Parental Control Feature Request

[INJurer]

Hi. I love Wallpaper Engine. My son loves it too, seeing it on my PC. He asked me so many times: What app is this? Can I have it?
The reason I can't install it on his PC is that it have mature contents. And don't make me wrong, I'm not against it, quite the opposite, I love there are no restrictions.

My proposal is to add parental control option. It can be just a PIN that locks wallpapers featuring partial nudity and mature contents. Should be very simple to implement and will give a great benefit, so parents like me can install it for their kids. With it, I'm buying a second or even a third copy (for my daughter) immediately.

[Biohazard]

Hi, we added an undocumented way to hide and disable the questionable/mature filters in the app already, but if he has access to Steam, he can still browse the Steam platform of course. If you want to remove the filters from the app, you can create an empty text file named "lockrating.txt" in the bin directory of Wallpaper Engine (normally here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\wallpaper_engine\bin\).

If he would learn about this, then he could remove it and re-enable the tags. We could make it more difficult to remove, like having a PIN more hidden away, but people would inevitably forget their PIN and ask us how to fix it, so there would have to be a way to reverse it easily enough anyway.

Instead of buying another copy, it is also fine by us if you would log into your account and install Wallpaper Engine on his PC so he would be able to use animated wallpapers but not download or browse any new ones without your supervision (keep in mind Steam will download your subscribed wallpapers on his PC then as well, which may be a problem if there are a lot of subscriptions). You would have to log into your account on his PC first to let him access and download submissions from the Workshop.

Let me know if you have trouble trying out the first method, you could do it on your own PC first and see how it is, but if you want to be really sure, then I would recommend the second method.

(Edit: I removed your other thread since I saw this one first and already submitted my reply here.)

[INJurer]

Thanks. It works great. I didn't expect you have this already, and I did a quick google search for "parental control wallpaper engine". I actually just bought a second copy for him, although I appreciate your suggestion to have it free. It'll be unlikely for him to try and unlock it as he's not even aware there's a restriction.

As for the PIN I understand the complications, still you may want to consider.

Thanks again. He'll be really happy :)

[VampireNeko]

Originally posted by Biohazard:

If he would learn about this, then he could remove it and re-enable the tags. We could make it more difficult to remove

Depending on how the kid is smart , the parent could remove "modify" and "delete" permissions on the file for the kid account and set the file in read only too (just in case).

It can be hardened even more, but require a more advanced control over the system.