Review: Solid Walls
It’s taken me time to come to the realization that what I really want out of my computing experience is clarity and focus. Because I work with a myriad of apps at any given point of time, I rarely stare at an empty desktop these days. With this idea in mind, I decided to forgo VRAM hogging desktop backgrounds in favor of a desktop background comprised of a simple solid color.
Apple includes several solid color desktop wallpapers (System Preferences > Desktop > Solid Colors). The color choices are limited, but they work (see below). As a newly minded solid color desktop wallpaper aficionado, I wanted more customization options. (One can stare at a solid gray background for only so long…)
And that’s when I discovered Solid Walls (hat tip to Matt Gemmell who first brought this wonderful app to my attention.)
Solid Walls, an app developed by Richard Knight, randomly generates beautiful solid color wallpapers for your Mac, and it sells on the Mac App Store for a mere 99 cents. After installation, its icon appears on your menubar.
With Solid Walls, you can:
- set the interval cycle before a new solid color background appears
- Adjust the brightness (either as a fixed value or a randomly chosen one)
- Adjust the saturation (with the same parameters as brightness)
- Choose a host of color settings (Analogous, Complimentary, Triadic, etc.) if you rock multiple displays
- Load the app on login
I prefer the fixed brightness option (set to the left of center on the slider) with random saturation. The Analogous color option, which provides shades of a color (light, medium and dark), works really well with my multi-display setup.
Solid Walls isn’t for everyone, but if you prefer the minimalist nature of solid background colors, with some variability and adjustment, it might just be your cup of tea. The price is right and its feature set is *ahem!* solid. I really can’t think of anything else to improve the product.
Solid Walls earns 5 out of 5 Bob Weiners.
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