Article:		AppleScript Primer for Mac OS X
Subject:		Desktop picture?
Date:		2002-02-04 09:25:44
From:		yezedi
Is there a verified way to set a desktop background picture in the Finder under OS X? I tried script recording the actions of going into the Preferences and setting it, but that did not work. The AquaBlue.jpg seriously irritates me, and my desktop pictures get reset after disconnecting my external monitor. Educated answers only, please. PS: I bought Applescript in a Nutshell, and to be honest was a little disappointed. While the book was well-written, I felt it didn't have a lot of OS X stuff in there. I'm sure this will be included in the next edition. Now O'Reilly, how about an Applescript Cookbook (for OS X)? :-). I'm a UNIX dweeb who became an Apple dweeb because of OS X, and I'm suprised at how powerful Applescript appears to be, especially the hooks into apps.

Showing messages 1 through 3 of 3.

• Desktop picture?
  2002-02-10 12:40:34  mattchildress [Reply | View]
  
  
  Try the free application ChangeDesktop, available (with source!) for free from http://www.classicalguitar.net/brian/software/
  
  It's not applescript, it's a cocoa application, but it may either provide what you need straight away (dunno if it's applescriptable) or the source code may enlighten you.
• Thanks
  2002-02-11 09:57:15  yezedi [Reply | View]
  
  
  Thank you Matt, I will check this out. I'm basically looking for a way to temp fix the "desktop picture not being reset after awaking from sleep without an external monitor" bug.

• Desktop picture?
  2004-02-16 08:55:21  jaharmi [Reply | View]
  
  
  You can fairly easily set the Finder's desktop picture this just so:
  
  tell application "Finder"
  set the desktop picture to document file "Tiles Warm Grey.jpg" of folder "Desktop Pictures" of folder "Library" of the startup disk
  end tell
  
  I don't know of a way to script setting the background picture for a Finder window, yet, as of Panther.