CDE backdrops are managed normally by using dtstyle. They're slightly unusual XPM files (potentially with some colors mapped to the current "palette"). The usual CDE backdrops are NOT on the actual X11 root window, they're on a window overlaid on it, so tools that set the X11 root window contents will NOT produce a visible result on them.
There is one exception: NoBackdrop; set that for the backdrop if you want the X11 root window (only one of those exists, so all workspaces set to NoBackdrop will show the same thing) to be visible in a workspace, and then familiar tools to set the X11 root window contents will work. That also applies to animated ones, like xearth with the appropriate options. If you want another backdrop, I think if you have NoBackdrop selected (applies to the current workspace unless you checked "Use this backdrop for all workspaces"), you can use usual tools that set the X11 root window. It is not impossible to convert a JPG or GIF (sized exactly to your screen size, otherwise it will tile to fill!) to an XPM, and add that to the backdrops. But the file size will be huge; it's really not a nice thing to do to your system. There is no existing mechanism to e.g. detect switching workspace and automatically set the root window to particular contents. That would have been very slow once upon a time, and they wanted workspace switching to be fast, which is probably why they had overlay windows for the normal CDE backdrops; that way it's at least already loaded into the X11 server. > On Feb 10, 2021, at 05:02, cyrus torros <sugondesenuts...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I am looking for a way to set a custom backdrop on workspaces 2, 3, > and 4. Tools like nitrogen don't seem to be capable of it? Is it not > possible/ > > > _______________________________________________ > cdesktopenv-devel mailing list > cdesktopenv-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/cdesktopenv-devel >
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