Robert MacLean

.NET, C#, Visual Studio, Windows 8, Windows Phone & Lightswitch

Bing my lockscreen

Thu, 09/27/2012 - 10:29 | Robert MacLean

I am very proud to announce my very first Windows 8 application: Bing my lockscreen – which does pretty much what the title says it does. In short: Bing has the greatest images & now you can get use them for your lock screen!

Bing My Lockscreen allows you to select from the eight most recent Bing images and quickly select which of them to set your lock screen to use.

In addition Bing My Lockscreen allows you to automatically have your lockscreen updated daily with the latest image from Bing - thus ensuring a constant supply of inspiring and interesting new content for you!

You can get the app from the store using the download link below!

This app is also in the Apptivate competition so please go there and vote for it by clicking the image below:

Bing my lockscreen makes use of icons created by the awesome (& free) Metro Studio 2.

Updates

29 September 2012

Fixed a crash when the app didn't have Internet.
Fixed the duplicate rate & review buttons.
Minor tweaks

10 October 2012

Background updating now works really well - you will also get prompted to turn it on and there is a settings charm to control it.
Updated the resolution of images to 1366x1024
Added share support
Lots of little fixes

18 October 2012

Image resolution now at 1920x1200!
Added Live Tile Support
Notification of new images when launching the app too
Lots of fixes

31 October 2012

Fixed: Crashing when setting images - this affected some users based on their country.
Many internal optimizations and fixes.

Attachment	Size
help.png	1.92 MB

Tags: Tools & Apps, Windows, Windows Store apps

Seems that "Bing my lockscreen" is not yet available on Windows Store... Why? :-(

Submitted by Truelies on Sat, 05/18/2013 - 07:35.

I enjoy your app and I download the images almost daily for use as my wallpapers. I find it more convenient than doing so on Bing.com, which requires me to login via Facebook. My question is whether or not you have a cache of older images you've saved since you began this project. I have been trying to find as many older Bing images as possible (prior to the start of the year), but that is proving difficult. There are a handful of sites out there who index the images by date and country, but none offer full resolution downloads. Even the WallpaperDownloader will give you all the Bing images, but at a much smaller resolution. At least I know the eight days worth you offer are at the full 1920x1200 resolution.

Submitted by Joel on Sat, 05/11/2013 - 05:35.

Within the last day or two, this wonderful app opens to a blank, blue screen. I can't access the settings for this app and none of the Bing images show up. My screen is just blue. I've tried reinstalling, but I consistently have this problem. None of my other apps are experiencing this issue. Do you have any ideas on how to fix it Kevin?

Submitted by Earl on Thu, 04/25/2013 - 07:03.

Sounds like it could be a XAML rendering issue - most common causes for this are graphic card drivers & settings. Have you tried to update those?

Submitted by Robert MacLean on Thu, 04/25/2013 - 09:11.

For the last couple of days I can no longer save images to my hard drive by right clicking the image in Bing My Lockscreen. This worked fine until the day before yesterday. Now the app just crashes (dumps me at the Start Screen) the moment I click Save. Did a recent Windows Update break it?

Submitted by Geoffrey on Thu, 01/10/2013 - 13:27.

Good Morning Geoffrey,

I shipped an update yesterday for the app which fixes this! Thanks for the feedback!

Submitted by Robert MacLean on Tue, 01/15/2013 - 10:03.

I am unable to download the app. I just installed windows 8 but when i try to download the app nothing happens. any suggestions? Thanks

Submitted by bob rowe on Wed, 01/09/2013 - 02:49.

I can't download the app too... any suggestions ?

Submitted by Visitor on Mon, 02/25/2013 - 19:55.

This is a great app. It does exactly what it claims to do. Would you please tell me where the lockscreen image is saved on the computer? I am trying to find a way to set the desktop wallpaper to the same image. There are programs that claim to do this, but the only one that works is Bing Desktop... and I do not want the search of Bing Desktop. I only want the photo.

Thanks!

Submitted by Visitor on Mon, 12/17/2012 - 16:39.

There is the low resolution images used in the app which are cached to a temp store and the high resolution is not stored anywhere by the app (technically I pass a stream from the web to Windows - i.e. it is all in memory). In theory Windows somewhere must store it to disk - but that I do not know where.

Submitted by Robert MacLean on Sun, 12/23/2012 - 22:10.

On my system the files are stored at:

C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Packages\22716SADev.Bingmylockscreen_c36x70e20g3gc\TempState

The file names are a series of 32-character Hexadecimal strings with no file-extension ending. Looking at the file size you can usually tell which files are likely to be image files.

Order by date, copy the most recent file of a reasonable size to another location and add a .jpg ending.

Submitted by Geoffrey on Fri, 01/11/2013 - 08:01.

Thanks for your reply. I think I will do what I want with a powershell script. I have not used powershell before but it does not seem hard. I can get the image URL base by parsing the xml document at http://www.bing.com/HPImageArchive.aspx?format=xml&idx=0&n=1 and use that to retrieve the high resolution image. Then, I can use that to update the wallpaper.

