Automated Wallpapers!
August 13th, 2011, 1:37am by Jake
So I’ve been making these mosaics for upwards of 3 years now, and I always knew there had to be a better way to create them. I couldn’t find any good tools, so I created one!
I learned just a teeny bit of the Flickr API & Applescript and OS X’s Automator. Net result? Two little scripts that take less than a minute to set up– all I need to do is specify the set ID, the number of images I want & the aspect ratio.
First, I get the list of photos using an Applescript that accesses Flickr via the API. Then a few nifty scripts quickly download the 240 pixel image of each & rename them.
A separate script creates a new image in GraphicConverter. Each image is opened in succession, copied, window closed and pasted into the proper position in GC. All that done, I just save the image & it’s done!
Still some manual steps– right now I’m manually deleting the images after, manually saving & I have to make sure GC is open when I start. Plus, I’d like to just specify the desktop dimensions in pixels & images then figure out the rest behind the scenes. Long term goal is to create a web front end and apps that will generate new mosaics on the fly.
For now, this is good. The nice side effect is that when I make my 25×25 mosaic I won’t need to use the largely manual process I used in the past.
August 13th, 2011 at 6:53 am
I’m a huge AppleScript fan, and i still use it quite a bit. Happy to help if you have any questions. Why does GC need to be open – can’t you
tell application “Graphic Converter” to activate
The other parts seem like they should be pretty easy to automate, too, but I guess you’ve tried most of the stuff I would try.
I haven’t ever put a web front end on an AppleScript, but you can use XCode to make a pretty decent Mac UI.
August 13th, 2011 at 12:57 pm
It’s gotta be open because there are some things it does at startup that I need to deal with manually. After I figured out how to randomize the photo order I declared victory & called it a night, I’ll get back to it later & hopefully complete the process.
August 14th, 2011 at 2:45 pm
The code has now been upgraded. All I need to know are the screen dimensions & the number of images wanted going across. Then photos are chosen randomly from the pool (currently 299 images) to construct unique desktop wallpapers. Or iPhone, iPad, TouchPad, Twitter, etc. Next step is the front end. I realized the easiest thing (for now) is to just create a form that sends an email, then I manually construct the wallpapers and email it back.