Create wallpaper slideshow in Ubuntu 9.10

First of all, happy new year! Nothing like the morning of a new year to be messing around with Linux and Python!

One of the new things in Ubuntu 9.10 is that you can now use a wallpaper slideshow for your desktop, which will cycle your desktop wallpaper at regular intervals from a selected pool of wallpapers. The default Ubuntu 9.10 comes with a space-themed wallpaper slideshow, but there is apparently no option to create your own ones. However, the configuration is stored in plaintext XML files, one in /usr/share/gnome-background-properties and the other in the corresponding directory where the images are stored, in /usr/share/backgrounds.

The following Python script will automatically create these two XML files so that you can set a wallpaper slideshow with the images of your preferences.

Slideshow Builder script
(Right-click and select "Save Link As..", or the equivalent in your browser).

Here's the instructions. You will need root access since the directory where you're doing the operations, /usr/share/, is owned by root. Simply use sudo (or sudo -i if you're lazy).

1) Create a directory in /usr/share/backgrounds with the name of your slideshow. For instance, if the desired name is 'space', the dir should be called '/usr/share/backgrounds/space/'.

2) Copy all the wallpaper images to that folder. The supported formats are jpg, png, gif and bmp.

3) Run the Python script in the images directory. This will automatically create two xml files: one in the (current) images directory, and another one in /usr/share/gnome-background-properties.

4) That's all! You can now select the slideshow in the Gnome wallpaper selection interface.

A sample usage of the script is shown in the following image:


And the slideshow now appears in the desktop Background selection screen:

Update: I've fixed the dead link to the script.