(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hello,
I know how to set a jwm background type (=> solid, gradient color or image...) but don't know how to change/define the default grey background color of the desktop: the one that is "behind" and displayed, for example, when background image is accidentally missing...

Thank you.

Cordialement.

I do not think you can - its part of Xorg or Xvesa binary. Some of them have been changed to show black background instead of the gray one. So think you will have to live with the gray or find a Xorg or Xvesa build with the black background.

Right click an icon - rox filer - options - pinboard - background.

Thank you.
@rjbrewer
The rox option, though it may be useful in some degree (when background image is missing for example!), is not what I am expected for. I need this background color to be displayed before running rox (login script directly launched from .xinitrc).

@goingnuts
... Unfortunately!

Cordialement.

Hello,
I found something that should probably work: using "xsetroot" program (present on Puppy) that allows user to tailor the appearance of the background ("root") window on a workstation display running X.

Problem: I didn't succeed in making it run whatever the chosen option:

• xsetroot -bg black (Use "black" as the background color).
  
  xsetroot -rv (This exchanges the foreground and background colors. Normally the foreground color is black and the background color is white).
  
  xsetroot -solid black (This sets the background of the root window to the specified color. This option is said to be only useful on color servers).

Has somebody any idea of what's going wrong?

Cordialement.

Try Color name must be present in /usr/X11R7/lib/X11/rgb.txt
To set at start up you can include the command in /root/.xinitrc Attached a static build of xsetroot - just rename the attachment to xsetroot and copy it to /usr/X11R7/bin.

Hello,
Thank you a lot!

Color name must be present in /usr/X11R7/lib/X11/rgb.txt

black (without capital letter) is present in the list...

To set at start up you can include the command in /root/.xinitrc

This is exactly what I did and I thought erroneously this command was not running properly. To be sure, I wrote "pink" in the command line and saw the color at startup, just during a very very short moment before getting the ugly Grey again... So, the problem is more complex indeed. This Grey is displayed between the color defined as background color with xsetroot and the picture defined as wallpaper itself...

Don't know where this Grey is coming from...

I am temporally turning round the problem by setting Grey everywhere...

Cordialement.

Attached a static build of xsetroot - just rename the attachment to xsetroot and copy it to /usr/X11R7/bin.

Please, what does exactly "static build of xsetroot" mean?

Please, what does exactly "static build of xsetroot" mean?

means that it have no dependencies - no external libraries needed - standalone application...

Maybe try this: After booting to your graphical desktop open rxvt. Kill ROX-Filer by this command: "Killall ROX-Filer". Now your Xorg background should be visible - what color? Then set the background color with xsetroot (command: xsetroot -solid SteelBlue). Do you get the new background color?

Hello,
Thank you for explanation.

Maybe try this: After booting to your graphical desktop open rxvt. Kill ROX-Filer by this command: "Killall ROX-Filer". Now your Xorg background should be visible - what color? Then set the background color with xsetroot (command: xsetroot -solid SteelBlue). Do you get the new background color?

Good idea: this gave me the way to proceed and to ask correctly the question.
When I killed (killall - without capital letter! ) ROX, nothing happened. First, my wallpaper was normally displayed and I couldn't see the background color, even after running the xsetroot command. So I set a simple non tiled pattern as background image, and... background around was... Grey.
Now, I know this has nothing to do with xsetroot, any ROX option or even JWM, though it is useful to know how to configure them. This is my wallpaper setter that displays this default ugly Grey...

Cordialement.

hi Argolance - meh, the native wallpaper-setter does use the roxpin in some fashion if I recall correct..

grey (or gray85) is simply neutral, using any rgb-listed gives the solids and gray## is a way to fine-tune the neutral (lower ## is darker). fwiw, xorg default rootwindow appears as a solid deep black for me while Xvesa (the simple kdrive server, not xorg's xvesa option) gives a sort of fine chainlink texture on my CRT display .. about as basic as it gets for the rootwindow. Grey is likely for those who like something other than a black 'void' ..

