Google Maps as Dynamic, Windows 7, Desktop Wallpaper!?!


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 I donno why but I have been really interested in maps lately and getting better and my general geography. I have my desktop background currently as a labeled world map that I designed in photoshop and my dream is to sail around the world someday.

 

This morning I woke up and was on google maps just looking at the planet.. You know.. normal people stuff. (lol) and was like OMG i can just make a google map and set it as my desktop background like the good old days of having active desktops. 

 

I spent over and hour finding a google map design i liked and another hour reading on how to disable certain controls and move them where you want.
Result: http://portalpacific.net/WallPaper.html

 

Soon after to have my dreams crushed by finding out that active desktops were discontinued after Windows XP..

 

So.. I downloaded a program called "wall paper webpage" Which only kind of worked. It hid my existing icons and folders on my desktop and i had to uninstall the program to see them again. 

 

Now what? What can I do? I am pretty determined to get this to work some how!! Is there any other programs capable of doing this? 
 

I thought maybe I could code my own program.. But then i remembered I only know html, CSS and am really good at breaking javascript functions. :) lol

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That is actually pretty cool. Not a wallpaper but I used to use this for displaying part of webpages as widgets on my desktop. You know, before the introduction of Live Tiles on desktops.

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Windows 7 has a slide show wallpaper option that changes the desktop at a time interval (I am on Win 8 and cant remember if 7 had it) right?

What if you could get/make a program that takes the maps saves it as an image than another image a few seconds later and just keeps overwriting the two images while the slide show changes between the two.

 

 

program -> image01

 

slide show-> image01

 

program -> image02

 

slide show-> image02

 

program->image01

 

slide show-> image01

 

....

 

this is you are on the move. Pointless for a desktop

 

now for a wallpaper map you can move with a mouse...no idea

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That is actually pretty cool. Not a wallpaper but I used to use this for displaying part of webpages as widgets on my desktop. You know, before the introduction of Live Tiles on desktops.

 

Yeah I ran into that tool a lot in my search! It looks cool and I will probably play around with it eventually. Unfortunately I don't think it will allow you to set your wall paper as your selection, Does it?

 

 

I found this: http://www.aveapps.com/avedesktopsites.html

 

I'm not sure if it works with windows 7 and up however.

 

I will give it a try! If it does what I think it does and doesn't work with my OS maybe i can figure out how to convert it to windows 7. Thansk!

 

Dreamscene was Vista's active wallpaper.  There are some free 3rd party devs that let you use any vid file as wallpaper.

 

Will they let you set html files as the background? The purpose of this would to be able to use the google map and zoom in and look at different states and zones on a whim. A video file can no accomplish this. 

 

Windows 7 has a slide show wallpaper option that changes the desktop at a time interval (I am on Win 8 and cant remember if 7 had it) right?

What if you could get/make a program that takes the maps saves it as an image than another image a few seconds later and just keeps overwriting the two images while the slide show changes between the two.

 

 

program -> image01

 

slide show-> image01

 

program -> image02

 

slide show-> image02

 

program->image01

 

slide show-> image01

 

....

 

this is you are on the move. Pointless for a desktop

 

now for a wallpaper map you can move with a mouse...no idea

 

Yeah so basically for windows XP they allowed you to set any webpage or HTML file as your desktop wallpaper. So you could just use the html page as if it were in your browser. So in theory I would just have to add this html file: http://portalpacific.net/WallPaper.html -

 

to my desktop wallpaper folder and select it. :(

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After reading you guys talk about the application that allows video's as background i started thinking if it would allow flash... So i found this which says it works on windows and can load flash and video files..

http://instantleaks.com/2012/12/flash-video-swf-file-as-your-windows-desktop-background.html

 

 

So could i technically just make the map load up in flash via actionscript and have it work?

I guess i should go read up on my action script skills. :(

 

 

------edit---

 

found this: http://okozo.com/

 

The app allows you to have windows 7 wallpapers as flash games or clocks, etc. So my thinking is.. install the software.. download one of their flash games. Decompile the swf into fla.. Then link my map to it..

Crossing fingers.. Will update on my failure in a few hours when i decide to give up!

:)

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Crossing fingers.. Will update on my failure in a few hours when i decide to give up!

:)

Samurize: how the mighty have fallen. :(

Ok, here's how far I've gotten.

post-17075-0-05985300-1397712769.png

I can't get the rendered page to behave as the desktop background, since it doesn't respect the Click Through setting in Samurize. You might like that the page can be grabbed and dragged like normal, who knows. :p

Anyway, if you try this, you'll find a lot of broken links. A Samurize mirror can be found at FileHippo. You can bypass the installer's version check by just extracting the archive using Universal Extractor. You'll also need the minibrowser plugin; these two links should work.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/thtzqbp51yul3z5/PluginPak_1.08.zip

http://www.geocities.jp/samurize2/script.html

Since you're on 7 instead of 8, maybe you'll have better luck getting the map to play well with other desktop objects. Good luck.

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Samurize: how the mighty have fallen. :(

Ok, here's how far I've gotten.

attachicon.gifsamurize.png

I can't get the rendered page to behave as the desktop background, since it doesn't respect the Click Through setting in Samurize. You might like that the page can be grabbed and dragged like normal, who knows. :p

Anyway, if you try this, you'll find a lot of broken links. A Samurize mirror can be found at FileHippo. You can bypass the installer's version check by just extracting the archive using Universal Extractor. You'll also need the minibrowser plugin; these two links should work.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/thtzqbp51yul3z5/PluginPak_1.08.zip

http://www.geocities.jp/samurize2/script.html

Since you're on 7 instead of 8, maybe you'll have better luck getting the map to play well with other desktop objects. Good luck.

Cooool! Thanks! I will give it a shot.. Was it hiding your icons? (and yes I do want to be able to zoom in and scroll around.) hmmmm

Going to play with your method. If it doesnt work out i'm going back go the flash idea. xD

 

Thanks again!

 

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Cooool! Thanks! I will give it a shot.. Was it hiding your icons? (and yes I do want to be able to zoom in and scroll around.) hmmmm

Yes, it would hide my desktop icons (but I don't actually have any).

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I know nothing about your problem but best of luck with your dream to sail round the world :)

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So i have hit a dead end.. It seems converting it to flash is going to be a very daunting task. I even hired 2 people at different times to do it and they said it would be too much work for the price I could afford. lol

 

Anyways.. I found one LAST option since i couldnt really get samurize to work + i cant have it hiding my desktop folders and icons.

 

I found this link about creating active desktops for windows 7 by using adobe air. It comes with a full tutorial!

Here is the link: http://blog.dotsamazing.com/2009/11/active-desktop-replacement-with-adobe-air/

 

Can i pay someone to set this up for me? I think all they have to do is follow the tutorial above and know programming. 

 

My coding skills are way to modest to be able to understand the tutorial above... If ANYONE who has the knowledge could set this up for me.. We can use skype/team viewer, if you need access to my desktop or walk me through steps.. But the coding part i do not understand. I am willing to pay 35$ to anyone willing to help me set this up.. I know its not much but I REALLY want it done and can pay via paypal. No one on freelancer seems to be interested. :(

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