## Background

The Background module allows you to configure colors or wallpapers for your desktop background.

It is comprised of four areas:

1. Desktop selection area.

2. The background Preview Monitor

3. An area for determining the background color

4. An area for selecting background images

Selecting the desktop

- The drop down box labeled Setting for desktop:, is used to select the desktop you want to configure. You can select any of the desktops individually, or you can select All Desktops and the changes you make will be applied to all desktops.

Preview Monitor

- This is a preview window. It will give you a sense of what to expect with each change.

Coloring

- This section, allows you to fill the screen with one or more colors.

  If you are going to be using a picture as a wallpaper, you can skip this section of the dialog box.

  First click on the radio button labeled Colors.

  Now select the primary color by using the button labeled Primary Color. Next, use the drop down box labeled Blend Mode. Your options are:

  No Blending

- By choosing this mode, you select one color (using the color button labeled Primary Color:), and the entire background is covered with this one color.

Pattern

- By choosing this mode, you select two colors (using both color buttons).

  You then select a pattern by clicking Choose a pattern.... This opens a new dialog window, which gives you the opportunity to Select a pattern. Simply click once on the pattern of your choice, then click on OK, and &kde; will render the pattern you selected using the two colors you selected. For more on patterns, see the section Adding, Removing and Modifying Patterns.

Horizontal

- By choosing this mode, you select two colors (using both color buttons). &kde; will then start with the color selected by Primary Color on the left edge of the screen, and slowly transform into the color selected by Blend Color by the time it gets to the right edge of the screen.

Vertical

- By choosing this mode, you select two colors (using both color buttons). &kde; will then start with the color selected by Primary Color on the top edge of the screen, and slowly transform into the color selected by Blend Color as it moves to the bottom of the screen.

Pyramid

- By choosing this mode, you select two colors (using both color buttons). &kde; will then start with the color selected by Primary Color in each corner of the screen, and slowly transform into the color selected by Blend Color as it moves to the center of the screen.

Pipecross

- By choosing this mode, you select two colors (using both color buttons). &kde; will then start with the color selected by Primary Color in each corner of the screen, and slowly transform into the color selected by Blend Color as it moves to the center of the screen. The shape of this gradient is different then the pyramid gradient.

Elliptic

- By choosing this mode, you select two colors (using both color buttons). &kde; will then start with the color selected by Blend Color in the center of the screen, and slowly transform into the color selected by Primary Color as it moves to the edges, in an elliptical pattern.

Images

- This section allows you to load a wallpaper on top of the color gradient chosen in the section above.

  Before you select your images, you should choose the pattern on how the images will be placed. You should choose one of the modes from the drop down box labeled Positioning. Your choices are:

  Centered

- The image will be centered on the screen without changing the size of the image. The background colors will be present anywhere the image does not cover.

Tiled

- The image will be duplicated until it fills the entire desktop. The first image will be placed in the upper left corner of the screen, and duplicated downward and to the right.

Center Tiled

- The image will be duplicated until it fills the entire desktop. The first image will be placed in the center of the screen, and duplicated upward, downward to the right, and to the left.

Centered Maxpect

- The image will be placed in the center of the screen. It will be scaled to fit the desktop, but it will not change the aspect ratio of the original image. This will provide you with an image that is not distorted.

Tiled Maxpect

- The image will be placed in the corner of the screen. It will be scaled to fit the desktop, but it will not change the aspect ratio of the original image. This will provide you with an image that is not distorted. If there is any space over, the image will be duplicated to fill it.

Scaled

- The image will be scaled to fit the desktop. It will be stretched to fit to all four corners.

If you have multiple images in the list on the left, you may need to select an image. Select an image by clicking on the name of the image.

Displaying wallpaper requires that the image be kept in memory. If you are low on memory, using a small, tiled image or none at all is recommended.

Scaling or centering a small image still requires an image the size of your display to be maintained in memory.

The drop down box labeled Blending: contains the options to make a smooth transition (blend) from the wallpaper as it changes to the background.

