Random Desktop Background Pokemon

The purpose of this project was to show how to automate certain processes using python for the Tufts Coding 101 Pre-College Course. The script leverages the Pokemon API

Source

This project idea was taken from a Youtube Video that I watched, which will be linked in the Resources section below

Set Up

Note that this will only work for MacOS users

In a terminal, run:

1. python3 -m venv env to generate a virtual environment
2. . env/bin/activate to start up the virtual environment
3. pip3 install -r requirements.txt to download all of the required libraries

You then must go into get_pokemon_background.py and change the variable called FILENAME towards the top of the file to be where you directory is located (Run pwd in the terminal to get an idea if you are not sure how to do that)

Finally, run python3 get_pokemon_background.py to get a new background

You can edit the way that it looks by going to System Preferences -> Desktop & Screen Saver and adjusting the images there

Cronjobs

Cronjobs are tasks that can run at an interval that you set. To read more, look here

How to set it up

I would recommend looking at this Youtube Video since he does a great job of explaining it

Additionally, if it doesn't run and you are running it on MacOS, you will probably need to allow the cron command to have full disk access. Here is the stack overflow post I used to fix this problem

Resources

• Youtube Video Inspiration
• Helpful Page of How to use Crontab
• Crontab Guru - A good resource for figuring out cron schedule expressions

Future Edits

• Utilize other APIs (such as the NASA api) to create more random background images
• Make it generalizable for other operating systems