Support tile mode

[chdiza]

This is a nice little utility. However, I can't fully use it because I like to use tiled graphics for my desktop picture. (Or whatever the correct name for it is---it's what System Preferences.app presents as "Tile").

Is there a way to add tile to the list of [scale] choices?

[sonicdoe]

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a way to set the “Tile” option using setDesktopImageURL. I’ll take a look at modifying desktoppicture.db directly, however, this would arguably be a hacky solution.

[chdiza]

OK, I see then. Never mind.

[sonicdoe]

I took a look at how macOS modifies desktoppicture.db when setting the “Tile” option and found that it adds a new row to the data table containing just the number 2 and adds multiple rows to preferences with a key of 2 and a data_id of the newly created data row.

Based on this, I was able to set the “Tile” option using:

sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/desktoppicture.db "INSERT INTO data (value) VALUES (2); INSERT INTO preferences (key, data_id, picture_id) SELECT DISTINCT 2, last_insert_rowid(), picture_id FROM preferences;" && killall Dock

I haven’t tested this thoroughly (e.g. with multiple Spaces or displays) and it requires you to kill the Dock but perhaps it is helpful to someone.

[micahcowan]

Would it be possible to reopen this, for tracking? Perhaps with a tag marking it as low priority... it's not actually fixed, and if you consider it "wontfix", I assume it's only because an appropriate way to go about it has yet to be found, and not because you have no interest in implementing it.

I recognize that there are currently issues with figuring out how to do this, but of course it must actually be possible if "Settings" does it (and without killing Dock - though perhaps one could specify a non-death signal that will get it to reevaluate the db?)

I'm not sure when I'd get around to it, but even reverse-engineering Settings to find the right way to do this (without killing dock, or ideally directly manipulating the sqlite3 db if that can be avoided) seems potentially valuable.

[sindresorhus]

I have opened a Radar about this, but I doubt Apple will ever fix it.

[aerickson]

There's some more reverse engineering here.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33533304/change-scaling-for-all-desktop-backgrounds-on-mac-via-a-script