Have NASA's Astronomy Picture Of The Day as you background on OSX!

[Nicnac]

Here's just a very quick guide on what I messed around with today and find really cool. Automator is such a nice tool and I wonder why I never used it before...

 

So yea, you wanna open Automator first.

 

It's basically for programming your mac in a way similar to those robotics learning kits where you have blocks that do something and you can queue them up in order of what you want to do.

Go to File>New and select Application.

 

 

 

Next you wanna just drag and drop the blocks from the left column into your workspace from top to bottom with the appropriate settings like this (There's also a search function at the top to find them faster):

 

 

 

I created a folder called 'APOD' in my documents Folder but you can put it wherever you want. The App just needs a place to save the downloaded photos.

Also, don't forget to set 'astropix' as a tag in the filter block. This tells the which one the actual daily photo is as it is always the only one with that tag.

 

Finally, the last block sets the background picture:

 

 

And so much for the App. Save it wherever you like. I put it into the same folder the photos are saved in.

 

Now you can just double click it or use the run button at the top right to see if it works.

 

To make it update the wallpaper to the latest pic daily, you need to put the app into your login items.

Go to System Preferences>Users&Groups and select your User and then go to the Login Items Tab.

You can add items with the little plus button on the bottom left and select your freshly baked App from there:

 

aaand your done!

 

Hope you liked this!

 

 

[Nicnac]

Here's a quick update:

 

If you are (like me) not rebooting your laptop on a daily basis you can simply create an event in your calendar app

Just make a new event and for alert select 'Custom' , then 'open file' and then instead of calendar select 'other' again and brows for your file. make this event repeat itself daily at whatever time you like and you get the daily picture without rebooting. 

Dunno when NASA uploads the each new picture exactly but if someone knows please tell me!  

[FloRolf]

That's cool and all, but how does that work in w10?

 

[FIXXX]

On 12/25/2017 at 1:53 PM, FloRolf said:

That's cool and all, but how does that work in w10?

 

Can I haz such info too? I'm certain there's software out there for this  - but also certain most of it is unsafe. So perhaps someone knows a decent option.

[Gymnophoria]

You don't need the "Filter Articles" and "Get Link URLs from Articles" blocks if you just use the homepage link (https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html) in the first block.

Just a quick efficiency fix.

 

Also, I suggest you add a "Filter URLs" block underneath the "Get Image URLs.." block because mine kept downloading a cat photo and the APOD, setting my desktop to the cat photo.. 

 

Cool thread, it's awesome to see a new APOD photo daily.

[Nicnac]

3 hours ago, ThatNerdOverThere said:

You don't need the "Filter Articles" and "Get Link URLs from Articles" blocks if you just use the homepage link (https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html) in the first block.

Just a quick efficiency fix.

 

Also, I suggest you add a "Filter URLs" block underneath the "Get Image URLs.." block because mine kept downloading a cat photo and the APOD, setting my desktop to the cat photo.. 

 

Cool thread, it's awesome to see a new APOD photo daily.

Thanks for the info! will update this. It's my first time using automator after all ^^

[dragontower]

Sorry for reviving this old thread but for the Windows users, just go over to displayfusion and get what you need. It costs money but is well worth it as you can set it up to show a different and random NASA APOD every 15 minutes as your desktop wallpaper. That is how I have it set and the awe inspiring and wondrous images that my eyes get to behold are worth every penny and then some.

 

Speaking of random images every 15 minutes, could you update this so that it draws a random image from this URL every 15 minutes automatically at login without any human interaction?

Since that URL also includes the most recent image of the day and every image uploaded since June 16, 1995?

 

Or is there anyone out there willing to help with that request?

 

I would love to have random NASA APOD's show up on my 65" Sony Bravia 4k HDR that I have my Mac Mini hooked up to.

 

Thanks!