John’s Background Switcher Changelog

What's new in John’s Background Switcher 5.7.0.1

Dec 13, 2023

Features and Changes:
Upgraded to Vladstudio 4 integration (which requires you to sign in to use Vladstudio, which is free)
You can now only choose from your own SmugMug Photos (as required by the SmugMug team)
The uninstaller now lets you ‘Uninstall’ rather than ‘Modify’ (even though it did the same thing)
Bug Fixes:
Removed Google Photos from Windows 7 and below as they don’t support Credential Locker
Fixed the shortcut and popup dialogs sometimes showing on start up
Fixed a crash when bringing up the settings dialog
Fixed a crash when bringing up the more settings dialog
Fixed a crash when showing a popup error message
Fixed a crash on startup when unable to get the current working directory
Fixed the photo downloader sometimes failing mid-download

New in John’s Background Switcher 5.6 (Oct 2, 2023)

New in John’s Background Switcher 5.5.1.2 (May 10, 2023)

New in John’s Background Switcher 5.5.0.117 (Feb 8, 2023)

New in John’s Background Switcher 5.4.0.1 (Dec 20, 2021)

New in John’s Background Switcher 5.3.1 (Mar 26, 2021)

New in John’s Background Switcher 5.3 (Mar 22, 2021)

New in John’s Background Switcher 5.2 (Apr 4, 2019)

New in John’s Background Switcher 5.1 (Feb 21, 2019)

New in John’s Background Switcher 5.0 (Dec 7, 2018)

Features and Changes:
13360: Add Google Photos integration
FEATURE: You can now choose photos from Google Photos. Pick albums, recent photos or photos from a pre-defined selection of categories. It’s been a long time coming!
13587: Choose from all active photo sets from all sources at the same time
FEATURE: Previously JBS would only show pictures from one source at a time, so you could have sets from Flickr, Unsplash and Pixabay, but if you used a montage mode then you’d only ever see photos from one at a time. Now you’ll see photos from all active sets from all sources. Yay! Note that this means no more different picture mode per source, but you can’t have it all.
13593: Translate JBS into Hungarian
FEATURE: JBS has now been translated into Hungarian. Thanks Attila!
12696: Add the option to change the calendar font size
FEATURE: As well as changing the calendar font you can now change the size too! It’s been a long time coming.
13585: Improve the layout and icons on high DPI displays
CHANGED: More and more people have high resolution displays and JBS didn’t look great to be fair. Now things should look a lot better with easier to read icons and a few layout fixes.
13586: Move all the photo cache folders to one place
CHANGED: To cut down on photo caches on your machine JBS has consolidated the per-source montage and mosaic cache folders into one folder for montages and one for caches. This matches the Mac version and is a lot more efficient and should therefore take up less space on your hard drive.
13611: Remove the folder shuffle functionality so that it works the same as all the other sources
CHANGED: Previously, if you used a single picture per monitor and local folders, JBS would keep track of the photos shown so that it shuffled through them all before showing any again. Now that JBS chooses from all photo sources at once this inconsistent behaviour (in that it only applied to local folders) has now been removed. This has the added benefit of me no longer hearing from countless people telling me they keep seeing repeats when I could prove that they weren’t (the human brain sees patterns when there aren’t any). Now it will show repeats by design! And behave the same as all the other web-based sources. Consistency is King!
Bug Fixes:
13565: Update the Vladstudio integration to work with the latest Vladstudio web update
FIXED: I’ve now updated Vladstudio integration so it works again yay!
13589: Tumblr RSS feeds are broken in Europe
FIXED: Tumblr RSS feeds wouldn’t work in the EU thanks to their GDPR “implementation”. Now JBS can consume them again.
13588: Never show again was sometimes storing a non-unique Id and could exclude other photos
FIXED: You’d probably never notice it, but it’s fixed anyway!
13554: Crash when trying to show an error message that’s too long
FIXED: A change in the Vladstudio API meant JBS tried to show an enormously long error message which then caused JBS to crash. This has now been fixed and long error messages won’t cause crashes.
13440: Unsplash polaroid piles show no pictures when captions are enabled
FIXED: If you used a polaroid pile with captions enabled and Unsplash photos you’d often end up with a blank screen. This has now been corrected.
13408: Deal with Instagram authentication going to the Instagram homepage when you log in
FIXED: When authenticating with Instagram, sometimes Instagram would show the wrong login page and you’d end up at the Instagram homepage instead of the “authorisation successful” page. This has now been fixed.

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.17 (May 15, 2018)

Features and Changes:
13307: Add OneDrive (personal) support
FEATURE: You can now use your OneDrive cloud storage folders as a photo source for JBS. Yay!
13282: Add Unsplash integration
FEATURE: You can now choose photos from the awesome photography site Unsplash. You can either choose from curated photos, the newest, most popular or specific user’s photos as well as from search queries. One thing’s for sure – you’ll always get amazing photos!
13273: Add support for artstation feeds
FEATURE: The RSS feed functionality now supports ArtStation feeds.
13050: Add the option to filter out adult photos from Pixabay
FEATURE: You can now choose to filter out adult photos from Pixabay searches. Handy in an office environment!
13326: Add the option to put the picture information in any corner of the screen
FEATURE: You can now choose which corner of the screen to show the picture information on. No more having it stuck at the top-right all the time! Of course you can switch it off entirely from ‘More Settings’.
13281: Add a Swedish translation
FEATURE: JBS is now available in Swedish. Thanks Sopor! ??
13297: The Facebook API no longer allows non-business apps like JBS to query for users photos
CHANGED: Facebook now require apps that request photo access to be a verified business and since I’m just a guy called John Conners I’m not that. So I’ve had to remove Facebook from JBS. Sorry about that!
13285: Remove 500px as they’re switching the API off
CHANGED: Unfortunately 500px have switched off their API so apps like JBS are no longer able to use them as a photo source. It was fun while it lasted.
13304: Update the SmugMug API to the latest version
CHANGED: SmugMug is about to switch off the old API JBS uses so I’ve updated the integration to use the latest version. Unfortunately for the time being that means JBS doesn’t support site or album passwords. Next, instead of login details for each photo set you’ll need to authenticate JBS with SmugMug once and then be able to choose from your photos or any other user’s public photos and albums. Just open a SmugMug set or click the the ‘Authorise’ on the settings dialog, then SmugMug to continue.
Bug Fixes:
13208: Divide by zero error when using a large collage size
FIXED: Corrected a photo collage “divide by zero” error when using large collage sizes on a small screen.
13300: The folder switcher applies orientation checking to all photos (so montage pictures) which it shouldn’t do
FIXED: If you chose local pictures, a montage mode like postcard pile and opted to only show landscape pictures for full screen photos JBS would filter portraits out of the montage. This was not the intended behaviour was at odds with other sources. Now it behaves like the rest to be consistent!
13247: Pixabay URLs return a 404 page
FIXED: When you went to view a Pixabay photo you’d get a 404 error page. Now you’ll go to the actual photo page.
12986: Attempting to send a picture via email results in an error
FIXED: This problem has now been fixed. Email away!

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.16 (Sep 8, 2017)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.15 (Jun 27, 2017)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.14 (Oct 31, 2016)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.13 (May 18, 2016)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.12.0.2 (Jan 25, 2016)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.11.0.2 (Jan 21, 2016)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.10.0.6 (Apr 16, 2015)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.9.0.11 (Jun 26, 2014)

Features and Changes:
CHANGED: Flickr will shortly be deprecating their http API endpoints in favour of encrypted https ones. So in advance of that JBS now only interacts with Flickr over encrypted https.
FEATURE: You can now add reddit feeds to JBS and it’ll pick from any pictures in the feed. Feeds such as http://www.reddit.com/r/wallpaper.rss or http://www.reddit.com/r/spaceporn.rss and many more besides. You basically add “.rss” onto the end of the reddit URL and put it into the RSS Feeds section of JBS and you’re good to go!
9636: Add the option to restrict 500px searches by category (e.g. ‘fresh’ landscape photos)
FEATURE: You can now choose from any of the categories 500px has when selecting from Popular, Editors choice, Upcoming or Fresh photos if you want to narrow down the exact photos you want to see.
Bug Fixes:
9224: If you used individual picture modes for picture sources then the collage mode wouldn’t be remembered
9351: When choosing photos from some Flickr users the ‘Use largest available image size’ option would have no effect
FIXED: Due to some inconsistencies in the Flickr API the full size photos from some users were not available when querying for photos. However now if you’ve selected ‘Use largest available image size’ and you’re using a single picture per monitor, JBS will go and get the original image as it should do.
9192: No photos found when you add a private Flickr photo set to JBS
FIXED: Under certain circumstances JBS would report that it couldn’t find any pictures for certain Flickr photo sets. This has now been corrected.
9529: Dropbox does not appear on the ‘Set Picture Modes’ dialog
FIXED: Oops, I neglected to add Dropbox to the source-specific picture mode dialog. Bad John!
9661: JBS doesn’t fill all monitors with different DPIs on Windows 8.1
FIXED: If you ran Windows 8.1 with multiple monitors of different sizes and chose (or let Windows choose) to have different DPI on each monitor, then JBS would leave annoying blank space around at least one of the monitors and not fill the screen. This behaviour has now been corrected.

