41526 - Need 'Set as Wallpaper' on windows

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, enhancement, P2)

Description

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Just about every (windows) browser since the dawn of time has allowed the user 
to set an image as their desktop background. Since going down the XP road, we 
seem to have lost this ability, which is a shame, as this was a feature I used 
;)

Filing so that this issue is 'on the record.'

Comment 1

[Chris McAfee]

m21. law.  There's another bug to get context menu version
of this working, I think I have that.

Comment 2

[Paul Chen]

nav triage team:

Not a beta1 stopper, marking nsbeta1-

Comment 3

[Paul Chen]

Marking nsbeta1- bugs as future to get off the radar.

Comment 4

[Joseph Elwell]

C|net has spoken, we should fix it. ;) oh, and add a smiley or two. :)

Comment 5

[Stuart Ballard]

Adding 4xp keyword

Can anyone explain why this is listed as pp? It's not even an option on any
other platform so it's certainly not an issue of "parity" between them.

Comment 6

[Blake Ross]

Resetting milestone.  Catfood and future don't mix.

Comment 7

[Jesse Ruderman]

-> UI Design

Comment 8

[Mike Young]

But a few features from Netscape 4.x we missed in 6 are still absent, ... the
Set As Wallpaper menu, which lets you grab any graphic from the Web and turn it
into your desktop wallpaper.

--CNet Review of NS6.1 PR1

Just felt I should quote the CNet article mentioned by jelwell. If this will get
us better reviews, we might want to push for it. The main questins however is
how do we implement this? Is there a windows API to do this?

Comment 9

[Stuart Ballard]

1) How is this "UI design"? It's not like there's any question of where to put
the option once we have it (the only legit place for it is in the context menu
of an image and in the context menu of a page that has an image for the
background).

2) I agree that this should be implemented, just for 4xp reasons and because
when I used to use windows, I really did find this option useful (eg see a
webpage with a background I liked and set it as my windows background too).

3) 2 minutes of LXRing in the MozillaClassic source pointed me to this, which
looks like source code to set as wallpaper. Presumably this code could be used
as the basis of the implementation for this functionality...

http://lxr.mozilla.org/classic/source/cmd/winfe/popup.cpp#1195

Presumably many of the calls used by this code don't exist in the new world, but
it's a start (and it includes the magic windows function which actually does the
"set as wallpaper" operation given a filename to a .bmp file)

Comment 10

[AriB]

I'm not sure I see the point in this. If you want to have wallpaper, just save
the image and set the wallpaper from the Control Panel (under Display). 
This isn't something you do everyday so it just bloats up the already bloated
context menu. Plus it makes it easy for pranksters to put obscene wallpaper on
networked computers (such as in schools-this happens ALL the time) even if the
sysadmin locked the display settings. This sort of thing happens all the time.

Comment 11

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

this is a UI issue, as it adds to our already overlong contextmenus.  

This is pp because i doubt it would work in linux, not sure about the mac.

Comment 12

[Blake Ross]

I guess I could do this. I'd have to go bother pav about retrieving bitmap
representations of other formats (4.x, IE, etc. let you set gifs and others as
wallpaper).

Comment 13

[timeless]

pp Platform Parity bugs. A bug is a Platform Parity bug if it only occurs on 
one particular platform or two platforms, but not all three - Win, Mac and 
Linux. For example, if you find a bug on Linux, but it does not occur using the 
same day's Win32 or Mac OS build.

It kinda fits =)

http://bonsai.mozilla.org/cvsblame.cgi?file=mozilla/cmd/winfe/cxdc1.cpp&rev=3.6
&mark=404-612

has the code to export to bitmaps.  it should be noted that 98+ and 2k+ support 
jpegs and gifs and might even support png's or other formats.

so in reality the old code sucked on 98/2k+ =).

re exploitation by 'hackers' in schools and libraries, that's because the 
systems weren't properly secured.  It is possible to lock the %winnt% 
(ntfs) directory against changes/writes/creates and protect HKLM/HCU, "Control 
Panel\Desktop" against changes/writes/creates.  This applies to nt4 or newer.  

Trying to lock down 9x or complaining that you can't is like trying to stop the 
mississippi river w/ 3 2" toothpicks.

I'm giving this bug back to law to consider implementing.  Someone else should 
file a bug about the interface for it.

