Chapter 11: Setting Up Your Desktop

Changing the Background

The background is the pattern, picture, or color that lies behind all the windows, icons, and menus on your desktop. (The background used to be called wallpaper before people noticed that wallpapering your desktop is a mixed metaphor.)

Your desktop background can be any color or image. Windows comes with several attractive photographs, as well as a number of abstract patterns, that you can use as a background. You can also use image files that you download from the Internet, copy from a friend, or get from your scanner or digital camera. Your background can even be a Web page.

Selecting an Image or Pattern from the Background List

Select a background image or pattern from the Desktop tab of the Display Properties dialog box (shown earlier in Figure 11-1). The Background box on that tab lists all the background image options that Windows knows about. Click a name in this list to see the image displayed in the preview box--the monitor-like graphic just above the list.

A background image is a file in an HTML or image format (with the extension .bmp, .jpg, .gif, or .tif). That image has a size, which may or may not match the dimensions of your display. If the image is smaller than the display, the Position drop-down list (to the right of the Background list) gives you three choices:

• Center Puts the image in the center of the display, letting the background color of the desktop form a frame around the image. This is your best choice for photographs that are slightly smaller than the display.
• Tile Repeats the image to fill the display with the image. This works particularly well with patterns such as Black Thatch or Houndstooth, which are small images designed to create intricate patterns when tiled.
• Stretch Stretches the image to fill the display. Photographs end up looking like fun house mirrors, but many abstract patterns stretch well.

If the image you choose is larger than your display, Center and Tile both give you a single copy of the image, with the edges of the image off the screen. If this isn't satisfactory, you can use Paint to crop the image, or you can redefine the dimensions of your display.

When the preview in the Display Properties dialog box looks the way you want, click either OK (which closes the dialog box) or Apply (which applies your change but leaves the dialog box open).

Making Your Own Background Images

You aren't limited to the backgrounds that come with Windows. You can use any image file--like a digital or scanned picture of your kids--as a background. Any image file that you move to your My Pictures folder automatically appears in the Background list on the Desktop tab of the Display Properties dialog box. If the file is somewhere else on your system, you can click the Browse button and find the file in the Browse dialog box that appears.

Selecting a Background Color

Any background image you select automatically covers the background color of your desktop. This means that you see the background color of your desktop only if your background image choice is None or is centered with the background visible around the edges.

To select a new background color, follow these steps:

1. Right-click any empty area on the desktop and select Properties from the shortcut menu. The Display Properties dialog box appears.
2. Click the Desktop tab (shown earlier in Figure 11-1).
3. Click the Color button. A palette of 20 colors appears.
4. If one of the colors on the palette is what you want, click it. The background of the preview box changes to the new color.
5. If you don't like any of the colors on the palette, click Other, and follow the directions in the section "Finding the Perfect Color" later in this chapter.
6. Click Apply to change the desktop color and leave the Display Properties dialog box open, or click OK to change the color and close the Display Properties dialog box.

Using a Web Page as a Background

Rather than a static decoration, your desktop background can be a page from the Internet, or it can contain accessories regularly updated from the Internet, such as a headline ticker or a weather map. (Microsoft used to call this idea the "Active Desktop," but it seems to have dropped the term.)

In general, we recommend that you not bother with these Web-based elements if you connect to the Internet via a modem attached to an ordinary telephone line; the connection is slow, and the benefit is not worth tying up the phone. But if you connect through an office LAN or an always-on home connection like DSL or cable, you may find that you enjoy having your desktop more closely integrated with the outside world. You can also display a Web page that you've stored on your own hard drive, which doesn't depend on a connection to the Internet.

These possibilities are controlled from the Web tab of the Desktop Items dialog box, shown in Figure 11-3. Open this dialog box as follows:

1. Open the Display Properties dialog box by right-clicking an empty space on the desktop and selecting Properties from the shortcut menu.
2. Click the Desktop tab of the Display Properties dialog box (shown earlier in Figure 11-1).
3. Click the Customize Desktop button. The Desktop Items dialog box appears.
4. Click the Web tab.

