Real-time Sunlight Wallpaper
 
Since the upgrade of version 4 of RSW only supports Ubuntu releases using GTK3 which is Oneiric and Precise. I commented the change in this blog post:http://realtimesunlightwallpaper.weebly.com/1/post/2011/10/dconf-compatible-only-and-a-small-update.html

I wasn't going to keep updating older releases of Ubuntu but I'm getting a lot of complains from such people. Older version of Ubuntu which uses GTK2 the new version of RSW won't work at all and it may crash as the 2 versions of GTK are uncomplatible. The system call that RSW makes to change the wallpaper, etc are basically the same.

Also, older verions of RSW except 4.2 won't work either as the call the access the pictures has changes.

Last Friday I pushed an update into the Natty repository of Ubuntu to back port RSW back to GTK2, I'm still not 100% sure if this version is fully working. Once I have an updated version of RSW working for GTK2 I'll push the release to all the other Ubuntu releases from Lucid upwards via the ppa.

Today, I will package a debian installer for releases of Ubuntu using GTK2 and post a link in this post, if you are interested on this version of RSW and which to give a hand by trying them out comment on this post the recieve updates.

Thank you
4 Comments
 
 
Some of you already notice that RSW has stopped working as reported in this bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/realtimesunlightwallpaper/+bug/676370
Don't panic!!! A fix it's just been released.
4 Comments
 
 
I should point out that from version 4 upwards RSW is using dconf instead of gconf any more following the change from gtk2 to gtk3. People still using Natty or Lucid LTS, please use the v0.3.4. I won't be updating RSW for gconf any more.

Also, anybody using RSW any where else and installing RSW from tar.gz. Please make sure to install the dependencies (curl, graphicsmagick-imagemagick-compat). The installation process has been updated in the downloads page.

I just uploaded a new debian package addressing some dependency packages I forgot to add. This doesn't affect the PPA package as this is checked already by Ubunu repositories.
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New Release v0.4 11/10/2011
 
I've been working on this new release on and off for quite a while now and I actually wanted to add one more feature but the imminent release of Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric just around the corner I couldn't wait any more.

In this new release I added few new features. One of them been a feature request from Launchpad, which was to be able to centre the map to the user liking, specially for people from Australia. Now you can centre the map to situate Australia on the middle of the screen for example. Play around with it, you get some interesting things.

While a was implementing this feature it occurred to me that I could push this even further and now I also added the possibility to move the earth instead of the sunlight. Instead of seeing the sunlight going by. Now you can centre the darkness on the middle of the screen on check the move the earth option and all you will see is the night lights going by the earth. I personally quite like this feature. Give it a try.

I had a few issues with this, like it maps would go off synch sometimes. That's why I marked this feature as beta in the applications. I expect to hear from you and see what you think.

I'm also working (not ready for this release) is the options to have an offline option for people using RSW on their laptops, to be able to set a default wallpaper when offline, instead of seeing a blank screen. I'll implement this feature as soon as I can.

I also added a new dependency: graphicsmagick-imagemagick-compat, which is the package used to chop the images and be able to centre the map in different locations.

Hope you like the new features and talk to you soon.
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This is just a couple of small improvements to the script as suggested here by Kevin Keraudren.

The main change to the code is the time that RSW waits for an internet connection. Before RSW was waiting for up to 5 minutes for an internet connection which makes the application to freeze while waiting. This I thought it was useful while the computer boot up to let the system to get connected to the internet or if the connection was lost unexpectedly. This is now been change down to just 1 minute before RSW gives up until the next time that it has to download the next image which it will be every 30 minutes.

Let me now if some of you find that 1 minute is not enough and I may change again a bit higher perhaps.

Thank you all for your support.

ps - more to come soon
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I would like to thank everyone for their support. All day yesterday and today I was getting bugfixes and suggestions about this latest problem with wget command. I quite nice to see the community giving feedback on something you created.

As you may think this may not be a long term solution as perhaps die.net may block curl also. I haven't heard back from them yet. If possible I'm going to try to work with them and try to find a solution.

I mention on the last post also that I'm looking at other long term solution like using an external server to download the maps to, and RSW to point at those images instead but all this will take a bit more time.

Thank's again for your feedback and support 
4 Comments
 
 
I just want to mention that RSW has stop working. This is due to wget request to die.net has stopped working, it has nothing to do with the application.

When I first started developing RSW I tried to get in touch with die.net about using their images for such a cause but I never got a response back from them. So, I continued using the images on the grounds that the images are free to use as stated here, as long as I provide a link back to their website which I did.

I already send them a message about this problem and waiting for a response. I'll try to get an agreement with them and see if I can sort this out asap.

I'm also looking at other alternatives, like using a http request within RSW instead of using wget or perhaps download the images to an external server and use the images for RSW from there, but any changes will take some time to develop specially now that I have exams coming before Christmas, etc...

The bug on relation to this can be found here.
7 Comments
 
 
This is only a bug fixed which affected the --nodisplay command at startup reported in this bugs:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/realtimesunlightwallpaper/+bug/671838
https://bugs.launchpad.net/realtimesunlightwallpaper/+bug/672219

Thank you for the support and the report of bugs...
1 Comment
 
Lucid PPA fixed 03/11/2010
 
Sorry everyone for the inconvenience. I thought I could just copy the repository form Maverick to Lucid but apparently you can't.

I just finish uploading the packages for the Lucid PPA and everything should be back in order.
2 Comments
 
 
After yesterday releasing a bug fix. I've got confirmation that the bug is fix with the new relaese.

Nothing else to add. This is only a bug fix release.
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