Personally I'm not a big fan of rox setting the bg other than a temporary roxpin (it does have some effect on other bgsetters if killed, so I generally do a menu-cmd to return things to normal so shading & tint work in a console)

As for disabling rox pinboard when X loads (if you didn't already know), comment out lines in .xinitrc with PuppyPin in them. I mostly do bg-setters in a custom script in /root/Startup (since different window managers have different needs).

Bonjour, Argolance.

From my little experience, I believe there are actually three levels of backgrounds:

1 - the one set by xsetroot, which is taken care of by the /root/.xinitrc script
2 - an intermediate one, which is used by conky in normal window mode (Also stalonetray, maybe other programs.)
3 - the background used by ROX-Filer

I'll tell you how I get a independent background for the conky program; this may help you with your own research. (See example below.)

In the .xinitrc script I introduced these lines, at line 156 (in my version of .xinitrc, anyway). In any case, it believe it should come before the window manager choices.
I'll add the pet for xli a little later, when I have retraced where I have put the pet on my drive!

For now a few explanations of the code above:
- we check if xli exists, BK style
- then we use parameters to process the chosen picture
=> -onroot means "use this picture as background"
=> -fullscreen means "enlarge the chosen picture to fit the screen". (Careful, here. xli also has the -fillscreen parameter, but it does produce satisfactory results for this purpose.)
=> -gamma 3.3 means "darken the image to gamma factor 3.3"

I have included a few other examples. One of note is the
"`cat /root/.config/wallpaper/bg_img`"
as in This means that you can use the rox background with xli. The overall effect of this is one of pseudo-transparency. Since you have background levels 1) and 2) with the same picture, if level 3) (the rox background) is not on or is missing, level 2) will show the same picture anyway.

xli is a rich program, but it is a console program. See attached for a summary of xli commands.

The other examples indicated use small 32 pixels images that I have created and which are blown up to fill the screen. So I can have a "chocolatey" or a type of blue or a monochorme background if I wish instead of a real photograpĥ.

The "sleep" command at the bottom of this section of script is necessary (at least on my older computer) because xli take that long to process the picture.

I hope this helps.

Have a great day! / Je te souhaite une excellente journée !

Rebonjour ! / Hello again!

Here is the xli pet I mentioned earlier.

Best regards.

Hello again, argolance.

A footnote to rjbrewer's post about roxpin.

If you go to /usr/local/apps/ and you right-click on the "ROX-Filer" directory icon (do not go inside this directory), the top two choices are
Activate pin (activer punaiseur)
De-activate pin (désactiver punaiseur)

If you de-activate it, you will see the background set by xli (see above post, and attached picture) or -- if you are not using xli -- a monochrome color.

Now, if you re-activate it, you will see another monochrome color, but not the image defined by PuppyPin. To see your usual PuppyPin, you have to issue this command: from console.
In other words indicate the full path to the file "PuppyPin" used by Puppy.

I leave you to ponder these possibilities. / Je laisse ces possibilités à ta réflexion.

Au revoir. / BFN.

Hello,
Waou!
I was not waiting for such an avalanche of precious answers! Thank you so much `f00 & musher0 : this thread should be a relevant source of information about the way to identify the different kinds of backgrounds and to configure them properly!
I played a bit with xli, tried this and that... and finally found what was the reason of this unwanted Grey background color!
Curiious?
... In my .xinitrc file, I just have to comment the lines that make kcommgr (transparency effects manager) running at startup... and my amazing black background stays in place.... So, I moved the command inside a batch file that I copied into the /root/Startup directory for kcompmgr to run after my wallpaper to be set.

Cordialement.

My pleasure, argolance.

Now you say
> amazing black background

We all know you can do this between coffee and toast (or maybe "croissant"?!) at breakfast , but... can we have a foretaste (avant-goût) of it? Or is it just plain black? Thanks in advance.

BFN.

Hello musher0,
... Black was just the color I first chose for testing. I had in mind to make a script (theme switcher completed now!) that makes this background color match with current jwm theme colors: that's why it is "amazing" for me!

Have a good day.

Cordialement.

Allô, argolance.

Thank you for your answer. So we'll just have to wait for your next Toutou to come out!

All the best.