wally in unity

For automatic, timed wallpaper changes in Unity in Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty), I found that Wally Wallpaper Changer works, with a few tweaks.

First, I installed wally via Synaptic. Then, I followed the instructions regarding Unity from this web page: http://ubuntuincident.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/wallpaper-changer/

Update (20110509) [Unity patch]

Wally exists in the system tray. However, Ubuntu 11.04 introduced Unity that comes with a new top panel and applications are not allowed to be there by default. You need to enable explications explicitly. If you want to continue using wally, here is what to do:

First, get your current settings for systray-whitelist:

gsettings get com.canonical.Unity.Panel systray-whitelist

Then, add your application to the above list with this command:

gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Panel systray-whitelist "[ your_previous_list_here, 'wally']"


Next, I set up Wally to start at log-in by going to System Settings > Startup Applications and adding an entry for Wally there. Then I logged out and back in to make sure Wally started up and showed up on the panel at the top of the screen.

I set up a directory in my home directory and filled it with wallpapers. To make Wally pull from this list of Wallpapers, I right-clicked on the Wally icon on the panel and selected the "Folders" module. Then I added my wallpapers directory:

From the "Settings" module, I set Wally to change every 10 minutes, set the position to "Centered Maxpect," and put check marks in the boxes next to "Choose in random order," "Switch background on play," and "Play automatically on application start." At the bottom of the window, I made sure that the only active modules are "Folders" and "Files."

I raided interfacelift.com for a bunch of cool wallpapers to add to my collection, then kicked back to enjoy!