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.8.0.19 (Dec 12, 2013)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.7.0.22 (May 21, 2013)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.7.0.21 (May 17, 2013)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.7.0.19 (May 13, 2013)

Features and Changes:
Add last.fm support to JBS
FEATURE: Last.fm tracks the music you listen to and so you can use the song and album artwork for your desktop. Best used with one of the montage or mosaic modes as the artwork is pretty small.
Add support for 500px
FEATURE: John’s Background Switcher now supports 500px – which in case you didn’t know is the best, highest quality photo sharing site out there. Expect your desktop to look even more awesome than before!
Add support for Pixabay photos
FEATURE: You can now choose to use Pixabay photos on your desktop. Pixabay is a great source of stunning public domain images, free for use (as well as for your desktop background).
Add support for tumblr RSS feeds
FEATURE: There are loads of awesome photo blogs out there that are hosted by tumblr and now you can copy an RSS feed from any tumblr blog (there’s usually a link on the side) into JBS and you’re all set. There are over 100 million blogs on tumblr so I’m sure you can find some to use with JBS for your desktop!
Add the option to make the postcard and Polaroid pile photos overlap more
FEATURE: The polaroid and postcard piles in JBS are pretty cool – like you’ve thrown a bunch of photos onto a table. However some like things a little more overcrowded so now you can go to the ‘Montages’ section of ‘More Settings’ and change the ‘Spacing between snapshots’ slider to a negative value (to make them overlap more) or a positive one (to spread them further apart). It’s your call!
Remove the Webshots web integration from JBS
CHANGED: Webshots have killed off their web integration so I’ve had to remove it from the current version of JBS. So long and thanks for all the memories.
Use the latest version of the Vladstudio API
CHANGED: There’s a new v3 of the Vladstudio API so JBS has been tweaked to use that new version. Yay!
Add translations back into JBS
FEATURE: JBS now includes translations into French, German, Japanese, Spanish and Italian. Yay for internationalisation!
Bug Fixes:
Private Google+ album links weren’t recognized by JBS
FIXED: Since Google move Picasa web albums to Google+ they changed the private shared URLs such that JBS could not recognise them. This has now been corrected.
Crash when running JBS for the first time and your application data folders are corrupt
FIXED: If you run JBS for the first time and your application data folders are corrupt or inaccessible JBS would simply crash. Now it gracefully tells you of the problem and exits.
Sudden ‘the value for int32 was too big or too small’ error when using Smugmug
FIXED: Smugmug appears to have made a change to their API and sometimes not return the picture size when JBS asks for it. JBS wasn’t expecting this so that gave rise to the error. This has now been fixed.
On Windows 8 with multiple monitors, sometimes the backgrounds are the wrong way round
FIXED: Windows 8 changed the way multiple monitor wallpapers are laid out from earlier versions so unless the ‘Work around multiple monitors being shown in the wrong order’ option was selected, they’d sometimes appear the wrong way round. This has now been corrected.
When Facebook access is revoked, you can still add and change Facebook sets but JBS doesn’t ask you to authenticate again
FIXED: If you revoked permission for JBS to access Facebook then tried to add or edit a picture set in the settings dialog then JBS would let you but not prompt you to authenticate again. Now it checks whenever you edit or add a set and if you’re not authenticated it prompts you.
Sometimes Google image search would appear to return no results to JBS
FIXED: Sometimes JBS would give you an error that it couldn’t find any pictures when you use Google image searches. This was due to hitting a query per second limit on Google’s API. Now JBS throttles calls to Google so it will query slightly more slowly, but won’t fall foul of the limit and you won’t get empty search results.

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.5 (Jun 13, 2012)

New Features:
6466: Add Hebrew translation to JBS
FEATURE: If you have a Hebrew version of Windows then JBS will now appear in Hebrew. Yes!
6967: Add simplified Chinese translation to JBS (zh-CN)
FEATURE: JBS is now available in Chinese (simplified) in addition to Chinese (traditional) if you’re running on a Chinese (simplified) version of Windows.
6464: Add the option to choose the snapshot background from a folder of pictures
FEATURE: In addition to being able to choose a specific picture to use for snapshot scrapbook backgrounds you can now also pick a specific folder to use.
3632: Implement ‘send to twitter’
FEATURE: There’s now a ‘Send to twitter’ tray menu option so you can now tweet about one of the pictures on your screen. It’ll create a tweet with the title and link to the picture and you can edit from there.
Changes / Bug Fixes:
7081: Fix the fact that the JBS update checking is broken
FIXED: When moving web hosts I accidentally broke the JBS update checking mechanism – it checks an XML file on my server to see if a newer version is available, this is no longer possible on my new host. Instead it checks a different URL in a location I can control.
6898: Remove categories from Vladstudio integration
CHANGED: Vladstudio no longer uses categories to, eh, categorize pictures and uses only keywords instead. To follow suit JBS now only lets you choose keywords when picking Vladstudio pictures!
6767: Change Flickr to use OAuth authentication as the old way has been deprecated
CHANGED: Flickr has changed its authentication mechanism so JBS has followed suit to use the new approach. The only change is that when you authorize JBS with Flickr you’ll see a simplified process of authentication. If you’ve already authenticated with Flickr prior to upgrading nothing will change at all.
6870: Encrypt the SmugMug password in the settings file for secure settings export / import
CHANGED: SmugMug passwords were stored in the JBS settings file in plain text. This was not a security problem since only you have access to that file, but if you export your settings and send them around then you were sending that password around in plain text. Now it’s encrypted to match any other passwords stored in the settings file.
6861: Remove Yahoo! Image Search from JBS as Yahoo! have deprecated it
CHANGED: Yahoo! Image Search has now been completely removed from JBS as the service has been closed by Yahoo!.
6288: Allow non-admins to install JBS on Windows XP and below
CHANGED: Changes to the installer in 4.4 prevented non-administrators from installing JBS on Windows XP and below when it wasn’t necessary. Now you have a choice, although it is recommended you install as an administrator.
Note that Vista and above will still require a UAC elevation as before.
6291: Crash when JBS is either about to switch or had just switched
FIXED: There was a thread-safety bug which would cause JBS to randomly crash when changing the tray icon as it changed its state (from switching to busy, etc). This has now been corrected.
7017: ‘No draw zones’ don’t appear when you choose a specific colour for borders for the first time
FIXED: The first time you chose a specific colour for picture borders from the ‘Picture Handling’ section of ‘More Settings’ JBS would choose a colour that rendered the ‘no draw zones’ transparent – making them not appear. Now black is used as a default instead.
6258: Windows 7 logon screen images above 246KB in size aren’t used (the limit is 246 not 256KB)
FIXED: JBS incorrectly limited the maximum size of Windows 7 logon screens to 256KB when it should have kept them below 246KB. This means that on odd occasions the logon screen would revert to the default one. This has now been corrected.
6743: The Picasa images JBS downloads are suddenly low resolution
FIXED: Google made a change to Picasa web albums that meant JBS was no longer using large versions of photos for your background. This has now been corrected so JBS will use the original sized pictures if available.
6287: Custom font sizes not being saved correctly when a comma is used instead of a decimal point
FIXED: If your currently local used a comma instead of a dot for the decimal point i.e. 26,25 instead of 26.25 then JBS would get confused when saving a font size with a decimal point in it. This has now been corrected.
6369: Picasa web album private links stopped working
FIXED: Google made a minor change to the Picasa web album shared URLs that meant JBS could no longer read them. To make sure this doesn’t happen in the future JBS is now much smarter about parsing the URLs!
5432: When choosing from photos taken by your Facebook friends it was identified as ‘Random photos of my friends’
FIXED: Now photos taken by your Facebook friends will be labelled as ‘All my friends photos’ which should remove the confusion.
6292: If multiple existing Win7 logon screens are present at different sizes they can override the one JBS sets
FIXED: JBS always sizes the Windows 7 logon screen to exactly fit the primary monitor resolution, however if other sizes are present (such as if your PC manufacturer had overridden the logon screen) then JBS wouldn’t always be able to set your logon screen. This has now been corrected and the old logon screens are cleared out.

