WebLiveWallpaper FAQ
FAQ
Display your favourite pictures, webcams, galleries and websites as a live wallpaper!
For bugs, extra help, feature requests and general comments, email the creator or visit the development thread at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=931740!
Q: How do I access WebLiveWallpaper?
There are two ways to access this app. The first way is from the All Apps list on your device, just like any other app. This will launch WebLiveWallpaper, and from there you can access settings and the Live Wallpaper screen. The second way is directly from Live Wallpaper. To do this, long press on the home screen, or press <Menu>, and select ‘Wallpaper’. Then select ‘Live Wallpapers’ and choose ‘WebLiveWallpaper’ from the list of live wallpapers.
Q: What kind of websites can I use in WebLiveWallpaper?
You can use almost any website! WebLiveWallpaper tries to find the best image on a website to use as the wallpaper. Sometimes, because of the way a website is set up, poor quality images are selected. If this happens, you can adjust wallpaper settings to try and get the best image. You can also have WebLiveWallpaper simply create a snapshot of a website, instead of finding a picture.
Q: The app crashed - what can I do to help repairing it?
If possible - send a crash report to google. If the button to send the report does not appear you can send an email to dngames@gmail.com with a logfile. If your are not a developer yourself and know what a logcat is you can use an app like aLogCat free to send it. The logfile will be extremely helpful for the developer.
Q: WebLiveWallpaper uses a poor quality, low resolution or small image, what can I do?
You can try enabling ‘Dig deep’. In the settings menu, tap the ‘New’ tab, then tap ‘Advanced Settings, and finally select ‘Dig deep’. When ‘Dig deep’ is enabled, WebLiveWallpaper will attempt to follow links within the website to try and find a suitable, large image to use as the wallpaper.
You can also try finding a more direct link to the image you wish to use.
Q: Does WebLiveWallpaper increase battery usage?
Depending on your settings, and how long you spend viewing the home screen on your device, WebLiveWallpaper should have lower same battery usage than other live wallpapers; WebLiveWallpaper only refreshes when actually viewing the home screen. However, if you set WebLiveWallpaper to refresh often, or are viewing an animated webcam stream, then battery usage will increase accordingly.
Q: How do I reduce battery usage by WebLiveWallpaper?
The two main ways to reduce battery usage is by increasing the refresh time and downloading smaller images. Ensure you are not needlessly downloading images which are too large to display on your device. You can adjust refresh time in the settings menu. Tap the ‘New’ tab, then tap ‘Refresh time’. Enter your desired refresh time, in seconds. If you wish to display a picture of the day from a site which only updates daily, then select ‘Daily refresh’ from the ‘Advanced Settings’ menu. Spending less time on the home screen will also reduce battery usage.
Q: I don’t know what to select, or I don’t want to play around with settings, I want to have something right now!
There is a number pre-selected webcams, galleries and web sites to choose from. Selecting one of these selections will automatically adjust the settings for the optimal experience. To find them, enter the ‘Settings’ menu, and select the ‘Start’ tab.
Q: How can I set my private picasa gallery as live wallpaper?
Every picasa gallery has a private link you as the owner can open on the right side of the gallery website (to email to people without picasa account and other uses). You can set this URL as wallpaper, enable the dig setting and the view settings you like (see other galleries in quickselection as examples).
Q: How can I set my private facebook album as live wallpaper?
Every facebook album has a private link you as the owner can find at the bottom of the album website (to email to people without facebook account and other uses). You can set this URL as wallpaper, enable the dig setting and the view settings you like (see other galleries in quickselection as examples).
Q: I am trying to select a flash webcam, and it isn’t working in WebLiveWallpaper.
Setting up a wallpaper using flash webcams is slightly more complicate than regular websites or webcams. Because of the way flash works, you will need to find a direct image link. Using Chrome or Firebug, right-click near the camera picture (note: clicking ON the image will not work) and select ‘inspect element’. Next, select ‘network’, and reload the page. Now look through the list of network GETs for an image link in jpg or mjpeg format. If the webcam only uses swf or rtmp, then email me, and I will try to help. Future editions will hopefully automate this process.
Alternatively, if your device supports flash, you can try enabling ‘Website snapshot’ in the advanced settings menu.
Q: My device doesn’t support live wallpapers, can I still use WebLiveWallpaper?
Yes! You can launch WebLiveWallpaper as an app from the All Apps menu, and use it to watch a webcam or a gallery. You can also set a static wallpaper from the current view.
Q: Can I create my own slide show using a variety of webcams, pictures, galleries and web pages?
Yes! You can add websites, webcams, pictures and galleries to My Sites, and enable a slide show cycling through all your sites. Every site added using ‘Save’ under the ‘New’ tab will add your site to My Sites.
Q: How can I avoid getting black images from webcams at night time?
There are two ways to avoid night time images from webcams. Either enable the ‘No night images’ setting under the ‘System’ tab in the ‘Settings’ menu, or modify activity times for your new site under the ‘New’ tab, or both. Modifying activity times will stop WebLiveWallpaper from downloading new images from that site during inactive times.
Q: Can I filter out pictures when showing web galleries?
With the "filter image path" advanced setting you can specify a "regular expression" (google for regexp to learn how to use them) to filter the considered filenames. The local camera picture quickselection is a simple example for this.
Q: What kind of local content can I use in WebLiveWallpaper?
You can load all content from local storage (like sdcard) simply by using "file://" ... as URL. Examples:
file:///sdcard/mygifanim.gif
file:///sdcard/myjavascriptwallpaper/wallpaper.html (inside you have to reference files also with file://...)
If you want to use all your pictures as one gallery use:
content://media
To filter the results use the "Filter image path" advanced setting. Some examples:
2011 to only show pictures with 2011 in the filename (from 2011)
.*dcim|DCIM.* to find only your camera pictures
^((?!\\Birthday\\).)*$ to exclude all pictures from the folder 'Birthday'
Q: Where are the xml files stored?
You will find them on the SD card, but first you must select the ‘Save to SD’ setting, found under the ‘System’ tab in the ‘Settings’ menu. Please note that after selecting this option you will no longer see updated quickselection entries from app updates - you have to move away/rename the saved defaults.xml!
Q: How do I create my own custom animated Live Wallpaper?
Follow my little tutorial.
Or google how to create your own animated gif.
Thanks to xda member Rangelus for writing this FAQ!!!