Here's our plug-in (we called it desktopsetter) in action, with the Automator project in the background.
We expected to find this easy trick built into Mac OS X's mighty Contextual Menu, but it's not there. No worries, we can add it in exactly four steps. Launch Automator and select Finder from the Applications section of the Library. Drag Get Selected Finder Items into the Workflow area, and then drag in Set The Desktop Picture. Select File > Save As Plug-in, and in the resulting sheet, choose Finder as the plug-in type. Give your plug-in a name, and when you want to zap an image file to your Desktop background, right-click (or Control-click) the file in the Finder and select Automator > your plug-in name.
jrod
November 03, 2007 at 7:49pm
This thing rocks. Now...
I have an iMac with an external display. How do I go about adding, in Automator, the ability to have it go to Monitor 1 or Monitor 2? Is there any simple way to do this, or are we talking AppleScript within Automator to do this?
Anonymous
February 28, 2007 at 4:37pm
if the image you want is online, there's an easier way. in firefox, right click an image and click set as desktop background. done.
Lewis Zechmeir
March 14, 2007 at 3:01pm
Why not just go into System Preferences on the desktop and open DESKTOP SCREEN SAVER, you can then pick any image in iPhoto to use for a sceen saver. If its not one of your own images, just import it into iPhoto.
htown1962
February 26, 2007 at 3:50pm
I'm going to assume that the image in question is already on the caomputer. Why not just Cmd+click (or right click), choose "Change Desktop Background" navigate to the image and select it.
Anonymous
February 25, 2007 at 11:15pm
I just tried to use the solution for making a picture your desktop wallpaper. (with the plug-in) I was unsuccessful. Did the instructions leave something out? I am a Mac novice so please be specific.
Thanks.