Comment 14

[Jesse Ruderman]

timeless: this bug was in the UI Design component because many people think this
option shouldn't be in the browser's image context menu.  mpt is working on a
spec for context menus in bug 75338.  If you think we need a separate bug to
implement a backend that may or may not be used, please file a new bug.

Comment 15

[timeless]

If mpt already has a bug to design a spec for the context menus then he doesn't 
need ot own this bug.  However this bug is totally useless if there is no 
backend.

As such I would reassign to blake/law and mark this bug as blocking not 
blocked by mpt's bug -- which he clearly has.

Comment 16

[Alex Bishop]

Re: the URL added by MPT.

I thought I'd quote the relevant part of the page to save other users from
having to search through it:

"Eric Hartwell highlights a notable problem with the design of the context menus
Internet Explorer. Eric often avails himself of the 'Save Image As' menu item to
copy images from web sites. Unfortunately, the 'Set as Wallpaper ' menu item is
located immediately below the desired menu item, making it a likely inadvertent
target. The problem is that 'Set as Wallpaper ' acts immediately and
irreversibly; the application does not first prompt the user, as is the case
with the menu items immediately before and after it, so there is no way to
cancel the action. If the 'Set as Wallpaper' item is inadvertently selected, the
user will have to go somewhere else and perform a series of actions to undo the
effects of the unintended action."

Obviously, we want to avoid these problems in Mozilla. I'm not sure if placing
'Set as Wallpaper' item away from the 'Save Image As...' item is a good idea as
I think the image-related commands should be together (they're not at the
moment, BTW). However, a confirmation dialogue would be good. It would also be
nice if the dialogue told the user where to go to undo this change (though that
may make the dialogue text too long). So I suggest this text for the dialogue:

Do you wish to set the image whatever.gif as your desktop wallpaper?

You can set your wallpaper in the Background tab of the Desktop Properties
dialog(ue), which is accessible from Control Panel.

[Set As Wallpaper] [Cancel]

Thoughts? Comments?

Comment 17

[Joseph Elwell]

"You can set your wallpaper in the Background tab of the Desktop Properties
dialog(ue), which is accessible from Control Panel."
I see no reason why this bug can't be XP. AFAIK Mac has a wallpaper, and popular
Linux Desktops have a wallpaper too (Gnome/KDE). If this were done XP an XP
explanation of where to set the wallpaper would be needed.

Comment 18

[Alec Flett]

yes, we could totally implement this with an XP interface to the desktop
background, that has 3 unique implementations.

Comment 19

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is definitely implementable, but it's a bad idea. Several reasons have been
given in this bug; it's a pain for network admins trying to avoid students etc.
setting porn as the wallpaper, there is OS-level functionality for it, it can be
accidentally hit and is irreversible (and no, Yet Another Confirm Dialog is not
the solution to this problem) and it's, in the end, irrelevant to what a browser
_does_.

Gerv

Comment 20

[timeless]

gerv: please see my comments from 2001-06-15 15:20.

Who said there was os level functionality for this? You can't easily do this on 
w95. There is a version of mspaint that supports plugins to allow it to open 
gif and jpeg, but getting the filters and the app require more work than buying 
a real paint app.

As for undoable, it's certainly possible for this to be undoable.

Mail is irrelevant to what a browser does, so is building web sites, chatting 
on irc, chatting in general, perhaps even rendering math.  That doesn't mean we 
don't have those features.

Comment 21

[Matt Perry]

It'd be nice to have a preference to turn this off, or at the very least a 
dialog asking if we're sure we'd like to change the wallpaper.  I've hit this 
item by accident several times and it's an inconvience to have to reset my 
wallpaper and remove the image file.  I know I'm not the only one who's done 
this.

Comment 22

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

While Gerv's concerns are valid, the installed base of wallpaper-setting-capable
browsers on Windows networks is already vast, and if this problem exists, it's
likely sysadmins have already disabled this option using respective CCKs. 

This isn't reason enough to remove this feature from all users. This same logic
can be used to remove the ability to set the homepage, as people can set other
people's homepages to porn (copying hyatt, who has suffered this in the past ;)

Comment 23

[David Hyatt]

This is a useless feature and should not be checked in to Mozilla.

Comment 24

[u12624]

> Unfortunately, the 'Set as Wallpaper ' menu item is
> located immediately below the desired menu item
> -- Alex Bishop 2001-07-03 10:58

Would placing it above the "Save as..." options reduce the accidental clicks?
Usability people know? When I've accidently clicked the wrong item it's
invariably been below the required item. 

