Active Desktop was a feature of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 's optional Windows Desktop Update that allowed users to add HTML content to the desktop , along with some other features. This function was intended to be installed on the then-current Windows 95 operating system. It was also included in Windows 98 and later Windows operating systems up through 32-bit XP, but was absent from XP Professional x64 Edition (for AMD64 ) and all subsequent versions of Windows. Its status on XP 64-bit edition (for Itanium ) and on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 is not widely known. This corresponded to version Internet Explorer 4.0 to 6.x , but not Internet Explorer 7 .
31-408: HTML could be added both in place of the regular wallpaper and as independent resizable desktop items . Items available on-line could be regularly updated and synchronized so users could stay updated without visiting the website in their browser. Active Desktop worked much like desktop widget technology in that it allowed users to place customized information on their desktop. The introduction of
62-486: A typewriter graphically emulated complete with audio effects. Other applications included a calculator, rolodex organiser, and a terminal emulator . Files could be archived into the drawers of the desktop. A trashcan was also present. The first computer to popularise the desktop metaphor, using it as a standard feature over the earlier command-line interface was the Apple Macintosh in 1984. The desktop metaphor
93-493: A built-in interface to do this; it must be done through Terminal commands or various third-party applications. Dynamically animated backgrounds have also been introduced in iOS 7 and later versions, however they are restricted to the ones provided by Apple. Jailbroken iOS devices can download other dynamic backgrounds. Linux distributions usually provides their own original backgrounds. For example: cute:_757rbppozw= wallpaper Desktop metaphor In computing ,
124-609: A computer, wallpapers are generally used on the desktop , while on a mobile phone they serve as the background for the home screen . Though most devices include a default background image, modern devices usually allow users to manually change the background image. The term " wallpaper " was used in Microsoft Windows before Windows XP (In Windows XP and later, it is called the "desktop background"). Meanwhile, macOS refers to it as "desktop picture". On older systems that allowed small repeated patterns to be set as background images,
155-453: A moving image or a 2D / 3D scene as an operating system background rather than a static image, it may also refer to wallpapers being cycled in a playlist, often with certain transition effects. Some operating systems, such as Android , provide native support for animated wallpapers. Live wallpapers have been introduced in Android 2.0 Eclair to provide native support for animated wallpapers. From
186-443: A paper copy of the document placed on the desktop. Small applications called desk accessories are also available, such as a desk calculator or notepad, etc. The desktop metaphor itself has been extended and stretched with various implementations of desktop environments , since access to features and usability of the computer are usually more important than maintaining the 'purity' of the metaphor . Hence one can find trash cans on
217-466: A selection of 8×8-pixel binary-image tiled patterns; the ability to use small color patterns was added in System 5 in 1987. Mac OS 8 in 1997 was the first Macintosh version to include built-in support for using arbitrary images as desktop pictures, rather than small repeating patterns. Windows 3.0 in 1990 was the first version of Microsoft Windows to feature support for wallpaper customization, and used
248-454: A taskbar or menu bar belonging to the desktop. The desktop metaphor was first introduced by Alan Kay , David C. Smith, and others at Xerox PARC in 1970 and elaborated in a series of innovative software applications developed by PARC scientists throughout the ensuing decade. The first computer to use an early version of the desktop metaphor was the experimental Xerox Alto , and the first commercial computer that adopted this kind of interface
279-467: A technical point of view, live wallpapers are software applications that provide a moving background image and may allow for user interaction or utilize other hardware and software features within the device (accelerometer, GPS, network access, etc.). macOS has built-in support, via the Desktop & Screen Saver panel in its System Preferences/Settings , for cycling through a folder collection of images on
310-416: A timed interval or when logging in or waking from sleep. Since macOS Mojave , the user can also select a "Dynamic Desktop" that automatically updates to visually match the time of the day. Additionally, macOS has the native ability to run a screen saver on the desktop; in this configuration, the screen saver appears beneath the desktop icons in place of the system wallpaper. However, macOS does not feature
