Variety overrides picture aspect setting on Cinnamon

[Mike Toot]

Variety 0.4.17, Linux Mint 16 w/Cinnamon 2.0

When Variety changes the wallpaper, it overrides the desktop's picture aspect setting to Zoom. If I change the picture aspect setting back to Scaled, the next picture change will reset to Zoom. This also happens with Gradient, though I don't really use that setting.

Key to the puzzle: my /home folder is encrypted, and so I believe Variety is applying a default setting rather than using the desktop's. This effect did not happen in previous versions of Variety or Linux Mint; the only thing changed is that I am using encryption on my home folder.

I don't think this is a Variety bug per se. It's more likely that either permissions need to be adjusted for reading the Cinnamon picture aspect setting, or Variety is trying to write to a protected file / folder.

Let me know what additional information you may need and how I can help test this further.

Sincerely,

Mike
www.miketoot.com

[Peter Levi (peterlevi)]

Have you made any changes to ~/.config/variety/scripts/set_wallpaper or you are using the one that comes by default with Variety?
(Here is the current default: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~peterlevi/variety/trunk/view/head:/data/scripts/set_wallpaper)
There are by default no instructions in it to change the wallpaper display mode for Cinnamon, only to set the path to the image. Variety does not check or set the wallpaper display mode.

I'm not sure how using an encrypted home might affect anything in this aspect.

Can you test the gsettings command from the Cinnamon section in this file directly in a terminal (you need to put there a correct absolute path to some image) - does it change the wallpaper, does it change the wallpaper display mode?

[Mike Toot (like)]

Hello, Peter!

I reinstalled Mint 16 and Variety 0.4.17, this time without using an
encrypted /home folder (had to reconfigure for a book I'm tech editing).
You're correct, encryption had nothing to do with it. Still had the same
rescaling issue.

* I ran diff against the default set_wallpaper script and the one
installed on my laptop. No difference (I can send it along if you'd like
to confirm).

* The gsettings command did not change the wallpaper or rescale the
display mode. Here's the command:

gsettingssetorg.cinnamon.background picture-uri/home/miketo/Pictures/Tigers/grumpy.jpg 2> /dev/null

I tested with and without quotes, just in case bash was looking for
them. I also tested:

gsettingssetorg.cinnamon.background picture-uri"file:///home/miketo/Pictures/Tigers/grumpy.jpg" 2> /dev/null

(note the three forward slashes) on the offhand chance that the parser
was looking for URI-based pathing. Still no luck.

If Cinnamon 2.0 is supposed to be a complete GNOME replacement, it may
be that gsettings is no longer used, and they've gone to some kind of
mystery command. Playback | Next still changes the wallpaper, so the new
wallpaper is being copied over correctly.

All things considered, this bug is a minor annoyance but nothing I can't
live with. You don't need to go crazy trying to figure out what's
happening here. If you do find out though, let me know -- I'd like to
know the reasons for the interesting behavior.

--Mike
www.miketoot.com

On 01/06/2014 05:18 AM, Peter Levi wrote:
> Have you made any changes to ~/.config/variety/scripts/set_wallpaper or you are using the one that comes by default with Variety?
> (Here is the current default: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~peterlevi/variety/trunk/view/head:/data/scripts/set_wallpaper)
> There are by default no instructions in it to change the wallpaper display mode for Cinnamon, only to set the path to the image. Variety does not check or set the wallpaper display mode.
>
> I'm not sure how using an encrypted home might affect anything in this
> aspect.
>
> Can you test the gsettings command from the Cinnamon section in this
> file directly in a terminal (you need to put there a correct absolute
> path to some image) - does it change the wallpaper, does it change the
> wallpaper display mode?
>

[Peter Levi (peterlevi)]

From Mike Toot:

SOLVED. Looks like the Gnome 3/ Unity setting was being picked up and applied to the wallpaper instead of the Cinnamon setting. Here's what worked for me, would appreciate a confirmation check if you know anyone else running Mint 16 + Cinnamon 2.0.

First, comment out the Gnome 3/ Unity block:

# Gnome 3, Unity
# gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri "file://$WP" 2> /dev/null
# gsettings set com.canonical.unity-greeter background "$WP"
# if [ "`gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.background picture-options`" == "'none'" ]; then
# gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-options 'zoom'
# fi

Then comment out the existing gsettings line for Cinnamon and insert your replacement line:

# gsettings set org.cinnamon.background picture-uri "file://$WP" 2> /dev/null

gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.background picture-uri "file://$WP" 2> /dev/null

[Peter Levi (peterlevi)]

To all affected - please help me ensure the fix is working OK.
Rename or delete your current ~/.config/variety/scripts/ folder, install the attached version and test if the wallpaper scaling setting is now preserved between wallpaper changes. Thanks.