> I've hit this item by accident several times and it's an inconvience 
> to have to reset my wallpaper and remove the image file
> -- Matt Perry 2001-07-15 21:32 

Maybe the saved file can have a hardcoded filename in the user directory, e.g.:
wallpaper(.bmp) so that  the next image you immediately set (after confirming in
the dialog) as the wallpaper, overwrites the (offending?) wallpaper you didn't want.

Comment 25

[Alex Bishop]

"Maybe the saved file can have a hardcoded filename in the user directory, e.g.:
wallpaper(.bmp) so that  the next image you immediately set (after confirming in
the dialog) as the wallpaper, overwrites the (offending?) wallpaper you didn't
want."

If I understand you correctly, that's how it worked in previous versions.
Choosing the 'Set as Wallpaper' command would save the image as "Netscape
Wallpaper.bmp" (converting it to from GIF or JPEG or whatever to Windows Bitmap
format) and set it as the wallpaper file. The problem is that if you have "Nice
Picture.bmp" set as your wallpaper and then accidentally set a Web page image as
your wallpaper, you must manually change it back to "Nice Picture.bmp" and
delete the "Netscape Wallpaper.bmp" file (as it's no longer needed).

As several people have objected to this feature, why can't the function be
toggled with a line in the prefs.js file? Something along the lines of:
user_pref("browser.enable_set_as_wallpaper", true);

Comment 26

[u12624]

> The problem is that if you have "Nice
> Picture.bmp" set as your wallpaper and then accidentally set a Web page 
> image as your wallpaper, you must manually change it back to "Nice 
> Picture.bmp" and delete the "Netscape Wallpaper.bmp" file (as it's no 
> longer needed).

The dialog should prevent people from accidently changing their wallpaper.

> As several people have objected to this feature, why can't the function 
> be toggled with a line in the prefs.js file? Something along the lines 
> of: user_pref("browser.enable_set_as_wallpaper", true);

The kind of users who'd like this feature in the context menu are unlikely to
know how to edit config files. They probably also don't know how to save and
convert it, and manually set it as wallpaper thru the OS.

At the end of the day it's up to the programmers to choose if/how this should be
implemented. Would the best thing be to leave it to others to include it in a
"for Joe Average" browser based on the Moz code?

Comment 27

[Alex Bishop]

> The kind of users who'd like this feature in the context menu are unlikely to
> know how to edit config files. They probably also don't know how to save and
> convert it, and manually set it as wallpaper thru the OS.

I think the pref should be enabled by default (i.e. the prefs.js file should
contain user_pref("browser.enable_set_as_wallpaper", true); in it). Then
advanced users who get annoyed by the option can edit their prefs.js file to
remove the feature.

Comment 28

[Mark Bitterling]

Although I generally respect what Gervase Markham and David Hyatt have to say, I
really do not understand their position on this feature.

You may find it "useless" or believe it to be "irrelevant to what a browser
does", but there are a whole lot of people out there who expect this capability
and would not consider using a browser that does not have it.  I know of people
who change their Windows wallpaper 3 or more times a week and more often than
not, they do it via their web browser.  

If you have a problem selecting the correct context menu item, then figure out
something to help you be more accurate (ie add a separator between the items),
but removing an option from the menu is not going to stop you from selecting the
wrong option (you will just select a different wrong option) unless you are
suggesting that we limit the context menu to a single item?

If you think there are too many options in the context menu, then create a UI
preference dialog where users can select which context menu items you want and
which ones they do not want.
If Mozilla is going to be the best browser available then it should include as
many features that users want as possible.  Making the decision that this is a
"useless" and "irrelevant" feature sounds a bit too patronizing when we all know
that people are asking for it.

Comment 29

[James "Kovu" Russell]

Netscape versions up through 4.x had this feature, and the default response to
this bug should be to include this feature in later versions. Users are used to
it, and at least some are desiring its return, or CNET wouldn't have complained
about it.

The time to remove this feature is not now when people are already bitching that
in some ways, 4.x was more usable than current versions. In Windows at least,
there is still no systray mail notification icon, there is still no fullscreen
option, we don't have an undockable task bar that can stay in front of all other
programs - and we still don't have a Set as Wallpaper feature.

Possible compromise:

We COULD add a dialog box that says: 

"You're about to replace your wallpaper with _filename_. Click Cancel if you
don't want to replace your wallpaper."