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.4 (May 16, 2011)

New Features:
5989: Add the option to customise the calendar font
FEATURE: You can now customise the font used to draw the calendar in JBS. Note that the weight (bold, regular) is ignored as JBS decides if a calendar should be bold or not based on its size.
3619: Add the option to override the logon screen for Windows 7
FEATURE: You can now choose to 'Set the Windows logon screen background' on 'More Settings' and when you do the Windows 7 logon screen background will be changed whenever JBS changes your background. So whatever you see on your primary monitor is what you'll see on the logon / lock screen. Cool!
5751: Add a Russian translation of John's Background Switcher
FEATURE: JBS now comes with a Russian translation. Maximum kudos to Dmitry for his hard work!
5927: Add the option to customise the font used for displaying the picture info
FEATURE: You can now customise the font used to display the 'Picture Information' in the top-right of the screen. Go to the 'More Settings' dialog and next to the checkbox to show the picture info is a font button that lets you choose. Bradley Hand ITC, Bold, Size 22 is my favourite!
6000: Add the option to not rotate postcards / polaroids
FEATURE: You can now choose (via an option on the 'Montages' section of 'More Settings') to either have the snapshots appear at a random angle (as they've always done) or lined up straight. They'll still be placed randomly, just not rotated. Give it a try, it's pretty cool!
5902: Add a Finnish translation of John's Background Switcher
FEATURE: JBS is now translated into Finnish - so if you're on a Finnish version of Windows then JBS will appear in your language. Thanks to Jussi for his hard work!
5921: Support Google Picasa web album feeds in 'RSS Feeds' mode
FEATURE: While JBS already supports Google Picasa Web albums I thought it would be useful to support the RSS feeds natively in the 'RSS Feeds' mode of JBS. This means you can use Picasa RSS feeds or any other feeds that support the Google photo feed format in JBS.
5932: Lower the minimum switching interval for Vista and Windows 7
FEATURE: If you're running JBS on Vista or Windows 7 then you can choose to use switching intervals of 10 or 15 seconds. If not, the lowest you can go is 30 seconds. Ancient version of Windows like XP don't behave very well when the switching interval is below 30 seconds, so to keep the experience as good as possible, that's why versions below Vista can't go any lower. It's nothing personal!
5987: Add a 'View Previous Picture' keyboard shortcut
FEATURE: There is now a new keyboard shortcut to view the previous background picture(s). By default it's Ctrl+Alt+P but you can change it from 'More Settings' to whatever you like.
6010: Add a Hungarian translation of JBS
FEATURE: JBS now supports Hungarian if you're running on a Hungarian version of Windows. Props to Victor for his hard work!
5907: Add the option to choose a random image effect (eg. sepia, grayscale, etc)
FEATURE: When you choose the 'Background effect' for a the background (More Settings > Picture Handling) or postcard / polaroid pile background (More Settings > Montages) there is now a new option called 'Random'. As you'd expect this will choose from either one of 'None', 'Grayscale', 'Sepia', 'Desaturate' or 'Soften Colours'. We like randomness round these parts!
5991: Add the option to customise the font on the postcard and polaroid piles
FEATURE: Completing the 'great font drive' you can also customise the fonts used in polaroid and postcard piles (independently in case you like Comic Sans on polaroids and Times New Roman on postcards).
Changes / Bug Fixes:
6151: Wallpapers appear wrongly positioned on Windows 7 with multiple monitors
FIXED: If your Windows 7 machine used the desktop transition effect and you had multiple monitors, had 'Fill' set as the display setting and had one monitor smaller than the other then the background pictures would appear to be laid out half-way between each screen. This highly irritating problem has now been corrected.
6101: Reduce the effect of anti-aliased lines on full screen backgrounds
FIXED: When using full screen background images there would sometimes be a faint line on the edge of the screen. This has now been corrected.
5689: Make 'swap backgrounds' use the transition effect
CHANGED: If you chose to 'Shuffle Backgrounds' on Windows Vista and 7 you'd see that the backgrounds swapped abruptly and didn't use the transition effect. This has now been corrected and the transition effect (if enabled) will be used.
5831: Add support for 'PNGs' from Google Image search
CHANGED: JBS now includes PNGs in addition to JPGs when it uses Google Image Search. Previously it would only look for JPGs.
6085: Raise the Bing image search limit from 100 to 200
CHANGED: By default Bing image search now chooses from the top 200 results in JBS rather than the top 100.
5954: Support quirky fotocommunity.de RSS feeds
CHANGED: Previously JBS only supported fotocommunity.com feeds whereas it should also have supported fotocommunity.de and all other versions of the site. Now it does!
5982: Remove the dependency on the old (soon to be deprecated) Facebook REST API
CHANGED: JBS used an older API to communicate with Facebook that will be retired soon so I've refactored the code to use a newer API. Fear not, you won't notice any difference at all!
6003: Speed up Flickr integration by caching extra photo information (like tags and so forth)
CHANGED: In a bid to speed up Flickr integration I've cut down on needless calls to Flickr asking for extra photo information. This is now cached which should speed things up and cut down on JBS hogging your bandwidth!
5877: When using anonymous random Phanfare access, choose from all albums rather than just the newest pictures
CHANGED: In previous versions of JBS, if you chose to use Phanfare in anonymous mode and random pictures, then only the newest pictures would be chosen from. Now JBS will choose random pictures from all the published albums as it does when you use authenticated mode.
5495: Random 'TargetInvocationException' crash when running JBS
FIXED: Due to an 'interesting' bug in the .NET Framework on which JBS is built, random crashes would occur when attempting to load the tray icon. This problem has now been corrected (in that I'm storing the icons in a different way). Thanks Microsoft! ;)
5339: Crash when imm32.dll is corrupt or missing from your system
FIXED: On machines with the core system file 'imm32.dll' missing would crash JBS. Since this DLL is a required component of Windows then JBS is unable to run when it's not present on your system so instead of crashing JBS gracefully exits.
Should you hit this error you really need to fix your computer and it's highly likely that your machine is infected with a virus. You'll notice that lots of other applications (not just JBS) will randomly crash - now you know why!
5811: Montages don't always fill the whole screen when you choose a background on one monitor only
FIXED: If you used one of the montage modes and chose to show a background on only one monitor, then the resulting montage would be sized according to your first monitor, which meant if you were showing a background on your second monitor, the size would be incorrect. This has now been fixed.
6002: Flickr tag exclusion doesn't work when using a montage and downloaded pictures
FIXED: If you added some Flickr tags to ignore after a picture had been downloaded and cached, then that picture would still appear on montages until the cache was flushed. This has now been corrected.
5739: JBS can no longer see photos tagged with you or your friends
FIXED: Facebook changed their privacy settings such that JBS was no longer able to choose photos that you were tagged in. This problem has now been corrected, however you'll need to re-authorise JBS with Facebook from the "Authorise" dialog to get the new permissions.
6049: Fix UAC issues when installing JBS and running as an admin (eg. the shortcuts are created for the admin, not the user)
FIXED: If you installed JBS on Vista or Windows 7 and were running as a restricted user then several unexpected things would happen when you were prompted to enter an administrator's details (or elevate your rights to that of an admin).
Firstly, when JBS first ran when the installer finished it would run in 'Administrator' mode, and if you'd chosen to run as an administrator other than your own user account then JBS would run as that user, not you. This meant you'd set it up then re-start it and it would seem to forget all your settings. Likewise if you installed as a different administrator the shortcuts wouldn't appear to be created.
This has now all been fixed and no matter which administrative user you run the installer as, the shortcuts, etc will be created for you, not that admin. Likewise when you launch JBS at the end of the installation it will run as you and not the admin. Basically it'll fix a whole lot of confusion!
6109: Google Image Search suddenly stops working
FIXED: In some cases Google Image Search would suddenly stop working and instead return an error code suspecting you of abusing their service. I've now added an API key to all calls to Google so that should stop them suspecting JBS of wrong doing and making the service stop returning results.
5874: Change the Phanfare API call to get a list of albums - some users weren't getting any back
FIXED: When choosing from your Phanfare pictures randomly JBS was using an old Phanfare API call to get your list of albums so that some were excluded that shouldn't have been and unpublished albums were included when they shouldn't have been. This has now been corrected so only your published albums will be selected for your background.
5402: Crash when exiting JBS at the point it's about to show a popup dialog
FIXED: Exactly as the description says - JBS won't crash under this rare circumstance!
5529: Crash when access to the roaming application data path is denied
FIXED: If you ran JBS and you didn't have access to your own roaming application path then JBS would crash, making it look like the bad guy. Actually you need to sort your system out (or talk to your system administrator) as without access to that folder applications like JBS can't store temporary files. Anyway, now JBS will show you the error and quit instead of falling over.
6060: JBS claims 'The downloaded photo appears to be invalid' when you try to use a Picasa private album URL
FIXED: Picasa private album URLs are now https instead of http and JBS wasn't able to recognise them as being valid. This has now been corrected and it'll handle both.
6152: Speed up thumbnail mosaic generation for local pictures
CHANGED: If you were creating thumbnail mosaics using pictures from your local machine it could take ages. It should now be drastically faster.
6165: Trying to authenticate with Facebook fails with a 'Success' message
FIXED: Due to the new secure connection option in Facebook JBS could get confused when attempting to authenticate you resulting in it getting stuck and not letting you add picture sets. This has now been corrected.
6159: Thumbnail mosaics using 'One picture for the whole desktop' doesn't span multiple monitors like it should
FIXED: When you chose this option then JBS wouldn't fill the entire background and instead use the primary monitor's size as a guide instead of the full desktop. This has now been corrected.
6181: Make absolutely sure that the installer won't run on Windows 7 Starter Edition
CHANGED: Since background switching is disabled in Windows 7 Starter Edition JBS tried to prevent installation onto that version. The check didn't always work so a more robust mechanism is now being used.
6183: Very wide or very tall pictures take up far too much space on 'postcard piles'
FIXED: JBS was a bit stupid when it came to very wide or tall pictures in 'postcard pile' mode and would end up taking up most of the screen if you had a large panorama as one of the pictures. This has now been corrected and the picture will be scaled down accordingly.

