Active Desktop Wallpapers for Windows

Sometimes I found nice wallpapers for IBM notebooks called “World Time”. There were two versions: a static color foreground image and an active version in grayscale. As I was an IBM notebooks fan I decided to improve an active version of the wallpaper. So, you can try an updated “World Time” active wallpaper.

Download

▪

Version 2.3.1:

world.time.wallpaper.zip (2.93 MB), including data pack #1 and image pack #1

world.time.wallpaper.lenovo.edition.zip (3.5 MB), including data pack #1 and “Lenovo Vista” image pack #1

▪

Data packs:

pack #1 (892 bytes), contains data of 9 cities: San Francisco, New York, Buenos-Aires, London, Paris, Moscow, Jakarta, Peking, Tokyo, Sydney.

▪

Image packs:

pack #1 (2.71 MB)

pack #2 (11.08 MB)

pack #3 (12.23 MB)

pack #4 (13.43 MB)

▪

Changelog:

26.10.2009changed the description of the daylight saving periods for individual setup.

04.15.2009fixed daylightsaving period calculation, added Jakarta city.

“World Time”

Description

“World Time”an active desktop for Windows, based on JavaScript/DOM scripts. At the startup it determines current system language, desktop resolution and plots a dot for every city from data pack on a map with time zones. Currently 5 interface languages are supported: English, Russian, French, Spanish, German.

Features

▪

Indicates a locale time for world cities (depends on installed data pack).

▪

Displays a daylight/shadow marker.

Installation

▪

Unpack an archive to a separate folder.

▪

Open “Display properties” dialog window.

▪

Push “Browse” button on a “Desktop” tab and change file type filter combobox to “Background Files” in “Open” dialog. Go to previously selected folder and select “worldtime.html”.

Compatibility

▪

MS Windows 2000/XP (MS IE 5.x or higher),

▪

Mozilla FireFox, Opera (for demonstration purpose),

▪

Screen resolutions: 800x600, 1024x768, 1152x864, 1280x720, 1280x768, 1280x800, 1280x1024, 1400x1050, 1680x1050, 1600x1200, 1920x1200.

Specifics

▪

MS WIndows 2000/XP shell enables “ActiveDesktop” mode when you start “World Time” wallpaper. So, all desktop icons drop caption transparency, and solid background rectangle appears behind icon labels.

Tuning

To add a desired city on the map open “worldtime.cities.js” file, add the following block into Cities array:

Name : { 'en': '‹City name in English›', '‹locale name›': '‹city name in local language›' }, OffsetX : ‹0..1400›, // X coordinate on the map OffsetY : ‹0..1050›, // Y coordinate on the map GmtBias : ‹-12..12›, // GMT time offset

DstType : '‹ | absolute | relative›', // '' (none)for regions without daylight saving periods, absolutefor regions with fixed daylight saving period. DstBias : ‹-1..1›, // -1for southern, 1for northern hemisphere, '' (none)for regions without daylight saving periods.

DstStart and DstEnd records should be set according to selected DstType value. If DstType is set to 'absolute', you have to set day and month:

  DstStart :
  {
    month   : ‹1..12›
    day     : ‹1..31›
  },

If DstType is set for 'relative', you have to set month and number of the weekday.

  DstStart  :
  {
    weekday : ‹1..7›, // 1Sunday, ... 7Saturday
    month   : ‹1..12›
    nth     : ‹-2..2› // weekday position (from beginning of the mongth, or from the end)
  },

E.g. if daylight saving time starts on the last Sunday of the March you have to set nth to -1. Otherwise, for the first Sunday you have to set nth to 1.

To adjust time format edit the following section in “worldtime.cities.js”:

var TimeFormat =
{
  en: 12,
  ru: 24,
  fr: 24
};

To change the default background image you can download one of the image sets, then unpack and overwrite images from archive into “/opt” subfolder.

pack #1 (2.71 MB)

pack #2 (11.08 MB)

pack #3 (12.23 MB)

pack #4 (13.43 MB)

If you have any suggestions how to improve this wallpaper, please, email me on mNaOxS@PaAxMo!fNiObSePrA.Mo!rNgO.SrPuA.

Links

▪

Very detailed and cool wallpaper by Márton Anka.

▪

(NASA sattelite images).

December 4, 2006March 28, 2010

Maxim Proskrunya