[OK] {Cancel]

AND put a "Never Show Me This Window Again" checkbox so that users who don't
want to be annoyed by the dialog can disable it.

Comment 30

[Peter Henderson]

<< The problem is that if you have "Nice
Picture.bmp" set as your wallpaper and then accidentally set a Web page image as
your wallpaper, you must manually change it back to "Nice Picture.bmp" and
delete the "Netscape Wallpaper.bmp" file (as it's no longer needed). >>
-- Alex Bishop 2001-08-02 17:54

Or if you already have "Netscape Wallpaper.bmp" as your wallpaper, and you 
accidently set a NEW "Netscape Wallpaper.bmp" as your wallpaper, then you have 
to go back to another web site and find the one you used to have, which may or 
may not still be available to d/l. However, if the old wallpaper file is not 
automatically overwritten by Moz, then it is not possible to set a new one to 
overwrite an offending picture:

<< Maybe the saved file can have a hardcoded filename in the user directory, 
e.g.:
wallpaper(.bmp) so that  the next image you immediately set (after confirming in
the dialog) as the wallpaper, overwrites the (offending?) wallpaper you didn't 
want. >>
-- Jeandré 2001-07-31 15:57

Possible solution: Instead of "Yet Another Confirm Dialog" there could be a box 
with options. On Win95, the wallpaper can be "tiled" or "centered." On Win98 
(actually I think IE4 Windows Desktop Update thingy) it can also 
be "stretched." I doubt many users will want to tile a picture, but the other 
two are pretty common (i.e. either leave it in normal proportions or make an 
almost-the-right-size image fit without having a border the color of the 
desktop). Maybe:

(?) Would you like to set <image-name/> as your desktop wallpaper?

[Center] [Stretch] [Tile] [No]

And could Moz remember the choice used last time, and give it focus so the user 
can use the same option by pressing enter if s/he doesn't want to read the 
buttons but remembers his/her last choice? This way the way Microsoft Paint 
does it can be avoided (it has two menu options: Set as wallpaper (centered), 
Set as wallpaper (tiled).

Or, to solve the problem of clicking the wrong option and having something 
undesired happen, this could be a sub menu. Such as (needs to be reworded):

...
Save image as...
Set as wallpaper >  Set as tiled
-----               Set as centered
Select all          Set as stretched
... whatever else there is

This way, no annoying dialog pops up, but also nothing happens with a misplaced 
click, because the real command is on the submenu.

Comment 31

[Peter Trudelle]

MPT, since you haven't accepted this bug; would you mind if I re-assigned it to Ben?

Comment 32

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

I like Pete's idea. A dialog's not as bad if it adds value. And it allows
cancellation, which would be a lot easier than implementing Undo. And it makes
the product appear more featureful. ;-)

Gerv

Comment 33

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Taking, part of Context Menu work. 

Comment 34

[Brian Smith (:briansmith, :bsmith, use NEEDINFO?)]

I think people are overlooking an obvious solution. The users that are against
this are generally in Mozilla's target audience. The users that "need" this are
in Netscape's target audience. My suggestion is that Netscape should add this
feature along with other Netscape-specific items such as AIM. Then we can leave
this out of Mozilla.

BTW, I have never purposely used this feature in IE, but I have triggered it
accidently many times.

Comment 35

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Joe has volunteered to take this

Comment 36

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

I like the idea of a confirmation dialog with explanatory text.

As for not adding this to Mozilla, my sister uses this feature (on IE, of course) 
on a nearly daily basis; if I converted her to using a Mozilla-based product she
would complain if there was no way to do this.

Comment 37

[Joe Hewitt (gone)]

perf/footprint work is pushing this back

Comment 38

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

> the only legit place for it is in the context menu
> of an image and in the context menu of a page that has an image for the
> background

I disagree. A "Set as Wallpaper" command should not be added to the context
menu. It is an extremely seldom used option and the context menu is way too long
anyway. Make the main menu context-sensitive, if you really want to add the
option. IMHO.

Comment 39

[Stuart Ballard]

Ben, how do you propose that focus might end up on an image so that we can make
the main menu context-sensitive? The only images that are focusable are input
type=image, which are rarely suitable for wallpaper :)

Comment 40

[David Hallowell]

Stuart, mpt's spec explains an excellent way of implementing this without the
need for a context menu (as this spec is listed on mozilla.org does it mean it's
an official spec and the way this feature needs implemented in mozilla?)

Source: http://mozilla.org/projects/ui/menus/shortcut/

Where’s Set as Wallpaper?

