{"id":119,"date":"2007-05-02T08:14:34","date_gmt":"2007-05-02T08:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thedarkmaster.wordpress.com\/2007\/05\/02\/dream-aquarium-as-a-desktop-wallpaper-with-beryl\/"},"modified":"2007-05-02T08:14:34","modified_gmt":"2007-05-02T08:14:34","slug":"dream-aquarium-as-a-desktop-wallpaper-with-beryl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lucademarini.com\/thedarkmaster\/2007\/05\/02\/dream-aquarium-as-a-desktop-wallpaper-with-beryl\/","title":{"rendered":"Dream Aquarium as a Desktop Wallpaper with Beryl!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wow boys, this is really cool. Neaveru, in his blog<\/a>, finally completed the how-to have Dream Aquarium running as a desktop wallpaper in Linux! The result is absolutely similar to the one had with xwinwrap and a common Linux screensaver. Using xwinwrap, sadly, it was impossible to have DA working as a background. But now Neaveru created a fantastic tool to achieve this result aniway in Beryl.<\/p>\n

What does it means? A dream come true. So, in Neaveru’s forum you can find the guide for Wine. Is there any difference with the crossover bottle I shared with you? Absolutely not. Firwst of all, this is Neaveru’s How-To<\/a>. It doesn’t work only for Dream Aquarium but, hey, for any damned Windows application using Wine or Crossover! That is incredible, specially because you have to know that a lot of Windows Screensavers works great under Linux and Linux hasn’t got so many good 3D screensaver I have to say. I’ll poit this on another post, by the way. Just remember that you’ll be able to use this How-To with any windows application running in Wine or Crossover.<\/p>\n

Now let’s see the differences beetwen the Wine version and the Crossover version. Remember that what you’ll read here is the same How-to from Neaveru (Original author) modifyed for Crossover users, nothing more. So, if you prefer using Wine, install Dream Aquarium using my How-To<\/a> and then follow Neaveru’s Instructions. First of all, Crossover is nothing more than a patched Wine version with a lot of graphical configurations tools. So the basis are the same.<\/p>\n

Assumptions:
\n1) You have Crossover installed
\n2) You have beryl running.
\n3) You have some amazing application that you want to run in fullscreen and in the background. (And possibly with different opacity, brightness, etc). I would recommend Dream Aquarium<\/a>. If you are looking for a quick way to have DA working on your Linux PC, then download my crossover bottle prepared and configured for you and read the How-To I created. You can find everything you need to set up Dream Aquarium in less than 5 minutes with Crossover in your PC on This Post of mine<\/a>.
\n4) You have downloaded the source code to Beryl Window Property Setter<\/a>. It’s a small application Neaveru<\/a> wrote to get this to work. Download the tarball, unpack it anywhere you prefer, enter into the unpacked dir, run a terminal from there and simply type make and hit enter. The program will be built and you’ll be ready to use it.<\/p>\n

Instructions:
\n1) Run from men\u00f9 Applications –> Crossover –> Configuration. In the new window, choose the bottle in wich you have Dream Aquarium installed and click on the configure button. On the new window, select the Control Panel tab and then click on the winecfg icon. In the newly opened window, go to the graphics tab and check “Emulate a virtual desktop”. Set “Desktop Size” to your desktop size. (I have mine set at 1280×800 and it runs smoothly). All other settings shouldn’t make a difference. Although, I have “Allow the window manager to control the windows” unchecked. Hit OK.
\n2) Run the program using normally the icon on your desktop or the entry into the Windows Applications men\u00f9. Now you should have the screensaver running in a window that is the size of your desktop. Make all settings (Number of fish, etc) you want now, because you won’t be able to change them afterwards.
\n3) Open a terminal and go into the folder in wich you built Neaveru’s tool. From that folder, run bwpropset as follows: .\/bwpropset -fs -s -sp -st -nf -ni -b -op .8
\nThen you’ll see a crosshair. Select the Dream Aquarium window. If all goes well, you should have the window in the background of your desktop, much like xwinwrap.<\/p>\n

Some more details:
\n-fs = fullscreen
\n-s = sticky
\n-sp = skip pager
\n-st = no focus
\n-ni = no input
\n-b = background
\n-op .8 = opacity at 80%<\/p>\n

Play around with it until you find settings you like. Use the –help option for other features and possibilities. You’ll probably want to play specially with the -op option to set a different opacity depending on your desktop background. If you set too much opacity it will be likely that you won’t be able to see your icons anymore.<\/p>\n

Now let’s see some additional suggestions and hints I’ll add to this.<\/p>\n

1) How will you be able to quit Dream Aquarium now that it is on the background? Very simple. Run Applications –> Crossover –> Terminate Windows Applications and hit the restart button! Play attention because all the windows applications opened will be closed. Of course, you can choose to terminate the applications from a single bottle, so, if you installed my Dream Aquarium bottle, choose to restart it and all the other windows applications you might be running will continue to work normally.<\/p>\n

2) To have Dream Aquarium working as a background on the top of its beaty, I suggest you to use a black (Not simply dark) background. Right click on the desktop, choose to set desktop wallpaper, from the list choose no wallpaper and then choose a black desktop color. Hit the done button and here we are, a black wallpaper. Try runnign DA with and then Neaveru’s tool with an opacity of 0.6 and you’ll absolutely have to say: “WooooooooooooooooW!” your icons will be perfectly visible while DA will work in the background as if it was completly opaque!<\/p>\n

3) Breathe, be happy to run Linux and tell me: can Windows do something like that even if Dream Aquarium was originally designed for it? \ud83d\ude00 The answer is simple: no, it can’t. Here’s a nice youtube video I created to show off this fantastic effect!<\/p>\n