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.3 (Aug 4, 2010)

5323: Add Slovenian, Polish and Chinese (Traditional) translations to JBS
FEATURE: JBS now supports the additional languages of Polish, Slovenian and Chinese (Traditional).
5320: Update the Facebook integration to use their new, more secure, authentication mechanism
CHANGED: Facebook recently introduced a new permission system to their platform to counter complaints about privacy and so forth so JBS now uses that new mechanism.
5354: Revert the JBS behaviour of ignoring pictures whose parent (or their parent) folders are hidden to not ignore them again
CHANGED: In JBS 4.2 I made a change such that if you were choosing from pictures on your local machine and a picture was in a hidden folder, or its parent folder was hidden (and so on) then it would be ignored. It turned out that a lot of people inadvertently hide folders without meaning to and so would be surprised when JBS complained that it couldn't find any pictures. Now I've turned this setting off so all pictures will be selectable. However you can switch it on again by looking for the 'check_if_parent_folders_are_hidden' value in the settings file (which you can export, edit in notepad and re-import again).
5364: Switch the shortcut keys off for Polish machines
CHANGED: Polish machines use keys that clash with the default JBS shortcuts so by default if you install JBS on a Polish version of Windows for the first time, the shortcut keys in JBS will be disabled by default. You can enable them in the 'More Settings' dialog.
5131: Smugmug pictures in a gallery with the 'External links' option set to 'No' can't be loaded by JBS
FIXED: It's now possible to prevent sites from hotlinking your Smugmug pictures. If you turned this option on for a gallery then JBS would no longer be able to select pictures from it for your desktop. This has now been fixed.
5172: The next two month calendar headers are shown in English rather than the local language
FIXED: If you opted to show calendars of the current month and next two on your background and were using a localised version of JBS (say Dutch) then you'd notice the header on the later two calendars would be in English. This has now been corrected.
5306: The 'never show again' list should be in alphabetical order
FIXED: Now that they're in alphabetical order pictures and folders should be easier to find!
5132: Vladstudio doesn't support portrait images - so stop asking for them
FIXED: Vladstudio only has portrait images so if you had a portrait-orientated monitor and told JBS to match your monitor orientation then JBS would ask Vladstudio for a portrait picture to match. Now it only asks for landscapes.
5171: Vladstudio picture sets are reset to 'all wallpapers' when JBS is restarted
FIXED: If you saved a Vladstudio wallpaper set that consisted of specific categories or keywords, then if you exited JBS and restarted, they would be set back to showing all wallpapers. This has now been corrected.
5355: The popup notifier dialog title can sometimes overlap the message, particularly in Japanese
FIXED: This problem has been in since the beginning so props to Asabukuro (who translated JBS into Japanese) for spotting it!

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.2.1 (May 19, 2010)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.2 (May 17, 2010)

New Features:
4305: Add support for Vladstudio
FEATURE: John's Background Switcher now allows you to choose your desktop background from the beautiful Vladstudio wallpapers. You can choose from all pictures, specific categories and / or keywords and if you're a registered user you can enter your credentials and choose from the highest-quality signature-free versions of the wallpapers.
4879: Add Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Portuguese-Brazilian translations to JBS
FEATURE: You can now opt to install French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Portuguese-Brazilian translations so that the UI of JBS will appear in those languages if you install them on a localised version of Windows.
These translations are provided by users of JBS so thanks so much for all your help - it's no mean feat having to translate over 700 phrases!
4140: Add support for downloaded Webshots photos
FEATURE: If you're a Webshots Desktop user and you've got a host of downloaded Webshots collections or pictures then JBS can now use them for your background. If any Webshots downloaded pictures (or collections) are found in folders you've selected they'll be included for selection and you can also add them individually if you create specific picture lists.
Note that unless you have something associated with those file types then selecting to view them in JBS will result in a warning that no application can open them.
Bug Fixes / Changes:
4868: Strip out html tags from picture titles
CHANGED: JBS now strips out HTML tags from any picture captions it displays. This looks a lot neater on polaroid or postcards.
5064: Update the default picture sets when first installing JBS to show nicer pictures
CHANGED: I've changed the initial picture set defaults to use some nicer picture sets I use myself. This should give a better first-run experience to new users to get them started.
4951: If Windows 7 Starter Edition is detected - terminate the installer
CHANGED: If you attempt to install JBS on Windows 7 Starter Edition then the installer will inform you that background switching is disabled on that version of Windows and forbidden under the EULA and exit. I'll investigate the legal implications of supporting Starter Edition for the next version but in the meantime am preventing the installation on that version as people don't read the download page (which explicitly states that version isn't supported)!
5015: Up the snapshot scrapbook size limit to 500 pixels
CHANGED: You can now opt to have the individual snapshots in a postcard or polaroid pile as large as 500 pixels (the previous limit was 400). Look for the 'Montages' section of 'More Settings'.
5045: Only clear out the folder shuffle list when absolutely needed rather than whenever the settings are OKd
CHANGED: Previously, simply hitting OK on the settings dialog would clear the list JBS keeps when you choose pictures from local folders to prevent the same pictures being shown before all others. Now JBS will only clear this list when you OK the settings dialog and have changed the folders you're selecting pictures from.
4534: Hidden folders should be ignored in addition to hidden files when choosing locally source pictures
CHANGED: If you add a folder to choose pictures from that is hidden, but the files within it weren't hidden, then JBS would select from those pictures. This is no longer the case and they'll all be ignored. This will prevent Picasa original pictures from being selected when you've modified them (Picasa puts the originals in a hidden folder if this has happened and it was causing quite a bit of confusion).
4606: Crash when dismissing the popup notifier dialog too quickly
FIXED: If you were super-quick you could dismiss the popup notifier and cause it to crash - this is no longer the case.
4843: Google image search stores duplicate results when a search only has a few hits
FIXED: If a Google Image search returned only a few results then JBS would store them several times in its cache. This has now been corrected.
5041: Scan for and fix any globalisation problems in JBS
FIXED: A few random problems affected users on particular language versions of Windows. These should now be a thing of the past!
4773: 'Phanfare mosaics' comes up as 'Local mosaics' in the cached picture browser
FIXED: This typo has now been corrected (and in all translations too).
4785: Remove 'Auto-fit full screen pictures if overlap is above x %' from the help file
FIXED: This was an experimental feature that was in the beta version of JBS but turned out to not be very useful and was dropped. It should have been removed from the help file but wasn't, now it's gone!
4765: Smugmug have dropped the 'Album' tag for a photo from their API causing JBS integration to break
FIXED: The change Smugmug made broke JBS but this has now been corrected and JBS works again!
4893: JBS doesn't realise when the timezone has changed
FIXED: If you changed the timezone on your machine then JBS wouldn't realise until you restarted it. Now it detects the change immediately. So if the calendar was displaying the wrong date once you changed your timezone then refreshing the background will update it (whereas before you'd have had to exit and restart JBS).
4941: Windows flicker when the background changes on Windows 7
FIXED: On some machines certain windows would flicker when the background changed on Windows 7 and the background transition option was enabled. This is no longer the case.
Props to my colleague Gareth who finally managed to reproduce this one!
4933: Ensure that the chosen orientation option is respected for the background in snapshot scrapbooks
FIXED: If you opted to have JBS match the orientation of pictures with your monitor orientation(s) but used a postcard pile or polaroid pile, then the background image wouldn't necessarily match your selection. Now it does. This means if you have a portrait and landscape monitor and tell JBS to match pictures to those orientations, then when you choose to use a postcard (or polaroid) pile with a random background image, then JBS will attempt to use a matching picture that's landscape or portrait.
Of course, if the pool of pictures JBS chooses to make a montage from doesn't contain a picture that matches the orientation then a random picture will be used instead.
4991: If you remove Flickr authorisation and edit a 'My' set then the collections controls are still visible
FIXED: If you de-authorised Flickr in JBS and had a picture set from one of your collections, then opening the Flickr dialog would present you with the collection selector but you wouldn't be able to do anything with it. This has now been corrected.
4732: The calendar day column headers don't appear in the current language
FIXED: The day headers in the calendar are now shown in the local language rather than English all the time.
4769: Bug in the German translation on the 'Import / Export' section of 'More Settings'
FIXED: A French version of one of the descriptions in this section of 'More Settings' managed to slip into the German translation. This has now been corrected.
4553: 'The downloaded photo appears to be invalid' error in Flickr mode
FIXED: If you checked the 'Ignore photos with these tags' option in the 'Picture Sources' section of 'More Settings' and didn't define any tags in the resulting dialog then every time JBS tried to choose Flickr photos you'd get this error message. This behaviour has now been corrected.
4985: Speed up lookups inside JBS like checking if a picture has been shown before or should be ignored
FIXED: For people pointing JBS at folders of pictures on their machines, if they had tens or hundreds of thousands of pictures then switching was pretty slow while JBS grabbed the picture lists and made sure all pictures were shown before being shown again. I've now drastically speeded this process up as well as caching the contents of folders when the number of pictures goes above a certain size.
Another problem was that while the directories were being scanned the notification icon would appear to be in its normal state but you couldn't choose anything from its menu - in other words JBS looked like it was hanging. This has also been corrected.
5016: Crash when attempting to bring up the settings dialog after Shift+OKing the settings dialog
FIXED: If you Shift+OKd the settings dialog and hit the shortcut to bring up the settings while JBS was switching then it would crash instead of actually showing you the settings. This has now been corrected.
4057: Stop the 'view current picture' selector dialog coming up twice when using the hotkey
FIXED: If you used the shortcut key to bring up the 'view current picture' dialog while it was already showing then as soon as you dismissed the dialog it would come up again. Then, crucially, the shortcut key would stop working. This has now been fixed.
4172: The calendar day headers can run into each other - doesn't look good
FIXED: JBS now does a better job of figuring out how large the calendar day headers are so that they shouldn't run into each other any more.
4670: Crash when authenticating with Picasa web albums
FIXED: On very rare occasions Google Picasa Web Albums would return an unexpected response when JBS authenticated with it and this caused JBS to crash. This is no longer the case and JBS handles the situation gracefully.