The blending area consists of two elements:

1. A drop-down box, which allows you to select the blending mode. Many of the modes are similar to blending modes for background colors. Select your mode from the list, and the preview window shows you what it will look like.

2. The Balance slider. This adjusts the blending. The results can be seen in the preview window.

### Adding a Background Image

To add an image to the list, simply click on Add Image.... A dialog box will appear. Use this dialog box to select an image file. Click OK.

The image is added to the end of the list.

### Removing a Background Image

To remove an image from the list, simply click on the name of the file you want to remove from the list. Then click on Remove Image.

The image is deleted from the list.

### Sequential and Random Backgrounds

&kde; can automatically change wallpapers on your system at a specified time. You give it the list of image files, and it can either change them in a predetermined order, or randomly.

To have &kde; automatically change your wallpaper, first you must set the layout of the wallpaper in the drop down box labeled Positioning.

Now create a list of images you want to cycle through. You create the list by Adding and Removing images from the list. Once the list is created, the combo box labeled Switch image every: will become active. Enter the number of minutes between each image switch. You can have the image change every 1 minute to every 1440 minutes (24 hours).

You can use the drop down box labeled Image order: to determine whether &kde; randomly selects the image, or cycles through the images in the order they appear in the list.

Click OK to accept your changes, or Cancel to leave without making any changes permanent.

### Adding, Removing and Modifying Patterns

A pattern, is a picture file, which &kde; uses as a template to draw your background. The picture file provides the shapes, but &kde; provides the colors. &kde; 2.2 is packaged with several patterns, but you can add new patterns.

You use a pattern by first selecting Pattern, from the Blending Mode drop down box.

Then you click Choose Pattern....

This opens a dialog box. The dialog box consists of a list of all current patterns, and three buttons: Add, Remove, and Modify.

In front of some of the pattern names, is a small globe. This signifies that this is a system wide (or global) pattern, and is available to everyone. Those patterns without a picture, are user patterns, and not available to other users.

To use a pattern that is already on the list, simply click once on the pattern, then click on OK.

Adding a pattern to the list

If you click on the Add button, yet another dialog box appears, with three blanks:

- A text entry line labeled Name. This will be the descriptive name of the newly created pattern.

- A text entry line labeled Comment. This is a descriptive comment. It is also a good place to enter the artist, date of creation, &etc;

- A text entry line labeled Image, and a Browse button next to it. Either by entering the filename directly into the text entry line, or by browsing through the button labeled Browse, you need to locate for &kde; an image file to use in the pattern. These image files are usually JPEG files.

  Once you have selected a file, you can press OK to create the new pattern based on the information you have edited, or click Cancel, to stop without creating a new pattern.

You should now see your new pattern in the list.

To remove a pattern from the list, simply click on the name of the pattern once, and click Remove. &kde; will verify that you do want to delete this pattern. Simply Click Yes. Clicking No will not remove the pattern from the list.

Deleting a pattern does not delete the image file associated with the pattern.

If you did not create the pattern, you cannot remove the pattern from the system. Only the system administrator can remove global patterns.

To modify a pattern, simply click on the pattern name and then click on Modify. You will now have a chance to change any parameters of the pattern. Click OK to save your changes, or click Cancel to ignore your changes

### Using external programs to determine background

To use an external program to determine and change the background of &kde;, simply select Program in the Colors section of the dialog. To configure this option, then click Setup Background Program.

This will bring up a dialog box, which will let you add in one or more programs, determine their options, set their refresh times, &etc;

Using external programs to modify or change the background is beyond the scope of this document.

### Advanced options

Located below the preview monitor, is a button labeled Advanced Options....

Clicking on this button brings up a dialog box. The Limit pixmap cache check box, when selected, allows you to determine how much maximum memory &kde; will use to store pixmap info. The default is usually the best choice.

### Section Authors

Mike McBride mpmcbride7@yahoo.com, Mark Donohoe, Martin Jones mjones@kde.org, Duncan H.