reddit-background
Set your Mac OS X or Linux desktop background to images pulled from Reddit
Features
- Supports multiple monitors (Mac OS X only)
- Handles multiple subreddits
- Aspect ratio and resolution filtering ensures your backgrounds are always beautiful
- Flexible sorting lets you choose the quality of images it downloads
- Can pick images that match the current season
- Download only option (
--image-count) if you want to use OS X's existing folder-based background selector
Try It
-
Download the project; or clone the repo using git, like:
git clone https://github.com/rconradharris/reddit-backgrounds.git -
Run it:
cd reddit-background ./reddit-background
The default is to use images based on the current season ({seasonal}), so
for example, if it’s November, the images will be pulled from
/r/AutumnPorn.
Install It
The easiest way to install reddit-background is to copy it to
/usr/local/bin. To do this, run this command:
cp reddit-background /usr/local/bin
Configure It
If you'd like to customize reddit-background so that it chooses images images
from different subreddits, you can provide a configuration file at
~/.reddit-background.conf. Samples configuration files are provided in the
examples
directory.
Automate It
Once you have a configuration you like, you can set up reddit-background to rotate your background daily.
There are a number of ways to do this, but one way is to add it to your crontab.
To do this, open up your crontab in an editor:
crontab -e
And once you’ve done that, add the following line:
0 9 * * * /usr/local/bin/reddit-background
Save the file and quit the editor. Now your background will rotate daily at 9:00 in the morning.
Advanced
Subreddit Sort Options
By default, when you specify a subreddit, you are selecting the top 25 posts over the last month.
You can customize the sort by using the following format:
<subreddit>:[sort]:[limit]:[timeframe]
| Argument | Possible Values | Default |
|---|---|---|
| subreddit | A subreddit or {seasonal} | None |
| sort | contraversial, gilded, hot, new, promoted, rising, top | top |
| limit | An integer | 25 |
| timeframe | all, day, hour, month, week, year | month |
So, for example, if you want to only include the 5 newest posts from /r/EarthPorn, you would write it as:
EarthPorn:new:5
Or if you’d like to include the top 10 posts over the year for /r/CityPorn, you’d write it as:
CityPorn:top:10:year
NOTE: Only the top and controversial sort methods use the timeframe option.
Dynamic Subreddits
reddit-background can dynamically pull images from the correct subreddit based on some criteria.
These are called 'dynamic subreddits' and they are specified just like normal except they are enclosed in curly-brackets.
Currently the only one included is {seasonal} which will choose from amongst
/r/WinterPorn,
/r/SpringPorn,
/r/SummerPorn, or
/r/AutumnPorn based on the current season
(in the northern hemisphere).
Command-Line Usage
In addition to specifying a configuration file, you can also customize reddit-background directly from the command-line.
The arguments represent each subreddit you would like to pull images from. For example, to pull seasonal images and images from /r/CarPorn, you would run:
reddit-background {seasonal} CarPorn
If you have a multi-monitor setup, you can also set the background for a
single monitor using the --desktop option like:
reddit-background --desktop 1 BeachPorn
This will set the background on desktop 1 to one of the 5 hottest posts from /r/BeachPorn.
Download Configuration
By default reddit-background will download a single image per desktop and set that to your desktop's background.
In addition, you can use OS X's native folder-based background selector which offers additional features.
To use OS X's background selector, you tell reddit-background to download a
set number of images using the --image-count option. This will download these
images into the download directory but not actually set them as the
background. You then set System Preferences -> Desktop -> Backgrounds to
point to the download directory for each desktop.
Show title of image
If you'd like to know the title of the background you're looking at, you have two different options.
On the command-line you can run:
reddit-background --what
Desktop 1
Perth, Western Australia, from Elizabeth Quay [5376x3024].jpg
Another option is to enable the desktop_symlinks=True configuration. This
will place a symlink on you desktop to your current images. This gives you
easy access to the image, but more importantly, shows you the title of the
image.
Image Choosing Algorithms
There are two algorithms included to pick images for you. The first one is called 'random', and will select images randomly. This is good if you want the most possible variety.
The other algorithm--the default--is called 'bestmatch' and will use Reddit score, aspect ratio, resolution, and tiny bit of randomness to select images that will look good on your particular desktop.
You can select which algorithm to use in the configuration file like so:
image_chooser=random