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.1 (Dec 3, 2009)

FEATURE: When you install JBS you can now choose to have the UI appear in French, German or Dutch. You'll need to be running a localised version of Windows for the translation to appear, otherwise JBS will revert to English. Note that the help file will still appear in English (one step at a time).
4196: Add 2 minutes to the switching interval list
FEATURE: I've added 2 minutes to the interval list as I originally meant to but managed to forget somehow. D'Oh!
4182: Bring the 'stretch' picture mode back to the size options
FEATURE: Back by popular demand, you can now choose to 'Stretch pictures to fit the screen' from the 'Picture mode' drop-down list. This will stretch the picture to fit your screen(s) and not preserve the aspect ratio.
4456: Support fotocommunity.com RSS feeds
FEATURE: You can now add RSS feeds from fotocommunity.com pages and JBS will use the pictures included for your background.
Bug Fixes / Changes
4152: If you import settings the web connection settings aren't imported
FIXED: If you exported the settings, then changed the web connection details and imported, then the new web connection details wouldn't be successfully imported. This has now been fixed.
4324: The wrong item is edited when double-clicking the main list and multiple items are selected
FIXED: If you double-clicked an item in the settings dialog list view and had several other items selected then the first selected item on the list would be edited rather than the one that has the current focus. This has now been corrected.
4259: When ignoring a picture from Google image search, it's the originating page that gets ignored
FIXED: Now if you never want to see a particular picture again then you will be able to see other pictures that appear on the same page as the offending picture. Basically it'll work like it should have done in the first place! Note that some pictures you've previously ignored may show up again until you tell JBS to ignore them again.
4189: Use the date a picture was taken on or the creation date for local pictures
FIXED: JBS was displaying the last modified date for pictures on your machine. Now it shows the date it was taken or created (if the former isn't available) as it should be.
4265: Bug when trying to match pictures to monitor orientation and there are only a couple to choose from
FIXED: When there are a low number of pictures to choose from and you'd opted to try and match pictures to the monitor orientation then things could get a bit screwy. This should be much less of a case now as pictures aren't rejected so easily for each screen. If, however, you only have a few pictures and several monitors of different orientations then JBS will sometimes show the same picture on all monitors, but it's that or nothing at all!
4244: JBS is picking up the wrong Flickr collection when using authorisation
FIXED: When using authorisation and choosing a collection from 'My Flickr Photos' JBS would pick up the wrong collection if you changed to choose from another one.
4225: The transition shifts the background on Vista if the taskbar is at the top or left of the screen
FIXED: This has now been corrected and the transition effect will no longer shift the background while it's happening.
4429: Choosing from your newest Phanfare pictures doesn't always get the newest ones
FIXED: If you used your email address and password to authenticate with Phanfare in JBS (rather than anonymously) then you wouldn't always see your most recent photos. This has now been corrected.
4473: Google searches for large pictures (eg. 1920x1200) returned no results
FIXED: Now Google will return the results you'd expect.

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.0 (Oct 27, 2009)