In the Tools menu. This item should open a dialog (which defaults to the
selected image, if there is one), so you can:

      * choose between the various images on the page (useful if the one you
want is a page background, or is layered behind other content);
      * give the image a meaningful name, so you can find it in the relevant
control panel later;
      * choose whether you want the image stretched, centered, or tiled;
      * choose Cancel if you selected the menu item by mistake, without Mozilla
resorting to anything as obviously annoying as an alert.

** END QUOTE **

I think mpt's idea for this feature is the best, for those coming from IE or
Netscape it may take some time to get used to, however ultimately it is the
better solution (for the reasons mpt states) and saves us people who don't use
it having an extra item in the context menus (also keeps context menus
consistent between Windows and platforms that don't have support for set as
wallpaper)

Comment 41

[Joe Hewitt (gone)]

Attachment: patch

This patch is not ready for prime-time, I'm just posting it as a record of my
progress.  This patch actually does work, and is able to correctly save about
90% of images as bmp files.  However, there are some cases where the image data
we get back from the video card is not a pure stream of RGB pixels - perhaps it
is optimized somehow.  In these cases, the bmp file is corrupt and set as
wallpaper will result in a blank desktop.

I talked to Stuart about this for a while and he says he's been thinking of a
way to expose image data serialization for some time now, but hasn't yet
arrived at a solution. I'll play around with this for a while and see if I can
get something working myself -- if not, guess I'll have to push this bug back
again. :/

Comment 42

[Joe Hewitt (gone)]

Looking more closely at this, I am seeing that my patch is actually close to
working completely.  I just discovered that the pixel data I get back from
nsIImage::GetBits is actually already converted from a DDB to a non-compressed
DIB, so it should work perfectly all the time.  I think the reason the files are
messed up is because the DIBs are 32 bit in memory and I was trying to write
them as 24 bit.  Why some bitmaps worked and others didn't I don't know yet.  I
don't think I want to be writing these bitmaps as 32 bit, though.

Comment 43

[Joe Hewitt (gone)]

Ok, problem solved, the resolution of the bitmap will always be the resolution
of the video card, so if your card is set to 16, 24, or 32 bit, that will be the
res of the DIB I get back from nsImageWin::GetBits, and that's exactly what I'll
serialize to the bmp file.  So, looks like this patch is almost ready to go!
I'll post an updated one shortly.

Comment 44

[Joe Hewitt (gone)]

Attachment: patch 2.0

Comment 45

[Stuart Parmenter]

Comment on attachment 69747 [details] [diff] [review]
patch 2.0

add some null checks around the GetImageRequest, GetImage, etc functions, as
they can return null.  do that and r=pavlov

Comment 46

[David Hallowell]

Problem with this patch is the filename "Mozilla Wallpaper.bmp" is hardcoded so
whether they're using Mozilla.org's mozilla, Netscape 6.x or another Mozilla
based derivative then the user is gonna have the same filename.

There's already been cases where people have seen their html files described as
"Mozilla Hypertext Document" when they've installed Netscape 6 and users have
been confused wondering what Mozilla is.

Also this implementation doesn't fit in with the spec posted on mozilla.org (see
link I posted in comment #40).

Anyway if this is to go into mozilla as a context menu item rather than as mpt's
spec suggested then I think the naming of the file should be based on the
original filename (e.g. moz1.gif -> moz1.bmp) that means if somone accidentially
sets something as a wallpaper there's less chance of the old one being overwritten.

If this isn't gonna happen then 'Mozilla' should be ditched from the filename so
as not to confuse users of non Mozilla branded versions. "Browser
Wallpaper.bmp", "Navigator Wallpaper.bmp"...?

Comment 47

[Joe Hewitt (gone)]

Attachment: patch 3.0

This patch addresses stuart's comments and renames the file to "Navigator
Wallpaper.bmp"

Comment 48

[Joe Hewitt (gone)]

Comment on attachment 69764 [details] [diff] [review]
patch 3.0

r=pavlov
sr=blake

Comment 49

[Joe Hewitt (gone)]

fixed.  I opened bug 126366 to deal with the added work to make this work for
background images, but support is now in for html:imgs.

Comment 50

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

vrfy'd fixed using 2002.03.06.06 comm bits on win2k. when i select "set as
wallpaper" from the context menu, it's saved as "Netscape 6 Wallpaper" under the
Background tab of the win2k Display Properties dlg.