script to change wallpaper

Sorry I have never touched applescript before

in this case you might want to learn a little apple script if you'll be using a script like that. There are probably several ways to do what you want but the following should work.

paste the following into Script Editor (it's in /Applications/Utilities).

<pre style="
font-family: Monaco, 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;
font-size: 10px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 5px;
border: 1px solid #000000;
width: 720px; height: 335px;
color: #000000;
background-color: #ADD8E6;
overflow: auto;"
title="this text can be pasted into the Script Editor">
property ip_address : ""

set cur_ip to do shell script "ifconfig |grep inet |tail -1 | awk '{print $2}'"

if cur_ip is not equal to ip_address then -- check to see if the ip address has changed since last check. if it didn't - do nothing.

set ip_address to cur_ip

if ip_address = "home.ip.address" then


tell application "System Events"
-- RANDOM ROTATION OF A FOLDER OF IMAGES
tell current desktop
set picture rotation to 1 -- (0=off, 1=interval, 2=login, 3=sleep)
set random order to true
set pictures folder to file "path:to:home:images:"
set change interval to 3600.0 -- seconds
end tell
end tell
else if ip_address = "work.ip.address" then

tell application "System Events"
-- RANDOM ROTATION OF A FOLDER OF IMAGES
tell current desktop
set picture rotation to 1 -- (0=off, 1=interval, 2=login, 3=sleep)
set random order to true
set pictures folder to file "path:to:work:images:"
set change interval to 3600.0 -- seconds
end tell
end tell

end if

end if

</pre>


put the ip addresses of at home and at work in the above, as well as the corect paths to different folders with images. then save the script in your Documents folder. Call it, say, backgrounchanger. Then download [lingon|http://www.tuppis.com/lingon> and use it to make a launch daemon. make it run, say, every minute and execute the following command (enter it on line 2)

osascript /users/username/documents/backgroundchanger.scpt

Put your short user name instead of username in the above.
save the daemon and log out/in to activate it.

there is certainly nothing ready made that would do this but it should be pretty easy with apple script.
see this link for details on how to script desktop preferences.
http://www.apple.com/applescript/features/system-prefs.html

you can get the current ip address with the following terminal command

ifconfig |grep inet |tail -1 | awk '{print $2}'

then set the background preferences based on the outcome of the command. you might have a problem though if the IP addresses are dynamic and change overtime.

Hello and Welcome to Apple Discussions...

You don't need a script or program to do this... Open System Preferences/Desktop&ScreenSaver Select the Desktop tab, choose a folder in the list on the left, click the Change picture button and click the pop up menu and set it to your liking.



Carolyn 🙂