341-413: A white background, files within folders, and a "desktop". The paper paradigm was created by many individuals and organisations, such as Douglas Engelbart , Xerox PARC , and Apple Computer , and was an attempt to make computers more user-friendly by making them resemble the common workplace of the time (with papers, folders, and a desktop). It was first presented to the public by Engelbart in 1968, in what
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#1732859526723372-459: Is this icon. One is not a "representation of" or an "interface to" the other. Such relationships were foreign to most people, and constituted unnecessary mental baggage when there was a much more simple and direct connection to what they knew of reality. Since then, many aspects of computers have wandered away from the paper paradigm by implementing features such as "shortcuts" to files, hypertext , and non-spatial file browsing. A shortcut (a link to
403-416: Is now referred to as " The Mother of All Demos ". From John Siracusa: Back in 1984, explanations of the original Mac interface to users who had never seen a GUI before inevitably included an explanation of icons that went something like this: "This icon represents your file on disk." But to the surprise of many, users very quickly discarded any semblance of indirection. This icon is my file. My file
434-416: Is the most recent Microsoft operating system to support Active Desktop. It appears that the 64-bit version of Windows XP no longer supports Active Desktop. However, it still provides the option to display Web pages and channels built with Microsoft's Channel Definition Format (CDF) on the desktop. The HTML displaying capabilities are now mainly used for creating original wallpapers and adding search boxes to
465-433: Is ubiquitous in modern-day personal computing; it is found in most desktop environments of modern operating systems: Windows as well as macOS , Linux , and other Unix-like systems. BeOS observed the desktop metaphor more strictly than many other systems. For example, external hard drives appeared on the 'desktop', while internal ones were accessed clicking on an icon representing the computer itself. By comparison,
496-470: The Commodore 64 home computer in 1983, a very primitive GUI presented a low resolution sketch of a desktop, complete with telephone, drawers, calculator, etc. The user made their choices by moving a sprite depicting a hand pointing by using the same joystick the user may have used for video gaming . Onscreen options were chosen by pushing the fire button on the joystick. The Magic Desk I program featured
527-411: The desktop metaphor is an interface metaphor which is a set of unifying concepts used by graphical user interfaces to help users interact more easily with the computer. The desktop metaphor treats the computer monitor as if it is the top of the user's desk , upon which objects such as documents and folders of documents can be placed. A document can be opened into a window , which represents
558-512: The Active Desktop marked Microsoft's attempt to capitalize on the push technology trend led by PointCast . Active Desktop allowed embedding a number of " channels " on the user's computer desktop that could provide continually-updated information such as web pages, without requiring the user to open dedicated programs such as a web browser . Example uses include overview over news headlines and stock quotes. However, its most notable feature
589-513: The Mac OS places all drives on the desktop itself by default, while in Windows the user can access the drives through an icon labelled "Computer". Amiga terminology for its desktop metaphor was taken directly from workshop jargon. The desktop was called Workbench , programs were called tools , small applications ( applets ) were utilities, directories were drawers, etc. Icons of objects were animated and
620-695: The Taskbar next to the Start button, upgraded Start Menu allowing drag and drop item reordering and allowing right-click context menus for item renaming, etc. With the update, Windows Explorer featured an Address bar in which Internet addresses can be entered and seamlessly browsed. Since Windows XP , if a non-BMP image is used as Windows Desktop wallpaper, Windows will convert non-BMP image to BMP image in background. Active Desktop never attained any significant degree of popularity, as its drawbacks included high use of system resources and reduced system stability. The component