Figure 11-3: Put the Internet on your desktop

Adding Web Content to Your Desktop

The Web Pages list on the Web tab of the Desktop Items dialog box offers My Current Home Page, which is the page Internet Explorer displays when it opens. Other items may appear on your Web Pages list. To display an item on your desktop, check the corresponding check box, click OK to close the Desktop Items dialog box, and then click either OK or Apply in the Display Properties dialog box. Your computer will attempt to access the Internet and find the page you chose.

You can add any Web page you want to the Web Pages list on the Web tab of the Desktop Items dialog box, as follows:

1. On the Web tab of the Desktop Items dialog box, click the New button. The New Desktop Item dialog box appears.
2. Type the URL of the Web page into the Location box. Alternatively, choose an item from your Favorites menu by clicking the Browse button and choosing a favorite from the Browse dialog box.
3. After making your choice, click OK in the New Desktop Item dialog box. A confirmation box appears, showing the URL that you have selected. Click OK again. The new item appears on the Web Pages list with a check in its check box.
4. Click OK in the Desktop Item and Display Properties dialog boxes.

The New Desktop Item dialog box also contains a Visit Gallery button, which takes you to a Microsoft Web site containing stock tickers, weather maps, and other items that you may find interesting to have on your desktop. Instructions for installing these items can be found on the Web site.

After you have added an item to the Web Pages list on the Desktop Items dialog box, you can add it or remove it from your desktop as often as you like by checking or unchecking its check box in the Web Pages list.

If you don't want Web items to be accidentally moved or resized, select the Lock Desktop Items check box on the Web tab of the Desktop Items dialog box.

Working with Web Content on Your Desktop

Web pages that have become part of your desktop appear to have no definite boundary, especially if the background of the page matches the background of the desktop. However, if you rest the cursor at the top edge of the Web page, a small frame appears around it. You can use this frame to drag the Web page to another location or to resize it. The frame contains icons along the top border, like this:

Clicking the downward-pointing arrow in the left corner displays a menu of commands you can use to change the appearance of the Web page--Microsoft calls this the Tools menu for the Web page. The Tools menu contains commands that enable you to tell Windows whether to store the Web page for use when your computer is offline, how much of the screen for the Web page to occupy, and how often to update the Web page from the Internet. You can choose Properties from the Tools menu to display the Web page's Properties dialog box, which is described in the next section.

If you are used to working with Web pages inside browser windows, having a Web page as part of your desktop takes some getting used to. For example, the Web page stays behind any open windows on the desktop; you can't bring it to the front by clicking it.

Updating Your Desktop Web Pages

A Web page on your desktop does not stay current automatically. You must either update it by selecting Synchronize from the Tools menu that drops down from the top left corner of its frame or by setting up a schedule to update it automatically.

To set up a schedule for Web page updating, follow these steps:

1. Choose Properties from the Web page's Tools menu to display the Web page's Properties dialog box. (Another way to display this dialog box is from the Desktop tab of the Display Properties dialog box: click Customize Desktop, click the Web tab of the Desktop Items dialog box that appears, select a Web page from the list, and click the Properties button.)
2. Click the Schedule tab of the Properties dialog box (as shown in Figure 11-4).

Figure 11-4: Scheduling when to update a Web page that is displayed on your desktop

3. Click the Use The Following Schedule(s) radio button. If a schedule has already been defined but is not currently active, you can select it from the Schedules list.
4. If the schedule you want is not on the list, click the Add button. The New Schedule dialog box opens.
5. In the New Schedule dialog box, choose a number of days to wait before updating, a time of day when the update should happen, and a name for the schedule. A check box allows you to specify whether the computer should connect to the Internet automatically at the update time.
6. When you have finished entering information in the New Schedule dialog box, click OK. The new schedule now appears on the list of schedules. Click OK in all of the open dialog boxes.

You can change or remove an update schedule by repeating step 1 above, then selecting the schedule and clicking the Edit or Remove button. You can make the schedule inactive by selecting the Only When I Choose Synchronize From The Tools Menu radio button in step 2.