Submitted by Visitor on Tue, 01/01/2013 - 19:36.

[...] Bạn có thể tải về Bing My Lockscreen trên Windows Store, ngoài ra bạn có thể tìm hiểu thêm về nó trên trang web của nhà phát triển . [...]

Submitted by Blog chia sẻ &#8211; Chia sẻ kiến thức CNTT | Tự động dù on Fri, 11/23/2012 - 13:28.

[...] what you can accomplish in the time available, so help let’s look at what an app I built (Bing my lockscreen) does in it’s [...]

Submitted by Windows Store app Development Snack: The vastness of CPU tim on Fri, 11/09/2012 - 06:50.

Hi there,

Have checked 3 things to check above, but the app still not updating the lock screen picture for me. The help page says everything passes, Even that, manually set lockscreen from app, it doesn't update the lock screen picture.

Any idea?

Thanks.

Submitted by Visitor on Mon, 10/29/2012 - 03:45.

If you set it manually does it work?

Submitted by Robert MacLean on Mon, 10/29/2012 - 19:14.

Nope, Set Lockscreen manually doesn't work. After click Set Lockscreen, the screen moves to Windows 8's UI.

Submitted by Visitor on Mon, 10/29/2012 - 23:56.

I am aware of that issue - in some countries Bing offers different images to the rest of the world and not all those have a HD (1920x1200) resolution image which causes the crash on manual setting, automatic setting & would corrupt the image if downloaded or shared. It is fixed in the next release which I expect Microsoft to release this week.

Submitted by Robert MacLean on Tue, 10/30/2012 - 13:16.

Hi there,

Just installed the app, but it seems to crash when attempting to set the lockscreen. The help page says everything passes. Do you receive crash reports?

Submitted by Scott on Sat, 10/27/2012 - 13:58.

I am aware of that issue - in some countries Bing offers different images to the rest of the world and not all those have a HD (1920x1200) resolution image which causes the crash. It is fixed in the next release which I expect Microsoft to release next week.

Submitted by Robert MacLean on Sun, 10/28/2012 - 15:54.

Hi,

is it possible to restore the "Don´t ask me again"-Box?

Submitted by Visitor on Mon, 10/22/2012 - 11:46.

In the current release (& the next release) there is no way to reset that, except if you uninstall and reinstall (which will clear local settings - and you will get the prompt again). I will put an option in for future releases.

Submitted by Robert MacLean on Tue, 10/23/2012 - 06:48.

Installed the app today but I can't enable the Automatic Background update. I installed the app, allowed the app to run in the lock screen and enabled automatic change in app settings, but it only work if I manually open the app, choose an background and apply... What I have to do to get automatic background change feature?

Submitted by Mateus B. Cassiano on Sat, 10/20/2012 - 03:05.

Three things to check:
- First up go to the settings charm (touch: swipe from the right, keyboard: Win+I) and make sure it is enabled to automatically update.
- Two, go to the lock screen settings and make sure it is added there. If you have too many lock screen apps already or if it is removed then it needs to be re-added manually.
- Three, it will only attempt to update every 6 hours and then only if there is Internet access available.

Submitted by Robert MacLean on Sun, 10/21/2012 - 19:11.

one and Two are ok, but about tree: How can I lower this time? maybe every time I logon with my user? (My computer doesn't stay powered on for more than 2 hours when I use it)...

Submitted by Mateus B. Cassiano on Mon, 10/22/2012 - 02:28.

There is no way to lower it in this release.

I have lowered it to four hours in the next release and will look at also having other triggers. I will also see if I can engineer a way for people to control the time themselves.

In your case, my understanding (and I will go and check this) is that since you use it for 2 hours - then on the third time you use it (when you reach 6 hours) it will do a check then. I'll post back here once I confirm that.

Thanks for the feedback!

Submitted by Robert MacLean on Mon, 10/22/2012 - 09:19.

Great app :) but how can I activte automatic updating of the lockscreen? did not find the Setting...

Regards from germany, Raik

Submitted by Raik on Sat, 10/06/2012 - 15:38.

I stupidly hid it all away in the first release - I am waiting for Microsoft to approve the next update which will give you a clear prompt to turn it on/off plus there will be a settings charm for controlling it at later points.

Submitted by Robert MacLean on Mon, 10/08/2012 - 09:15.

Same question here... I can apply the individual images as the lockscreen, but haven't found a way to use the image of the day.

Submitted by Kevin on Sun, 10/07/2012 - 21:32.

Hi Kevin,

Submitted by Robert MacLean on Sun, 10/21/2012 - 19:14.

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© SADev.co.za, SADev and the content here is copyright 2001-2012 Robert MacLean unless otherwise stated. Content reuse license: Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 South Africa License. Disclose Policy: Disclosure. Disclaimer: The views expressed here reflect the views of the authors alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any of their organizations, my customers and clients, employers, sponsors, or contributors. In particular, the views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the BBD (my employer) or Microsoft. All information and downloads are available without warranty and any use of such information or downloads is at your own risk. Use common sense. If you don't like what is written then do not read it.