651-665: The Windows Desktop Update is commonly referred to (improperly) as Active Desktop itself, it is actually an entire Windows shell upgrade from v4.0 to v4.71, or v4.72, with numerous changes to the Windows interface, resulting in an appearance and functionality level nearly indistinguishable from the then yet-to-be-released Windows 98. Features include the option to allow uppercase filenames (the old v4.0 desktop would forcibly display uppercase filenames in title case), configurable one-click hot-tracking file selection, customizable per-folder HTML display settings, QuickLaunch mini-buttons on
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#1732859526723682-399: The desktop, as well as disks and network volumes (which can be thought of as filing cabinets —not something normally found on a desktop). Other features such as menu bars or taskbars have no direct counterpart on a real-world desktop, though this may vary by environment and the function provided; for instance, a familiar wall calendar can sometimes be displayed or otherwise accessed via
713-443: The desktop. For example, a user could copy the following code to display Misplaced Pages's search-box on the desktop: Computer wallpaper A wallpaper or background (also known as a desktop background , desktop picture or desktop image on computers) is a digital image (photo, drawing etc.) used as a decorative background of a graphical user interface on the screen of a computer , smartphone or other electronic device. On
744-499: The directories are shown as drawers which were represented as either open or closed. As in the classic Mac OS and macOS desktop, an icon for a floppy disk or CD-ROM would appear on the desktop when the disk was inserted into the drive, as it was a virtual counterpart of a physical floppy disk or CD-ROM on the surface of a workbench. The paper paradigm refers to the paradigm used by most modern computers and operating systems. The paper paradigm consists of, usually, black text on
775-525: The same year the free xloadimage program was released which could display a variety of image formats (including color images in Sun Rasterfile format) as the desktop background. Subsequently, a number of programs were released that added wallpaper support for additional image formats and other features, such as the xpmroot program (released in 1993 as part of fvwm ) and the xv software (released in 1994). The original Macintosh operating system only allowed
806-496: The term desktop pattern was used. The X Window System was one of the earliest systems to include support for an arbitrary image as wallpaper via the xsetroot program, which at least as early as the X10R3 release in 1985 could tile the screen with any solid color or any binary-image X BitMap file. In 1989, a free software program called xgifroot was released that allowed an arbitrary color GIF image to be used as wallpaper, and in
837-489: The term "wallpaper" for this feature. Although Windows 3.0 only came with 7 small patterns (2 black-and-white and 5 16-color), the user could supply other images in the BMP file format with up to 8-bit color (although the system was theoretically capable of handling 24-bit color images, it did so by dithering them to an 8-bit palette ) to provide similar wallpaper features otherwise lacking in those systems. A wallpaper feature
868-422: Was added in a beta release of OS/2 2.0 in 1991. Due to the widespread use of personal computers , some wallpapers have become immensely recognizable and gained iconic cultural status. Bliss , the default wallpaper of Windows XP, has become the most viewed photograph of the 2000s. Animated backgrounds (sometimes referred to as live backgrounds or dynamic backgrounds ) refers to wallpapers which feature
899-690: Was retained in Windows XP but was replaced by a feature named Windows Sidebar in Windows Vista . Sidebar in turn was called Windows Desktop Gadgets in Windows 7 , which also allows components to be added to the desktop, but it was also discontinued due to security issues. Windows 8 (also 8.1 and 10 ) partially replaced their functionality with " live tiles " in the Start screen (or Start menu). Finally, such functionalities have now been partially replaced with Widgets in Windows 11 . Windows Server 2003 R2 32-bit
930-518: Was that it allowed Motion JPEGs and animated GIFs to animate correctly when set as the desktop wallpaper. Active Desktop debuted as part of an Internet Explorer 4.0 preview release in July 1997, and came out with the launch of the 4.0 browser in September that year. for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0, as a feature of the optional Windows Desktop Update offered to users during the upgrade installation. While
961-563: Was the Xerox Star . The use of window controls to contain related information predates the desktop metaphor, with a primitive version appearing in Douglas Engelbart 's " Mother of All Demos ", though it was incorporated by PARC in the environment of the Smalltalk language. One of the first desktop-like interfaces on the market was a program called Magic Desk I. Built as a cartridge for