Back-Drop for OS 8.5 sets a picture file as your desktop background. It's easy! That's it!
Okay, so how do I make it go?
You have three main options:
1. Drag a file onto Back-Drop's icon.
The picture will become your desktop background picture.
2. Drag a folder onto Back-Drop's icon.
A picture from within that folder will be chosen randomly
as the desktop picture each time you startup your computer.
3. Double-click on Back-Drop's icon.
Then click the Undo button to put the desktop background
back the way it was. See note below on limitations.
Back-Drop also works with Contextual Menus!
• If you have Éric de la Musse's freeware CMTools:
1. Put Back-Drop in the "Open Using" folder,
which is in the "CMTools configuration" folder,
which is in your "Contextual Menu Items" folder,
which is in your System folder.
2. Control-click on an image file and select
"Back-Drop for OS 8.5" from the "Open Using" submenu.
• If you don't have CMTools:
1. Get it now! It's indispensable and it's freeware!
<http://www.pacificnet.net/~turadg/cmtools/>
System Requirements
• You need Mac OS 8.5 or higher, with the Appearance control panel and Applescript installed.
• If you want to use it with Contextual Menus, it works great with CMTools.
Limitations
You will run into problems if:
• You try to use a file which is not an image
• You try to use a folder which contains files which are not images
• You try to use an empty folder
Back-Drop doesn't check what kind of file you're using before it tries to work with it. Instead, it relies on the Appearance control panel to weed out bad files. If Appearance can't use the file for whatever reason, it will return an error to Back-Drop which will then put up a dialog box explaining what may have happened.
If you try to use a file that causes an error:
Appearance may keep trying to load the bad image. Symptoms of this include:
• slow screen re-drawing
• Blinking icons
• slower performance overall.
To fix this, open the Appearance control panel, click on the Desktop tab, and then click "Remove Picture."
A note on the Undo command
• Back-Drop can only undo changes that you make with Back-Drop. So if you make a change using the Appearance control panel, Back-Drop won't be able to undo the change in any predictable way.
The Undo feature is implemented primarily for those of us who normally have the computer set to load images randomly from a folder at startup, but who occasionally run across a good image and want to try it on the desktop. It's like a CD megachanger with a single-play slot. Try an image, and if you don't like it, Undo it and it goes back to being set to the folder.
Note that if you use Undo to revert to a folder, the OS pulls a new image from that folder, not necessarily the last one that was up there.
Multiple Images
To use multiple images, you must drag the folder that contains those picture files onto Back-Drop's icon. If you select more than one picture and drag several icons onto Back-Drop, you will have the option to choose one picture or cancel the operation.
Bugs and stuff
This little application started out as a total hack for use by myself only. I spent about two hours on the original version, which worked with Francois Pottier's excellent shareware utility Décor. Since then, it has evolved through System 7.6, OS 8, OS 8.1, and it is now in OS 8.5. The point is, there could very easily be something wrong with it. I've tried as best I can to give it what-for, but I don't have access to the resources required to really test it out. Theoretically, there isn't much to go wrong. The only problems that could arise involve you people trying to use it in some bizarre way that I haven't thought of. So if you do run into something, feel free to e-mail me at <jburwell@trinity.edu>. I'll try to help. But — and this is important — I make no warranty whatsoever regarding this product. If it ruins your life, I'm sorry, but it's your own problem.
"The lunatic is on the grass."
— Pink Floyd
So what does this thing cost?
This is "Starving College Student Ware."
I don't have any money, but I have no reason to expect that you do, either. So here's the deal. You can keep it and use it as long as you like. If you find it useful, I would appreciate a donation to my education (or at least some food off-campus tonight.) Send me a check or money order for what you think it is worth, and I'll put you on my "Good-Person List" and send you updates and betas and whatnot of future stuff.
If you don't like me personally, send a donation to a charitable organization dedicated to making life easier for other human beings in your area.
If you don't like the other human beings in your area and don't want their lives to be any easier, send a nice letter to someone you haven't thought about in a while.
