Features

• Automatically sets NASA Astronomical Picture of the Day as desktop wallpaper.
• Manually select a date from user friendly GUI and set that date's image as the desktop wallpaper.
• Saves the images in local user drive for future use.

Nasa Apod Wallpaper Setter

Installing the prequisites

Reminder that right now, this only works on windows.

Python 3

Make sure you have python3 installed on your device. You can learn how to do this from here In the install dialog box, make sure you add Python 3 to the PATH.

Tip: Opening cmd in any folder

Assuming that in File Explorer you have opened the target directory/folder, do this:

1. Click on address bar, alternatively press Alt+D

2. Now when address bar is highlighted, type cmd in the bar.

3. Press Enter key

Make sure you have pip installed on your pc. Open cmd and run.

pip --version

You'll get a version as shown below.

pip 21.3.1 <long path name>

If you get a error, install pip.

Clone the repository

To check if you already have git installed. Run the following on cmd.

git --version

If installed, you'll get the output like:

git version 2.24.1.windows.2

If not installed, you can install git from here

Now go to a folder anywhere in your system where you wish to clone the repository. Open cmd in that directory.

Learn how to traverse folders in cmd from here

To clone the repo, in the desired folder - open cmd and run the following:

git clone https://github.com/ShikharSahu/NasaApodDesktopWallpaperSetter.git

Required packages

Run the below commands one by one and make sure there are no errors.

pip install -r requirements.txt

OR Just go to the cloned repository and run the following on cmd:

pip install win10toast
pip install tkcalendar
pip install Pillow
pip install requests

Run the Program

Trial Run

On the cmd, make sure the cloned repo is open. Run:

python apod_wallpaper_setter.py

See if the wallpaper is changed. If it works, voila! else try to debug the errors. If nothing works, you can contatct me.

Create a batch file

Open nasa_apod_wallpaper_batch_file.bat Change the *D:\PythonAuto* in the file, to the location where you have cloned the repo and where apod_wallpaper_setter.py is accessible.

For Example: I had this file in D drive, in a folder named PythonAuto

Just double click the batch file to see if it updates your wallpaper. Make sure you have the right path in the batchfile.

Note :

• Make sure you've entered the correct path
• Make sure you can access internet through python on your device.

Manual Wallpaper Setter

In the command promt, with the cloned repo open in it, run:

python manual_wallpaper_changer.py

A window will open:

Select the date and click on "set as wallpaper". You can select any date from 2008 to today.

Click on "Use Today's Pic" to use today's pic.

Set Automatic Wallpaper changer

You can refer to this article to setup automatic Wallpaper changer.

1. Make sure you have edited the batch file and it is working.
2. Go to Windows search bar and search "Task Scheduler".
3. Click on ‘Create Basic Task….’ in the Actions Tab. And give a suitable Name like "NASA APOD Auto WAllpaper", and Description of your task that you want to Automate and click on Next.
4. In the next step, you have to select at what time intervals your script should be executed. Select ‘Daily’ and click Next. Now you need to specify at what time your Python Script should be executed daily and then Click on Next. I reccommend using a time when your PC is most likely to be on and unlocked. For me, it was 2pm. For this test, I recommend choosing 10 mins after current time. Later you can edit this time.
5. Click on browse and find and select the batch file we had edited. Now click Next.
6. See if everything looks fine. Then click on finish.

Note:

• You are only allowed to make 30 API calls per hours. This is due to the demo key. You can bypass this by generating a real key from here and updating it in wallpaper_utility.py
• Saved images are stored in "C:\Users\ [USERNAME]\Pictures\NasaApod"

References:

• NASA APOD : https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/

• NASA APOD API: https://github.com/nasa/apod-api

My Desktop:

Date:

• 2021 April 26

• 2021 February 14

• 2019 October 22

• 2019 May 11

License

    Copyright 2021 Shikhar Sahu

    Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
    you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
    You may obtain a copy of the License at

       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

    Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
    distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
    WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
    See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
    limitations under the License.