WALLP.EXE: Changes the Wallpapers for You

The Windows Wallpaper

As you know, you can put whatever photo or picture in the background of your screen: it is the so-called Windows desktop wallpaper. Just select Screen from the Control Panel and choose a bitmap with the Browse button. But what happens if you become bored of seeing always the same picture?
You just need a small software that changes photos for you.

Our Wallpaper Program

The program main form

Maybe there are other programs that already do the same things, but the one I describe here has some interesting features and advantages:

How it Works

Just download the program (see the link below), and extract it to a directory (e.g. c:\wallp). Then run the program, set the path to a directory containing bitmaps... That's all.
If you want to see captions for each pictures, you need to prepare a wallp.txt containing the list of captions (no matter of their order). Each row is as follows:

filename (with no path) [tab] caption [return]

You can use the picture in the photo gallery as wallpapers; in this case the wallp.txt file il already inside the wallp.zip archive. You can include as many captions as you want, if the bitmap for a certain caption does not exist, that caption will be simply ignored.

The Source Code

Wallp.exe is written in Visual Basic, possibly the easiest programmig language. Is it the right time to learn something on programming? Try to download the source code: it's full of detailed comments and can be a good starting point even for your own programs. For example you will learn how to:

  • use simple string manipulation functions
  • read from and write to a text file
  • use Windows API functions
  • use standard controls (such as buttons and textboxes)
  • use non visual controls (such as a timer)
If you have problems, you can ask explanations. Remember that teaching programming languages is (among other things) part of my job...

Download Area

Wallp.exe standard (200 kB): everything you need to use Wallp.exe is contained in the zip

Wallp32.exe - 32 bit version (1500 kB): supports long filenames (if you can't live without...), but it's much larger and will take more time to download. Its release is less recent than the 16 bit version.

Source code for Wallp.exe (200 kB): if you think that this is the good time to learn something on programming and Visual Basic, just try it!
(contains both 16 and 32 bit versions)

Visual Basic 3 (2000 kB): all the fundamental files to use Visual Basic 3 are contained in the zip.
Current version of VB is 6! I think that it's not so blameworthy if I let you download this old version: it's still really good for learning VB!

A Simple Visual Basic Manual (200 kB): a simple guidebook for learning Visual Basic, that I wrote when I was teaching it (in Italian only: sorry!)