The first time you open Desktop Swap Pro (DTSP), you will be asked to select the folder that has your desktop pictures. DTSP comes with 12 pictures to get you started, you can select that folder (Desktop Pictures in the Desktop Swap Pro application folder) or you can select a folder of your own. (Note: DTSP will not display the same picture twice until all pictures in your desktop picture folder have been displayed. Choosing a new desktop picture folder will reset this.)

After you select a folder, you will see the settings window. (Note: You can always get to the settings window by selecting "Settings..." in the Edit menu.) The window will have the "Settings" tab active.

You will make most of your configurations from this window.

On the left of the settings panel, you can choose a different desktop picture folder if you don't like the one that you have already chosen. You can also set whether you have one or two monitors. If you have two monitors, you can also select whether the pictures will change alternately between your two monitors, or if the pictures will change on both monitors at the same time. At the bottom left, you have the option to set whether the Appearance Control Panel stays open between picture changes.

On the right of the settings panel, you can set the delay time between pictures changes (this can be any number between .2 (12 seconds) to 240 (4 hours)). The next option allows you to set whether the picture to be displayed will be selected randomly or in order.

Beneath that there are two checkboxes. The first allows you to set DTSP to launch at startup, and the second allows you to set DTSP to hide itself after in launches.

The last item in the settings panel is a popup menu that allows you to set how the picture will be positioned on the desktop.

Select the "Advanced Settings" tab. You will be presented with the following information (Note: My library list will look different than yours).

The Library list on the left is a list of all folders in your desktop picture folder that has usable pictures in it. You can use the triangle on the left of each row to expand that folder. You will then see all the pictures available in that folder. On the right of the folder name is a column with a check box. (Note: After you select a new desktop picture, either for the first time, or selecting a different folder, all check boxes will be checked.) You can use these check boxes to turn off a folder, thus removing the pictures in that folder from the pictures that DTSP will use. After you make your changes (by turning off or on a set of pictures), click the "Update" button on the right. This will reload all the pictures that are in folders that have checked boxes into DTSP for use. (Note: Doing this will cause DTSP to reload all pictures, thus re-setting the pictures that have been displayed.)

You can expand any of the folders in the list, select any of the pictures in that folder, and click the "Preview" button to see a preview of that picture (Note: You can also double click on the picture in the library list to show the preview). This makes it handy to find a particular picture. Once you find the picture you are looking for, you can click the "Reveal in Finder" button to take you to that picture in the finder.

Also note the 'help' info in the lower left corner of the Settings window. You can move your mouse over any item of importance and DTSP will show you a brief description of what that item/area does.

Now lets click on the Logs tab. The following information will be displayed.

The Logs tab is pretty simple. In the list, you see the picture name, and the date/time it was displayed. You can highlight any picture in the log list and click "Preview" to see a preview of that picture (Note: You can double click the picture to show the preview as well). This makes it very easy to find a picture that was recently displayed.

The Log list is revolving. It can have as many as 100 entries. Once the list reaches 100 entries, the last item in the list will "drop off" and the new item will be added to the top. Clicking the "Clear" button will clear the list.

The last area of importance is the Info window. In the upper right hand corner of the Settings window, there is a button named "Info". Click on it. (Note: You can also select "Info" from the File Menu.) The following window will open.

This window provides some basic information about what DTSP is doing. It displays the amount of free memory, the total folders in your selected set (all items checked in the Library List), pictures left to be used before the pictures are reloaded, total pictures in your current selected picture set, and how much time is left until the next picture change.

There are three functional items in this window:

The first is the Help button in the lower left hand corner. Clicking it toggles whether the help section is displayed. The second is a check box that allows you to stop the pictures from changing. The last is a button that will open the "Settings" window.

That's it, have fun.