New Features:
3639: Unify the settings dialog so all photo sets appear in a single list - and just make it easier to use dag namit!
FEATURE: The settings dialog has been completely redesigned and made a whole lot simpler and intuitive. You add photo sets from as many sources as you like to one big list (instead of flicking between modes) and photos are chosen at random while switching the background from all photo sets.
You also specify the display mode (centre, scale, mosaic, montage, etc) in one place on the settings dialog and there's a preview thumbnail so you know what it's doing. Authorisation settings for sites that support authorisation is also held in one place (a button on the settings dialog).
The new settings dialog should help novices and experienced users alike understand how to use JBS and how to get the best of out it. And about time too!
639: Implement OSX-style fading from background to background
FEATURE: If you're running Windows Vista or newer you can now choose to use a fade effect when changing backgrounds - woo hoo! You'll find this option on the 'General' section of 'More Settings'. Note that you'll need to have the glass-like 'Windows Aero' display option turned on.
3730: Support http compression to massively speed up JBS when using photos from the web
FEATURE: One of the top complaints with JBS was that it was slow to switch backgrounds when you were using pictures from the internet and one of the montage modes. Now JBS fully supports compression over the web (which it really should have done from the start but that's another story) which will drastically cut down how long it takes to switch backgrounds.
819: Add support for Flickr collections
FEATURE: You can now choose photos from Flickr collections in JBS. You can do this for a specific user or from your own photos. Collections are groups of photo sets that you can set up in Flickr.
3373: Implement Google Image Search
FEATURE: You can now choose pictures from any Google Image search natively in JBS. You can optionally choose photos of any exact size (to make sure you only get pictures that perfectly fit your monitor) and any colour you like. So if you only want to see pictures of black cats that are 1680x1050 pixels on your background then Google Image Search is the one for you!
3825: Ensure that RSS feed that contain image enclosures are supported
FEATURE: If you add an RSS feed that contains image enclosures then JBS will now attempt to use them.
3726: Make the photo info text drawn on the desktop easier to read and smoother
FEATURE: The photo information text shown in the top-right of the desktop was a bit blocky and difficult to see under certain circumstances. The text is now much easier to read and uses ClearType text rendering (if it's switched on).
3958: Add the option to space the snapshots out more
FEATURE: There's now an 'Additional spacing between snapshots' option on the 'Montages' section of 'More Settings'. This lets you set a number of pixels to add to the spacing of each snapshot when a snapshots scrapbook is generated.
3334: Support the Pheed RSS photo spec to handle sites like myphotoalbum.com
FEATURE: You can now use any RSS photo feed that supports the 'Pheed' specification in JBS for your background. Basically this means if you want to grab pictures from a photo feed it's a lot more likely that you'll be able to since the 'Pheed' extensions to RSS are becoming more and more popular.
3687: Add support for Phanfare 3.0 site authentication
FEATURE: Phanfare now supports the ability to see photos from other user's sites and now JBS can do the same. This means you can now enter a Phanfare user's screen name and choose from their (visible) photos as well as from your friends and family.
You can also decide if you want to authenticate to Phanfare with your credentials (and can therefore choose from your friends, etc.) or login anonymously.
3627: Implement 'Shuffle' option in 'Pictures' mode
FEATURE: A shuffle option is now used by default for 'Pictures' and 'Folders' added for switching. This means that instead of seeing the same pictures over and over again (when using a single picture per background) the pictures will be shuffled and you'll only see the same one again once all the others have been chosen first.
3695: Improve the first-time user experience so people can understand how to use JBS and get going
FEATURE: A common complaint with JBS was starting it for the first time and then not having a clue how to use it. Now there's a welcome page shown when you first start it (or when there are no photo sets) explaining how to use JBS with a picture of the notification icon (which a lot of people miss). There's also a button to set up some default and combined with the new, easier-to-use settings dialog, it should make JBS simpler to understand. Fingers crossed!
3697: Make Yahoo! searches and pictures lists support montage options (mosaics and snapshot scrapbooks)
FEATURE: Previously 'Pictures' and 'Yahoo!' modes didn't support the various montage background styles - now they do! Although 'Pictures' mode no longer supports the setting of individual picture sizing, they'll all pick up the global display mode. You can't have it all!
3705: Make it easier find the original picture in a montage (like a snapshot scrapbook)
FEATURE: Say you've got a snapshot scrapbook on your desktop and you see a photo you love, but you've no idea where it is. Previously you'd have to bring up the 'Picture' browser, click 'Current background tiles' and look for it there, double-click it and you'll see the original.
Now you can just click 'View current picture' from the notification icon menu and a dialog will pop up containing all the pictures used in the current background. Double-click the one you like and you'll go to the original (hold down Shift to copy the location to the clipboard).
3741: Add the option to remove the notification icon completely
FEATURE: There is now an option in 'More Settings' called 'Show the notification icon down by the clock that controls JBS'. If you uncheck this checkbox then you'll no longer see the notification icon to control JBS (maybe you don't like them). Once removed you can bring up the settings by launching JBS again from a shortcut and you'll be asked if you'd like to see the settings.
2967: Make the montage modes much easier to find
FEATURE: A lot of people completely missed that JBS supported montage options like 'Snapshot Scrapbook'. Now the settings dialog has a single, easy-to-find 'Picture mode' drop down list on the settings dialog that contains all the background options along with little pictures so you can see what they look like.
3881: Add the option to ignore folders of photos based on a wildcard search
FEATURE: You can ignore pictures that are included in folders you've added to JBS by specifying a regular expression. This option is available in the 'Picture Sources' section of 'More Settings' and I recommend you read up on regular expressions before using this option.
3892: Add the option to choose from your Flickr contacts public-only photos
FEATURE: You can now choose public-only contacts photos in Flickr mode by selecting the option from the 'My Flickr Photos' section of the Flickr dialog. So no more dodgy pictures appearing on your background from your friends and family!
3515: Choose random photos of all friends in Facebook mode
FEATURE: You can now choose to see only pictures of your friends in Facebook mode. I don't know about you but whenever I chose photos from my friends I'd very rarely see anybody I know, now I'll always see pictures of my friends!
2878: Add smart size option so that photos are centred or scaled based on the size and screen resolution
FEATURE: If you opt to use a single picture per monitor and scale it to fit the screen, then you can now set a threshold under which pictures that are too small will be automatically centred.
So, for example, if a picture was 30% of the width or height of the screen then scaling it would result in a pretty blurry, pixelated desktop. In this case the picture would be automatically centred instead.
You can enable this option from the 'Picture Handling' section of 'More Settings.
2888: Add an option to use the 'Original' pictures in smugmug mode
FEATURE: You can now choose to 'Always use Original SmugMug photos for full screen pictures' on the 'Picture Sources' of 'More Settings'. So if you have a large monitor and want to use the biggest possible pictures from SmugMug, then this is the option for you.
3970: Lower the minimum switching interval to 30 seconds and simplify the interval options
FEATURE: I've lowered the minimum switching time and changed the free-form text field to be a pre-defined list of switching intervals from 30 seconds to 7 days.
2866: Allow mult-select on the 'Never Show Again' dialogs
FEATURE: Now when you choose 'Never Show Again' from the notification icon menu and you're either using one of the montage modes, or are using multiple monitors with different backgrounds on each or both, then when you're presented with a dialog to choose which picture to ignore, you can now select as many of the pictures as you like. Just shift or ctrl+click to multi-select the pictures in the normal way.
2301: Add textured background option to snapshot scrapbooks
FEATURE: You can now optionally have snapshot scrapbook images with a wood panelled background effect or a cork board. It's pretty cool and retro and you'll find them on the 'Montages' section of 'More Settings'. It's like having your photos stuck on a real notice board!
3708: Support Bing image searches
FEATURE: You can use Bing image searche results as your background images and can specify exact picture sizes to use along with the search queries of your choice.
1451: Extend flickr user search to include user ID
FEATURE: When choosing photos from a particular Flickr user you can now use their user ID in addition to their user name or email address to find them. This makes life easier when you're struggling to figure out the user name from their real name!
1462: Make the size of the text on snapshot scrapbook photos dynamic
FEATURE: Previously if you were using the polaroid snapshot scrapbook option and the title of the picture was too long to fit onto the polaroid it was cut off. Now the text is shrunk to make sure it fits in its entirety.
2360: Add an option to pick a random display mode (i.e. postcard pile, scale, mosaic, etc)
FEATURE: You can now have JBS pick a random display mode for you every time the background changes. So you might have a postcard pile, a thumbnail mosaic background, or even - gasp - a single picture on your background. You won't know what's coming next! Just choose the random display mode option from the settings dialog (it's the one with the rolling dice).
1774: Add the option to define borders on the screen to not draw the background (like under a sidebar or the taskbar)
FEATURE: You can now define 'no draw zones' where the background won't be drawn. You can use this to ensure you can always see your desktop icons and can find it on the 'No Draw Zone' section of 'More Settings'.
1753: Integrate Webshots photos with JBS
FEATURE: You can now choose your Webshots photos for your background. Just enter your user name and password and you'll be able to pick random photos or photos from your specific albums.
2169: Add the ability to exclude certain folders in 'Folders' mode
FEATURE: You can now optionally exclude folders of photos from selection when you've added one or more folders of photos. You can add exclusion folders from the 'Picture Sources' section of the 'More Settings' dialog.
2129: Add spaces.live.com integration to JBS
FEATURE: You can now add an RSS photo feed from any spaces.live.com photo album to JBS and it will let you choose photos from that album. When on an album page just click the 'More' link at the top, then 'RSS Feed' and copy the URL from your address bar, paste that into the 'Add' > 'RSS photo feed' section of the settings dialog in JBS and you're done!
2143: Add the option to search for Flickr tags using "all" as well as "any" (which is the default)
FEATURE: When you choose photos from Flickr by tag(s) you can now decide if you want to search for ALL tags or ANY tags from those you provide. Previously JBS would always search for ANY tags, now you can decide!
2069: Add 'show pictures with [person's name] in them' to Facebook
FEATURE: You can now choose to see photos of any particular one of your Facebook friends (as well as photos of yourself of course).
1806: Add captions to snapshot scrapbook postcard mode
FEATURE: You can now choose to see captions drawn on postcards when using that montage option. You can choose to turn this on from the 'Montages' section of 'More Settings'.
1219: Allow someone else's private Picasa albums to be chosen from using a private URL
FEATURE: If a friend sends you a private URL to access their Picasa Web Album then you can now paste that into the 'Add / Edit Picasa Photos' dialog and use those photos for your backgrounds.
1269: Use a drop-shadow effect on image thumbnails in the Cached Picture Browser dialog and anywhere else it's used
FEATURE: I thought I might as well make the image thumbnails shown throughout the system (including the 'Cached Picture Browser') look a bit nicer. Since Vista shows drop shadows, I thought I'd make JBS do the same - just so long as you have themes enabled in Windows.
614: Add the option to show the dates pictures were taken on in the picture info
FEATURE: If the date a picture was taken is available, it will now be shown along with the title (if available) and the owner of the picture (again, if that information is available). You can of course turn this option off from 'More Settings'.
1524: Add the option to detect monitor orientation and select pictures that fit
FEATURE: If you have multiple monitors and one is landscape while the other is portrait, then you can now choose 'Try to match pictures to monitor orientation' on the 'Picture Handling' section of 'More Settings'. This will ensure that if you use a single picture per monitor then pictures will be chosen according to the orientation of that screen.
In short, with this option selected JBS will try to use landscape pictures on landscape-orientated monitors and portrait pictures on portrait-orientated monitors.
767: Add more hotkeys for commonly used commands
FEATURE: You can now set shortcuts to clear the background, show the settings dialog and view the current picture(s). These can be configured on the 'More Settings' dialog. So if you quickly want to clear your desktop, just hit Ctrl+Alt+C or you want the settings up hit Ctrl+Alt+S. These are both particularly useful if you've opted to hid the notification icon and still want to control JBS.
1608: Add a preview thumbnail to the friends list in the Facebook dialog when you click on their name
FEATURE: When you choose photos from one of your Facebook friends, you'll see their profile picture next to their name in the Facebook dialog - that way you can make sure you've picked the right John Smith!
3732: Allow individual montage pictures to be bookmarked with delicious
FEATURE: If a montage picture is currently showing and you want to bookmark one of them on delicious (and the pictures displayed were downloaded from the web) then you'll now be shown all the pictures and can choose the one you're interested in.
2780: Add the option to download full-sized pictures for all modes as well as Flickr
FEATURE: There is now an option to save all full-sized downloaded files to a specified folder, previously this was only an option in Flickr mode. This option will still only work for full-size pictures and not any of the montage options (those pictures are cached and available via 'Cached Picture Browser' on the notification icon menu).
You can access this new functionality from the 'Picture Sources' section of the 'More Settings' dialog.
1415: Put options into the 'More Settings' dialog to control the cache settings
FEATURE: You can now set the length of time you'd like to cache montage pictures and picture lists in the new 'Picture Handling' section of 'More Settings'. If the montage cache is long then more space will be taken up with downloaded pictures, but if you set it short then a lot less space will be used. If you change your background frequently and have lots of drive space, keep the number high!

