I've been working on an application in Automator that changes the desktop background to the album art of the current song playing in iTunes.
You can download my first version here.
The most annoying issue I have found is that when there is a full screen app open on the same display being updated, whenever the song changes the background flickers between the current song and the previous.
This is my current code (Updated from version 1.0 above):
You may need to scroll within the code to see all of it.
tell application "System Events"
set fileName to (((path to desktop) as text) & ".iTunesArt2-1.jpg")
set oldFile to open for access file fileName with write permission
write 0 to oldFile
close access oldFile
delete file fileName
if process "iTunes" exists then
tell application "iTunes"
if (player state is not stopped) then
-- get the raw bytes of the artwork into a var
tell application "iTunes" to tell artwork 1 of current track
set srcBytes to raw data
end tell
-- write to file
set outFile to open for access file fileName with write permission
-- truncate the file
set eof outFile to 0
-- write the image bytes to the file
write srcBytes to outFile
close access outFile
end if
end tell
tell desktop 2
set picture to fileName
end tell
end if
set fileName to (((path to desktop) as text) & ".iTunesArt2-2.jpg")
set oldFile to open for access file fileName with write permission
write 0 to oldFile
close access oldFile
delete file fileName
if process "iTunes" exists then
tell application "iTunes"
if (player state is not stopped) then
-- get the raw bytes of the artwork into a var
tell application "iTunes" to tell artwork 1 of current track
set srcBytes to raw data
end tell
-- write to file
set outFile to open for access file fileName with write permission
-- truncate the file
set eof outFile to 0
-- write the image bytes to the file
write srcBytes to outFile
close access outFile
end if
end tell
tell desktop 2
set picture to fileName
end tell
end if
end tell
I got the actual code that saves the artwork to a file from here.
The desktop will not update unless you give it a new file name to update, therefore I have duplicated the process with "iTunesArt2-1" and "iTunesArt2-1".
The first 2 in '2-1' or '2-2' simply means the second desktop, as I have two different applications to change each desktop, and use my 2nd desktop for testing.
The entire application is set to loop for 1000 years, using three separate Loop functions in Automator (720 minutes, 730 times & 1000 times).
When first trying to debug this issue, the process was duplicated into four separate scripts, one for saving the image, then setting as background, and two more scripts to repeat the process with a new file name.
Here's an example of my debugging:
At first I think this is only because the background image was already set to "iTunesArt2-1.jpg", and therefore the system will not try to update it again, not knowing the data in the file has been changed.
So I run the next script which should force the background to update:
So, we can confirm that scripts 3 & 4 worked correctly.
According to the code, when the application loops back to scripts 1 & 2, the desktop background should remain as the Paramore artwork.
BUT...
Now that makes zero sense at all.
This will happen every time I loop through the scripts.
Script 4 will change the desktop to Paramore and script 2 will change it back to Coldplay.
Remember this issue only happens when there is a full screen app open on the same display being updated. ie. A full screen app open on my primary display doesn't matter.
I have found sometimes that sliding over to the full screen app and 'activating' it will stop the flickering, and the background will be set correctly.
There surely is nothing 'wrong' with my code is there? If not, I need a way to get around this issue.
Specifically, is there a way of 'activating' every full screen app in the background without moving to those spaces?
I would love anyone who wants it to have this program, but it needs to be able to run under all circumstances.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Found a work around which creates a random file name each time, meaning the desktop can't get confused as to which image it is supposed to display.
screenNum
refers to which screen the desktop is being set to.
set randID to screenNum
set randLoop to 0
repeat while randLoop is not 9
set randNum to (random number from 0 to 9) as text
set randID to randID & randNum
set randLoop to randLoop + 1
end repeat
Then included randID
in the file name upon its creation.
Have not noticed any flickering using this method.
Note: This solves my problem, but does not answer my initial question of how one can activate a full screen app in the background.