Use Flickr for your desktop slideshow

[baarod]

I've attached a cool program my son wrote originally to fetch a random image from Flickr (Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing) and set it as your desktop background. I thought it was so cool that I added a few new features and thought I'd post it here for feedback.

View attachment Flippr.zip

Here's the content of the readme.txt file:

Flippr


Description: 
    
    Flippr is a SmallBasic program that "flips" the desktop background to a 
    (optionally) random image from Flickr (www.flickr.com).


Usage:

    Flippr [/window] [taglist]

    /window        Show a status window in the upper right corner of the 
            desktop while Flippr is working.
    tagist        One or more Flickr tags to search for separated by 
            spaces. If the tag contains spaces surround it with 
            double quotes.


Notes:

    This program was originally written as a test of Microsoft SmallBasic 
    (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/devlabs/cc950524.aspx) by my 16 year
    old son following the "Getting Started Guide" included with the 
    product. The program name was his idea -- Flickr/Flippr -- clever...

    "Hey, Dad. Check this out! Look what I wrote!"

    I was blown away. He'd never written a line of code in his life and
    somebody on the internet turned him on to this one day and the next
    he's writing cool programs. Show it to your kids.

    I added command line parsing, the status window and created a Windows 7
    Task Scheduler XML with an installer script. Oh, and this readme file.

Files:

    Flippr.exe        Main executable. Depends on 
                SmallBasicLibrary.dll below.

    Flippr.sb        SmallBasic source code for Flippr.exe

    Flippr.xml        Task Scheduler task for installation with
                Install.cmd below

    Install.cmd        Task Scheduler install script, edit Flippr.xml
                per the instructions below and run this to 
                automatically change your desktop background
                on a schedule.

    readme.txt        this file

    SmallBasicLibrary.dll    SmallBasic runtime DLL, leave in same folder
                as Flipper.exe


Flippr.xml:

    Hopefully you know something about XML by now.  If not, it's just a
    fancy text file.  For those of you that know about XPath just change

        /Task/Actions/Exec/Command/text()
    
    to the full path to Flippr.exe

        /Task/Actions/Exec/Arguments/text()

    to the desired command line arguments and

        /Task/Triggers/CalendarTrigger/Repetition/Interval/text()

    to the run interval i.e. PT1H is 1 hour, PT10M is 10 minutes, etc. 
    
    If you're lost at this point read on otherwise just run Install.cmd
    to install the scheduler task and happy Flippn...

    Rather than explaining what XML is in detail just do the following to
    get going:

    1) Open Flippr.xml with notepad.
    2) Search for "<Interval>" without the quotes.
    3) Replace the text between <Interval> and </Interval> with PT1H if
    you want the desktop wallpaper to flip every hour, PT2H every two
    hours, PT10M every 10 minutes, PT30M every 30 minutes and so on.
    4) Search for "<Command>".
    5) Replace the text between <Command> and </Command> with the full
    path to Flippr.exe.  If you move it later you'll have to edit this
    file again and rerun Install.cmd to update it.
    6) Search for "<Arguments>".
    7) Replace the text between <Arguments> and </Arguments> with the 
    desired program arguments as documented in the Usage section above.
    8) Save the file and run Install.cmd to install the scheduler task.

 

[johngalt]

Interesting - Display Fusion does that as well....