Automatically refreshing the desktop wallpaper

[Boone]

I'm wondering if anyone knows how to have the desktop image automatically be refreshed every x seconds or when the image file changes? I've found some programs for randomizing it, but they don't seem to support dual headed mode.

Background, I got xplanet compiled and running as a cronjob that saves to a .jpg file, now I want it constantly updated as I work

Any help or tips are appreciated at this point. Thanks!

 

[mbuss]

I thought it was just me

I am doing the exact same thing and running into the same problem.

One thing I tried is I saved xplanet's output to file "latest.jpg" every five minutes, overwriting the old one. Then I used the shareware preference pane SwitchPic to randomly pick a picture from the folder "latest.jpg" was in (and in which it was the only file) every five minutes and use it as a desktop picture. Unfortunately, SwitchPic only looks at the filename and not the modification date, so it thinks it's the same file and doesn't do anything.

I contacted the author of SwitchPic, and he thinks it may a feature in version 2.0.

I tried to write an AppleScript to do it, but I don't know a way to make it "faceless". I don't want an app opening and closing in my dock every five minutes. And I'm afraid I just don't know enough about shell scripts to do it that way.

Anyone have any other ideas?