Custom Wallpapers

This tutorial guides you through getting free, automatically rotating images off Reddit's photograpy / artwork subreddits.

This is better than the built-in windows image rotator for 1 key reason:

There's an overlay showing the image description - which solves the 'what am I looking at?' question I too often get asked and am unable to answer

What you'll need

• Download John's Background Switcher (It's free) - the actual download link on that page is kind of hard to find - hint: it's about halfway down the page.

http://www.johnsad.ventures/software/backgroundswitcher/windows/

• Browse https://www.reddit.com/r/sfwpornnetwork/wiki/network to workout which categories you'd like to include (the full list is here: http://www.reddit.com/r/ListOfSubreddits/wiki/sfwpornnetwork)

Creating the URL

Once you've decided on a few (or just one) - create a URL of the form:

http://www.reddit.com/r/<categoryName>+<anotherCategoryName>/search.rss

An example of this would be:

https://www.reddit.com/r/EarthPorn+SpacePorn+CityPorn+WaterPorn/search.rss

Or, just EarthPorn would simply be:

https://www.reddit.com/r/EarthPorn/search.rss

Depending on the resolution of the screen you'll be viewing the images on, you might want to limit results to those that match your screens size, so carrying on from the previous example:

https://www.reddit.com/r/EarthPorn+SpacePorn+CityPorn+WaterPorn/search.rss?q=<heightPixels>x<widthPixels>&restrict_sr=on

It's potentially worth creating multiple 'resolution' URLs, for scenarios where you're using a laptop vs using a monitor (you'll then be able to 'switch' profiles according to the screen you're on)

If you've got 2 or more screens, you can even multiply the width to then display 1 image across the screens - without stretching the image or having ugly borders.

e.g) 2 1920x1080 screens

width * 2 = 1920 * 2 = 3840

So the URL from the previous example would be:

https://www.reddit.com/r/EarthPorn+SpacePorn+CityPorn+WaterPorn/search.rss?q=3840x1080&restrict_sr=on

Configuring the Application

1. Install John's Background Switcher

2. Open Settings

3. Click Add

4. Select RSS Photo Feed

5. Paste the URL you made

6. Click Test - if there's 'no pictures' - either you've chosen an unusual resolution, and there's genuinely no photos, or you've made a typo in your URL

7. Click OK

8. Optional - if you want to show 1 picture, split across 2 monitors, chang ethe 'Picture mode' to 'Centre pictures on the screen' and set 'Multiple monitors' to 'One picture for the whole desktop'

9. Optional - Adjust the image roration frequency

10. Click OK

11. Enjoy!