Welcome to DeskScapes 11!

I spend a lot of time at my computer.

This is in part because of my job, but also because I am a PC gamer and spend a good chunk of my leisure time in front of my monitor. I am also the kind of person who likes to display the things I like. Often, this takes the form of action figures, amiibos, framed art, pop vinyls, and so on, but I also extend it to places like my Windows desktop as well.

As you can see (if you look behind my very uncooperative cat), I am more than happy to display some Green Lantern love on my desktop background. There are a few things you can’t tell from this picture, though - namely, that the background is applied via DeskScapes and is part of a playlist of backgrounds I’ve created using the program.

A playlist, you say? We’ll get to that in a minute. Let’s take a tour of DeskScapes 11 and all the cool new things it has to offer!

Welcome to DeskScapes

First things first, let’s answer the burning question here: what is DeskScapes?

DeskScapes is an app that lets you personalize your Windows desktop with static images, animated pictures, and videos. You can customize and create your own, or select one from thousands of images provided by the creative talents of our WinCustomize.com community. You can utilize DeskScapes with multiple monitors, no matter what their size, and can even set different backgrounds for each monitor using the app.

The main landing page for DeskScapes now showcases some of the latest content from WinCustomize.com, paying special attention to authors and categories that you’ve added to your favorites. 

As you scroll down, you can see your currently applied backgrounds, your favorites, and all backgrounds you’ve recently interacted with. With DeskScapes 11, it’s super easy to browse tons of backgrounds and find just the one you want - everything on WinCustomize.com is viewable right from within the app!

Latest Backgrounds

In this section, you can see all of the latest uploads from WinCustomize.com. The backgrounds are broken down by type: animated, static, latest premium content, and the Bing image of the day. You can also view which backgrounds you’ve installed recently at the bottom.

Favorites

As you browse backgrounds, you can click the “thumbs up” button to add them to your favorites! They are easily viewed from this screen and are split into two categories: Installed and Online. You can toggle between the two, and if you find an online background that you’d like to install, you can do it right from that screen.

Popular Authors

This section showcases some of our popular background creators - or “authors” - and their backgrounds. You can browse by author, or even choose to favorite an author so that their backgrounds show up for you more readily.

Clicking on an author’s name will take you to a screen that shows you everything they’ve created, allowing you to browse through and pick your favorites.

Categories

This section lets you view the most popular backgrounds from the WinCustomize community and breaks them down into categories. You can toggle between static and animated backgrounds at the top, and as you browse you’ll be able to view categories like scenery, holidays, abstract, and more.

Playlists

This is my favorite feature of DeskScapes 11! You can now add any number of backgrounds to a playlist and set them to cycle through at a rate of your choice. You can have them rotate every few minutes, every few hours, or just have it switch anytime you boot up your PC. For those of us who like all sorts of different things and don’t want to choose just one background, this is a fantastic option!

Above, you can see the playlist I've created using some images of the Lantern Corps backgrounds. You might notice from the other screenshots how my backgrounds are different colors - I have it set to cycle through once every hour, so as I wrote this blog and took these screenshots the background just naturally changed. I'll talk more about playlists in a future blog - but as you can see from just this sampling, the feature is pretty neat!

Create Animated Background

This is another cool new feature for DeskScapes 11 - the Dream Maker Pro tool, which you can find right within the app! You can customize your own animated background by using a template or importing an image of your own. I won’t delve too much into it here - that’s another blog! - but I encourage you to explore it a bit. It’s easy to use and will let you add flare to some of your favorite images.

Try DeskScapes 11 for Yourself

If you’re an Object Desktop member, then you have access to the exclusive beta for DeskScapes 11. You can download it here and try it for yourself - please also take a moment to leave some comments on our feedback thread after you’ve had a chance to explore!

Not an Object Desktop member? You’ll have to wait for the wider release to customize and create your own unique desktop backgrounds - or you can become an Object Desktop member today for just $29.99. Learn more here!

Do you have some favorite backgrounds or new features in DeskScapes you want to talk about? Share them with me!