How to get an animated background in E2*

Howtos Elive
#1

How to get an animated background in E2*

Getting an animated background is easy in Enlightenment.

  1. Find an animated background.
    My favourite source is chrisripp, the author of NightBlue (the theme).
  2. Download the files.
    In chrisripp's repo, it's as simple as cloning it. So just launch a terminal, type gfc https://github.com/chrisripp/Animated-background, and it will be in /home/<user>/Animated-background.
    Be aware that it is quite a hefty download (560 Mb) and will take time.
    Optionally you can download only a specific theme/animation by downloading the wanted .edj file and the folder of the same name that contain all the needed graphics.
  3. Install it!
    It's not as easy as double-click, but all you really have to do is navigate to Settings>Wallpaper. Choose Personal and then Import File.... Navigate to the .edj of the one you want -- my preferred one would be mandalorian.edj. In case you can't tell whether they're .edj files or not, you want to pick one and then check the filename, here is an example:

    (The arrow is pointing to the filename.)
    Then click Apply, and you can close it

TIP
Some of the themes/animation do have folders but not an .edj file.
You can create those yourself by running the "build.sh" inside the directory.

  • Not all will build without errors depending on your machine and Enlightenment version, though.
1 Like
#2

I don't see Wallpaper anywhere. I can see Backgrounds from Desktop but it doesn't do anything.

???

#3

Greetings @MomboMan to the forum, the place for questions, howtos, laughs, opinions, and just a kind / vibrant community. :smiley14:

I don't have access to Elive right now so I'll have to do it in a bit.

I don't really understand your problem...could you elaborate? Thanks!

1 Like
#4

I left click on the background, select Enlightenment -> Settings and I get a popup. 17 tabs on the left and one is Backgrounds. If select it I get a bunch of backgrounds but I can't add or load or anything but pick one from the list.

#5

Ah, that's a simple solution:

You don't click on the Settings option, just hover.

If you know of a way to more clearly state this, you can click the EDIT button under the post and edit away (only in howtos).

I just checked -- you don't have the permissions for this, so what you have to do to get the permission is:

Get to trust level 1 by…

  • Entering at least 5 topics
  • Reading at least 30 posts
  • Spend a total of 10 minutes reading posts

Then you can edit any howto you like. :smiley14:

#6

It's not the "enlightenment" but "settings" tab you want:

The wallpaper widget (not backgrounds) on E24 allows to import files if you set it to "personal".
It's on the top right corner.

However if you're using E16 (which makes the thread header a bit strange) you'll have to copy them yourself to ~/.e16/backgrounds/ folder, after which you'll be able to select.

#7

Erm maybe you could set up a small gallery showing the named animations.
Considering you, by the look of it, have already downloaded/cloned the repo :thinking:

On top, they don't all seem to "animate" on my E24 dark-theme .... do they work on your machine?
The mandalorian works but i.e bull and birds don't.

On another level ... I do find those that work a bit "over the top" in either their color settings or animations.

#8

Yikes. Glad you caught that.

Opened an issue here:

Sure, and maybe downloading individuals ones too (save bandwidth and disk space). Not a bad idea, will do when I have time.

Not sure what you're getting at there. Could you please elaborate?

#9

I find most overdone ... in the sense that the colors are too bright or the animations too prominent or even crude.
Take for instance "Rain" (you'll have to build that one yourself) which could be very nice if the water drops were smaller or even almost invisible i.e more a movement than a real drop.
As a second peeve: A good animation shouldn't have this "sort-of jolt" when it restarts it's a matter of creating a smooth loop ... it's important, that.

In "Rain" the backdrop makes amends that it's crude, all in all.

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