.bmp') ;;
*)
NAME=`echo ${x} | tr '.' ' ' | awk '{print $1}' | tr '_' ' '`
echo "" >> $HOME/.backgrounds
echo "background \""${NAME}"\"" >> $HOME/.backgrounds
echo "default \""-image ${BGDIR}/${x}"\"" >> $HOME/.backgrounds
;;
esac
done

Copy your images into ~\Backgrounds, run the script and it will populate the .backgrounds file with all the images.

Hmmm, I might be missing something with my install. Any entry I make with flag "-image" will not populate in the backgrounds app. If I were to change to something like "-xpm" it will show up (of course, won't load). I was sure to create the image on my other machine with Photoshop with the exact resolution as the display, too, not sure if that matters or not but figured might help. Thanks for y'all help

[radiance]

I have a trick I use for my backgrounds

I find a suitable background online, then open it on my SGI in Photoshop 3.0,
and convert it to grayscale. eg 8bit 256 grayscale levels.
Then I convert it back to 24bit RGB and then use the tools in photoshop to change the greys to a full colour (like image -> color balance)
Finally, I convert it to an 8bit 256 color index color image in photoshop, and I choose a palette of say 6 or 7 bits during the conversion process. 
This will have the background eat 128 of the 256 available colours of so...
Then i save it to an 8bit indexed TIFF, and then convert that TIFF to XPM with XV.

This gives me a nice, small, fast 8bit indexed background that, although uniformly coloured, looks "24bit like" with no horrid dithering...
It loads 3x faster and consumes 3x less memory, and does'nt need to be decompressed, and it even looks nice on an 8bit display like an Indy with XL8 graphics...

I've attached an example ZIP file with 3 different colours applied as 3 XPM files..
Note these are 1600x1200 as that's my display res, you can use them as is on a lower resolution, or use xv or imagemagick's convert command to convert them...

bubbles xpm wallpapers in 3 colours

Cheers,
Radiance

[gijoe77]

I have a trick I use for my backgrounds
<snip>
It loads 3x faster and consumes 3x less memory, and does'nt need to be decompressed, and it even looks nice on an 8bit display like an Indy with XL8 graphics...

ok, I have always wondered if it was me or if im doing something wrong.

I have an account on my o2 that has 4 desktops, each one has a different background image - when I log in it literally take 3 minutes for the desktop to load (I just timed it, this is a 400mhz R12k 1GB RAM o2 btw)

does it usually take a long time to log into an account that uses jpg files as a background?

[dasos]

I have a trick I use for my backgrounds

I find a suitable background online, then open it on my SGI in Photoshop 3.0,
and convert it to grayscale. eg 8bit 256 grayscale levels.
Then I convert it back to 24bit RGB and then use the tools in photoshop to change the greys to a full colour (like image -> color balance)
Finally, I convert it to an 8bit 256 color index color image in photoshop, and I choose a palette of say 6 or 7 bits during the conversion process. 
This will have the background eat 128 of the 256 available colours of so...
Then i save it to an 8bit indexed TIFF, and then convert that TIFF to XPM with XV.

This gives me a nice, small, fast 8bit indexed background that, although uniformly coloured, looks "24bit like" with no horrid dithering...
It loads 3x faster and consumes 3x less memory, and does'nt need to be decompressed, and it even looks nice on an 8bit display like an Indy with XL8 graphics...

I've attached an example ZIP file with 3 different colours applied as 3 XPM files..
Note these are 1600x1200 as that's my display res, you can use them as is on a lower resolution, or use xv or imagemagick's convert command to convert them...

bubbles xpm wallpapers in 3 colours

Cheers,
Radiance

Oh neat, thanks. Surely will give that a try. Of course, ive been having troubles install Photoshop xD But thats a diffrent story ^.^ #SGINoob

[Irinikus]

All you do to convert the .jpg file to a .XPM, is open it in IRIX and you can the save it as a .XPM file using "ImageView" in IRIX:



I saved the .XPM file that I created to this location:



I added the following lines to the .backgrounds file:



I had to change the Desktop's colour depth to 24-Bit for it to work. I followed these instructions to do this:



I now have a cool desktop backgrounds running at a 3840x1080 resolution: