14 DAY TRIAL // The PC has become over the years an indispensable item in any house or company for the fact that many of us rely on it to do our jobs or other various activities. Whether we like it or not, the desktop PC is the place where you can start all the applications and activities you want.
For many PC users, the desktop background has a very important role when they are using it. It can lighten up an overcrowded space and even express their current state of mind: pleasure, joy, relaxation, sadness, sorrow, etc.
Active Wallpaper Changer is a handy application that can give your desktop a new look every time you feel like it. The program comes with a 30-day trial period to test its full capabilities with a cost of $24.95 for the full, unlimited version, but will also add a watermark to your displayed pictures. It has a simple and intuitive interface with easy-to-handle buttons and features, something the average Joe or Jane could get a grip on without problems.
By default, the program finds and attaches Windows' public picture folders, but the first thing you need to do when you first run Active Wallpaper Changer is to set up the directories from where the application should get the background pictures.
This is done very easily by pressing the Add Folder button from the upper-left side of the main window. It will open an explorer-like window that allows you to select the folder you want to add. In order to add more folders, you have to repeat the operation, since the program doesn't support multiple selection. You can also add a picture, group or folder by pressing the arrow next to the Add Folder button.
After this operation is done and you have all your favorite photographs in one place, you can select the Style and Background color for your wallpapers from the central window. The Style option helps you set up the wallpaper on your desktop by providing a series of display styles: Center, Tile, Stretch, Maximize, Custom and Smart.
Apart from the first three that we all know from the Windows default wallpaper styles, Active Wallpaper Changer gives you three more options to play with. You can maximize your photos to the actual resolution, by using the Custom option you will be able to select individual horizontal and vertical styles for your pictures, while the Smart option enables you to select different styles according to a given width and height.
You can also choose the background color, Active Wallpaper Changer allowing you to keep the default color, calculate the most appropriate color for the selected picture or choose a custom color that suits you best.
But that's not all, the lower part of the main window allows you to customize the way your wallpapers will be displayed and it comes with various cosmetic options. You can choose to make the text of your desktop icons transparent, add various filters to your images (antialias, emboss, fish eye, grayscale, invert colors, mirror, noise or twist) and even add a frame around your wallpapers.
Active Wallpaper Changer can also display an interactive and easy-to-handle calendar among your wallpapers that will always remind you about important dates in your life or your daily tasks. You can enter various holidays, birthdays or other important days and your daily tasks, so you will never forget them. It also comes with various skins to choose from, so you will not get bored very soon by its presence.
I guess we all have some wallpapers on our computers, but if you want to get more without surfing the web and looking for them, Active Wallpaper Changer can do this for you. You can customize what category of wallpapers to download, the download location and you can even enter a maximum number of downloaded wallpapers per day. While this option can come in handy, it lacks accuracy when it is trying to download them, often giving multiple errors while trying to connect to various servers.
The last options from the lower toolbar allow you to enable a history of the last shown wallpapers, choose your favorites and place a custom text on your desktop.
The application comes with numerous options that allow you to tune it according to your needs. All the effects and add-ons mentioned in the main window can be enabled, disabled and edited from here. Besides that, you can select the changing method from random to cycle, autochanging, enabling hotkeys and even prevent the application from changing the wallpaper if your CPU usage is high or a custom program is running on your machine.
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Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
