bsetroot Properties

1. Introduction

bsetroot lets you set your desktop background to either a solid colour, a gradient, a square pattern, an image, or a combination of these. bsetroot usually is called from the 'rootCommand' line in a blackbox style.

The included bsetbg.exe works just as an alias to bsetroot.

Note on v2.1
The format of bsetroot.rc has been changed to a more intuitive format. No more cryptic wildcards, just simple search paths. See -> Configuration.

2. Switches

-solid <colour> :
Change the desktop background to the colour you specify.
-gradient <type> -from <colour> -to <colour> :
Apply a gradient of specified type to the background.
-mod <x> <y> -fg <colour> [-bg <colour>] :
Apply a square pattern to the background. <x> and <y> set the size of the squares.
-full <image> :
Display an image stretched to cover the desktop.
-tile <image> :
Display an image tiled over the desktop.
-center <image> :
Display an image in the center of the desktop.
-bitmap [stretch|tile|center] <image> :
Similar to above.
-sat <0..255> :
Set image color saturation
-hue <0..255> :
Set image/background merge factor.
-scale <factor> :
Resize the image by a percent factor.
-path <searchpath> :
Specify searchpath for images. This is useful when set in bsetroot.rc.
-quiet :
Igore any errors silently.
-vdesk :
Use virtual desktop size to span the wallpaper over monitors.
-save <file.bmp> :
Save the generated background to the specified file rather than setting the wallpaper.
-help :
Show short summary.
3. Configuration

Configuration is not needed in most cases. Just put the bsetroot executable where blackbox.exe is.

When bsetroot finds bsetroot.rc in the same directory, it starts reading options from it like commandline switches. This is supposed to be useful especially with the -path switch.

For example these lines would make bsetroot look for images in two additional locations and also let it silently ignore any errors.

-path "c:/blackbox/images"
-path "c:/my pictures"
-quiet
4. Searchpaths

This is how bsetroot looks for images:

First it tries the image-path as given in the commandline.
Then it looks for the image in the searchpaths from any -path ... options (as listed in bsetroot.rc).
Finally it looks for the image in a folder 'backgrounds' relative to the location of bsetroot.exe.
You can use relative or absolute paths with both images and image searchpaths. Relative paths refer to the location where bsetroot.exe is.

Please note that paths with spaces need to have quotes. That is for both paths on the command line and paths in bsetroot.rc.

5. Gradients

A gradient texture is defined by the gradient type and two colours.

Type can be one of "vertical", "horizontal", "diagonal", "crossdiagonal", "pipecross", "elliptic", "rectangle", or "pyramid".

For compatibility with bsetroot on linux, you also can/should include the word "gradient" in the gradient type.

You can combine the gradient type with "interlaced" to get some effect or add a bevel with "raised/sunken bevel1/2".

Example:

bsetroot -gradient verticalinterlacedgradient -from steelblue -to orange
6. Colours

Colours can be in any format that blackbox accepts.

rgb format: rgb:77/88/CC or rgb:7/8/C
html format: "#7788CC" or the short form "#78C"
one from the literal colors below
Note that bsetroot on linux wants quotes around html format colors.

Literal Colors:
These literal color names are known to bsetroot:
http://blackbox4windows.com/index.php?/topic/22-literal-colors-for-styles/