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.0 (Oct 27, 2009)

New Features:
3639: Unify the settings dialog so all photo sets appear in a single list - and just make it easier to use dag namit!
FEATURE: The settings dialog has been completely redesigned and made a whole lot simpler and intuitive. You add photo sets from as many sources as you like to one big list (instead of flicking between modes) and photos are chosen at random while switching the background from all photo sets.
You also specify the display mode (centre, scale, mosaic, montage, etc) in one place on the settings dialog and there's a preview thumbnail so you know what it's doing. Authorisation settings for sites that support authorisation is also held in one place (a button on the settings dialog).
The new settings dialog should help novices and experienced users alike understand how to use JBS and how to get the best of out it. And about time too!
639: Implement OSX-style fading from background to background
FEATURE: If you're running Windows Vista or newer you can now choose to use a fade effect when changing backgrounds - woo hoo! You'll find this option on the 'General' section of 'More Settings'. Note that you'll need to have the glass-like 'Windows Aero' display option turned on.
3730: Support http compression to massively speed up JBS when using photos from the web
FEATURE: One of the top complaints with JBS was that it was slow to switch backgrounds when you were using pictures from the internet and one of the montage modes. Now JBS fully supports compression over the web (which it really should have done from the start but that's another story) which will drastically cut down how long it takes to switch backgrounds.
819: Add support for Flickr collections
FEATURE: You can now choose photos from Flickr collections in JBS. You can do this for a specific user or from your own photos. Collections are groups of photo sets that you can set up in Flickr.
3373: Implement Google Image Search
FEATURE: You can now choose pictures from any Google Image search natively in JBS. You can optionally choose photos of any exact size (to make sure you only get pictures that perfectly fit your monitor) and any colour you like. So if you only want to see pictures of black cats that are 1680x1050 pixels on your background then Google Image Search is the one for you!
3825: Ensure that RSS feed that contain image enclosures are supported
FEATURE: If you add an RSS feed that contains image enclosures then JBS will now attempt to use them.
3726: Make the photo info text drawn on the desktop easier to read and smoother
FEATURE: The photo information text shown in the top-right of the desktop was a bit blocky and difficult to see under certain circumstances. The text is now much easier to read and uses ClearType text rendering (if it's switched on).
3958: Add the option to space the snapshots out more
FEATURE: There's now an 'Additional spacing between snapshots' option on the 'Montages' section of 'More Settings'. This lets you set a number of pixels to add to the spacing of each snapshot when a snapshots scrapbook is generated.
3334: Support the Pheed RSS photo spec to handle sites like myphotoalbum.com
FEATURE: You can now use any RSS photo feed that supports the 'Pheed' specification in JBS for your background. Basically this means if you want to grab pictures from a photo feed it's a lot more likely that you'll be able to since the 'Pheed' extensions to RSS are becoming more and more popular.
3687: Add support for Phanfare 3.0 site authentication
FEATURE: Phanfare now supports the ability to see photos from other user's sites and now JBS can do the same. This means you can now enter a Phanfare user's screen name and choose from their (visible) photos as well as from your friends and family.
You can also decide if you want to authenticate to Phanfare with your credentials (and can therefore choose from your friends, etc.) or login anonymously.
3627: Implement 'Shuffle' option in 'Pictures' mode
FEATURE: A shuffle option is now used by default for 'Pictures' and 'Folders' added for switching. This means that instead of seeing the same pictures over and over again (when using a single picture per background) the pictures will be shuffled and you'll only see the same one again once all the others have been chosen first.
3695: Improve the first-time user experience so people can understand how to use JBS and get going
FEATURE: A common complaint with JBS was starting it for the first time and then not having a clue how to use it. Now there's a welcome page shown when you first start it (or when there are no photo sets) explaining how to use JBS with a picture of the notification icon (which a lot of people miss). There's also a button to set up some default and combined with the new, easier-to-use settings dialog, it should make JBS simpler to understand. Fingers crossed!
3697: Make Yahoo! searches and pictures lists support montage options (mosaics and snapshot scrapbooks)
FEATURE: Previously 'Pictures' and 'Yahoo!' modes didn't support the various montage background styles - now they do! Although 'Pictures' mode no longer supports the setting of individual picture sizing, they'll all pick up the global display mode. You can't have it all!
3705: Make it easier find the original picture in a montage (like a snapshot scrapbook)
FEATURE: Say you've got a snapshot scrapbook on your desktop and you see a photo you love, but you've no idea where it is. Previously you'd have to bring up the 'Picture' browser, click 'Current background tiles' and look for it there, double-click it and you'll see the original.
Now you can just click 'View current picture' from the notification icon menu and a dialog will pop up containing all the pictures used in the current background. Double-click the one you like and you'll go to the original (hold down Shift to copy the location to the clipboard).
3741: Add the option to remove the notification icon completely
FEATURE: There is now an option in 'More Settings' called 'Show the notification icon down by the clock that controls JBS'. If you uncheck this checkbox then you'll no longer see the notification icon to control JBS (maybe you don't like them). Once removed you can bring up the settings by launching JBS again from a shortcut and you'll be asked if you'd like to see the settings.
2967: Make the montage modes much easier to find
FEATURE: A lot of people completely missed that JBS supported montage options like 'Snapshot Scrapbook'. Now the settings dialog has a single, easy-to-find 'Picture mode' drop down list on the settings dialog that contains all the background options along with little pictures so you can see what they look like.
3881: Add the option to ignore folders of photos based on a wildcard search
FEATURE: You can ignore pictures that are included in folders you've added to JBS by specifying a regular expression. This option is available in the 'Picture Sources' section of 'More Settings' and I recommend you read up on regular expressions before using this option.
3892: Add the option to choose from your Flickr contacts public-only photos
FEATURE: You can now choose public-only contacts photos in Flickr mode by selecting the option from the 'My Flickr Photos' section of the Flickr dialog. So no more dodgy pictures appearing on your background from your friends and family!
3515: Choose random photos of all friends in Facebook mode
FEATURE: You can now choose to see only pictures of your friends in Facebook mode. I don't know about you but whenever I chose photos from my friends I'd very rarely see anybody I know, now I'll always see pictures of my friends!
2878: Add smart size option so that photos are centred or scaled based on the size and screen resolution
FEATURE: If you opt to use a single picture per monitor and scale it to fit the screen, then you can now set a threshold under which pictures that are too small will be automatically centred.
So, for example, if a picture was 30% of the width or height of the screen then scaling it would result in a pretty blurry, pixelated desktop. In this case the picture would be automatically centred instead.
You can enable this option from the 'Picture Handling' section of 'More Settings.
2888: Add an option to use the 'Original' pictures in smugmug mode
FEATURE: You can now choose to 'Always use Original SmugMug photos for full screen pictures' on the 'Picture Sources' of 'More Settings'. So if you have a large monitor and want to use the biggest possible pictures from SmugMug, then this is the option for you.
3970: Lower the minimum switching interval to 30 seconds and simplify the interval options
FEATURE: I've lowered the minimum switching time and changed the free-form text field to be a pre-defined list of switching intervals from 30 seconds to 7 days.
2866: Allow mult-select on the 'Never Show Again' dialogs
FEATURE: Now when you choose 'Never Show Again' from the notification icon menu and you're either using one of the montage modes, or are using multiple monitors with different backgrounds on each or both, then when you're presented with a dialog to choose which picture to ignore, you can now select as many of the pictures as you like. Just shift or ctrl+click to multi-select the pictures in the normal way.
2301: Add textured background option to snapshot scrapbooks
