Marc Gregoire’s Blog

The following new features have been implemented in Wallpaper Cycler:

• Non-existing wallpapers are shown in red in the details view. In the thumbnails view they are shown with a red sign + “Not valid” as thumbnail.
  (NOTE: this is not implemented for URL wallpapers because checking if an URL wallpaper is still valid would slow WPC down too much when browsing the categories)
• A wallpaper object in a layout can now be linked to a random wallpaper from a selected search folder.
• When you specify a text color for a specific wallpaper, this text color is now also used as default color when rendering text on your layout. Previously the default layout text color was always white.
  (NOTE: When you specify “Automatic” as text color for your wallpaper then Wallpaper Cycler will still use white as default color for layout text because the text color is calculated after the desktop has been rendered and that color is then used for the icons on your desktop.)
• A “Rename Wallpaper…” option has been added to the menu when you right click a wallpaper in Wallpaper Cycler. This allows you to rename the wallpaper in your list AND on your harddisk. 
  This provides a more complete wallpaper management program without the need to go digging through foders and files looking for files to rename or edit, externally to Wallpaper Cycler.
• Every object in a layout can now have a Link Target. This can be an executable, document, URL, … When you click or double click (configurable) that object on your desktop the Link Target is executed.
  Example of use: put a link to http://www.nuonsoft.com/blog/ on your desktop. When you click that text object that site is openend in your default webbrowser. The screenshot below shows an example that uses Link Targets.
  (NOTE: When using URLs as Link Targets for layout objects and you use Internet Explorer and you want the links to open in a new window instead of reusing an existing IE window, in IE go to “Tools > Internet Options > Advanced” and disable “Reuse windows for launching shortcuts”.)

 I also made the following bug fixes for Wallpaper Cycler:

• When one user in Windows XP or later was running WPC and a second user with Fast User Switching would start WPC, the second user would get an “Unable to initialize RPC. The Wallpaper Cycler screen saver will not work.” error. This is now fixed and all users that login to the machine at the same time will have a working screensaver.
• The Calendar Notes Editor didn’t work correctly when opened by double clicking on calendar notes objects on the desktop.
• The random selection algorithm for selecting wallpapers for a wallpaper object set to random in a layout could show often the same image in previous versions of Wallpaper Cycler. In the new version, WPC remembers which wallpapers have already been shown and takes this into account for selecting a random wallpaper for those wallpaper layout objects.
  It works by assigning a flag to each wallpaper. When a wallpaper is chosen, this flag is set to true. So, when you have some smaller wallpaper objects on your layout, WPC will try to select wallpapers that have this flag set to false. When all flags are set to true, WPC will reset the flags to false. In this way, you will have different images most of the time, unless there are not enough images available in the category or when WPC has to reset the flags in the middle of rendering the layout. For example: suppose you have 4 wallpaper objects on your layout. Suppose that after chosing a wallpaper for 2 objects, WPC detects that all flags are set to true. Because of this WPC will reset the flags to false, and then the chance exists that it might select a duplicate image for the 2 other wallpaper objects.