FEATURE: You can now optionally have snapshot scrapbook images with a wood panelled background effect or a cork board. It's pretty cool and retro and you'll find them on the 'Montages' section of 'More Settings'. It's like having your photos stuck on a real notice board!
3708: Support Bing image searches
FEATURE: You can use Bing image searche results as your background images and can specify exact picture sizes to use along with the search queries of your choice.
1451: Extend flickr user search to include user ID
FEATURE: When choosing photos from a particular Flickr user you can now use their user ID in addition to their user name or email address to find them. This makes life easier when you're struggling to figure out the user name from their real name!
1462: Make the size of the text on snapshot scrapbook photos dynamic
FEATURE: Previously if you were using the polaroid snapshot scrapbook option and the title of the picture was too long to fit onto the polaroid it was cut off. Now the text is shrunk to make sure it fits in its entirety.
2360: Add an option to pick a random display mode (i.e. postcard pile, scale, mosaic, etc)
FEATURE: You can now have JBS pick a random display mode for you every time the background changes. So you might have a postcard pile, a thumbnail mosaic background, or even - gasp - a single picture on your background. You won't know what's coming next! Just choose the random display mode option from the settings dialog (it's the one with the rolling dice).
1774: Add the option to define borders on the screen to not draw the background (like under a sidebar or the taskbar)
FEATURE: You can now define 'no draw zones' where the background won't be drawn. You can use this to ensure you can always see your desktop icons and can find it on the 'No Draw Zone' section of 'More Settings'.
1753: Integrate Webshots photos with JBS
FEATURE: You can now choose your Webshots photos for your background. Just enter your user name and password and you'll be able to pick random photos or photos from your specific albums.
2169: Add the ability to exclude certain folders in 'Folders' mode
FEATURE: You can now optionally exclude folders of photos from selection when you've added one or more folders of photos. You can add exclusion folders from the 'Picture Sources' section of the 'More Settings' dialog.
2129: Add spaces.live.com integration to JBS
FEATURE: You can now add an RSS photo feed from any spaces.live.com photo album to JBS and it will let you choose photos from that album. When on an album page just click the 'More' link at the top, then 'RSS Feed' and copy the URL from your address bar, paste that into the 'Add' > 'RSS photo feed' section of the settings dialog in JBS and you're done!
2143: Add the option to search for Flickr tags using "all" as well as "any" (which is the default)
FEATURE: When you choose photos from Flickr by tag(s) you can now decide if you want to search for ALL tags or ANY tags from those you provide. Previously JBS would always search for ANY tags, now you can decide!
2069: Add 'show pictures with [person's name] in them' to Facebook
FEATURE: You can now choose to see photos of any particular one of your Facebook friends (as well as photos of yourself of course).
1806: Add captions to snapshot scrapbook postcard mode
FEATURE: You can now choose to see captions drawn on postcards when using that montage option. You can choose to turn this on from the 'Montages' section of 'More Settings'.
1219: Allow someone else's private Picasa albums to be chosen from using a private URL
FEATURE: If a friend sends you a private URL to access their Picasa Web Album then you can now paste that into the 'Add / Edit Picasa Photos' dialog and use those photos for your backgrounds.
1269: Use a drop-shadow effect on image thumbnails in the Cached Picture Browser dialog and anywhere else it's used
FEATURE: I thought I might as well make the image thumbnails shown throughout the system (including the 'Cached Picture Browser') look a bit nicer. Since Vista shows drop shadows, I thought I'd make JBS do the same - just so long as you have themes enabled in Windows.
614: Add the option to show the dates pictures were taken on in the picture info
FEATURE: If the date a picture was taken is available, it will now be shown along with the title (if available) and the owner of the picture (again, if that information is available). You can of course turn this option off from 'More Settings'.
1524: Add the option to detect monitor orientation and select pictures that fit
FEATURE: If you have multiple monitors and one is landscape while the other is portrait, then you can now choose 'Try to match pictures to monitor orientation' on the 'Picture Handling' section of 'More Settings'. This will ensure that if you use a single picture per monitor then pictures will be chosen according to the orientation of that screen.
In short, with this option selected JBS will try to use landscape pictures on landscape-orientated monitors and portrait pictures on portrait-orientated monitors.
767: Add more hotkeys for commonly used commands
FEATURE: You can now set shortcuts to clear the background, show the settings dialog and view the current picture(s). These can be configured on the 'More Settings' dialog. So if you quickly want to clear your desktop, just hit Ctrl+Alt+C or you want the settings up hit Ctrl+Alt+S. These are both particularly useful if you've opted to hid the notification icon and still want to control JBS.
1608: Add a preview thumbnail to the friends list in the Facebook dialog when you click on their name
FEATURE: When you choose photos from one of your Facebook friends, you'll see their profile picture next to their name in the Facebook dialog - that way you can make sure you've picked the right John Smith!
3732: Allow individual montage pictures to be bookmarked with delicious
FEATURE: If a montage picture is currently showing and you want to bookmark one of them on delicious (and the pictures displayed were downloaded from the web) then you'll now be shown all the pictures and can choose the one you're interested in.
2780: Add the option to download full-sized pictures for all modes as well as Flickr
FEATURE: There is now an option to save all full-sized downloaded files to a specified folder, previously this was only an option in Flickr mode. This option will still only work for full-size pictures and not any of the montage options (those pictures are cached and available via 'Cached Picture Browser' on the notification icon menu).
You can access this new functionality from the 'Picture Sources' section of the 'More Settings' dialog.
1415: Put options into the 'More Settings' dialog to control the cache settings
FEATURE: You can now set the length of time you'd like to cache montage pictures and picture lists in the new 'Picture Handling' section of 'More Settings'. If the montage cache is long then more space will be taken up with downloaded pictures, but if you set it short then a lot less space will be used. If you change your background frequently and have lots of drive space, keep the number high!

John’s Background Switcher Changelog

What's new in John’s Background Switcher 5.7.0.1

New in John’s Background Switcher 5.6 (Oct 2, 2023)

New in John’s Background Switcher 5.5.1.2 (May 10, 2023)

New in John’s Background Switcher 5.5.0.117 (Feb 8, 2023)

New in John’s Background Switcher 5.4.0.1 (Dec 20, 2021)

New in John’s Background Switcher 5.3.1 (Mar 26, 2021)

New in John’s Background Switcher 5.3 (Mar 22, 2021)

New in John’s Background Switcher 5.2 (Apr 4, 2019)

New in John’s Background Switcher 5.1 (Feb 21, 2019)

New in John’s Background Switcher 5.0 (Dec 7, 2018)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.17 (May 15, 2018)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.16 (Sep 8, 2017)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.15 (Jun 27, 2017)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.14 (Oct 31, 2016)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.13 (May 18, 2016)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.12.0.2 (Jan 25, 2016)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.11.0.2 (Jan 21, 2016)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.10.0.6 (Apr 16, 2015)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.9.0.11 (Jun 26, 2014)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.8.0.19 (Dec 12, 2013)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.7.0.22 (May 21, 2013)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.7.0.21 (May 17, 2013)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.7.0.19 (May 13, 2013)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.5 (Jun 13, 2012)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.4 (May 16, 2011)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.3 (Aug 4, 2010)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.2.1 (May 19, 2010)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.2 (May 17, 2010)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.1 (Dec 3, 2009)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.0 (Oct 27, 2009)

New in John’s Background Switcher 4.0 (Oct 27, 2009)

New in John’s Background Switcher 3.6.0.33 (Jan 13, 2009)

New in John’s Background Switcher 3.5 (Sep 3, 2008)