Xfce Forum

kagot

Member

Registered: 2025-07-28

Posts: 4

live wallpapper development

Hi! (this is my first post here )
So basically  i want to tinker the xfce program to support setting any program as live wallpaper beneath the desktop.
obviosuly i can and i did it robust way by making script that does screenshot of program from virtual buffer and sets it as background, but thats the low tier way of doing thing.
Then i did some tinkering and i can like set desktop to be draggable window with a 50% alpha and set a program beneath it but it still a robust and not best way.
So i would like to
1. set main window to be 32bpp because it 24bpp by default
2. make wallpaper view widget 100% transaprent
3. put a program by pid or whatever beneath the desktop window
4. profit
You can ask why someone would do it? For fun obviously because i save my ram wherever i am.
So mu question is:
Where to find docs that can point me to load order of functions or block diagram of xfce desktop app?
Because im totaly lost what happens and when and in what order in xfce.

ps. live wallpapers i meant:
1. mp4 by script -> https://pomf2.lain.la/f/68vebgx.webm
2. program by xvfb -> https://pomf2.lain.la/f/m1dqjym2.webm
3. anything by transaprency -> https://pomf2.lain.la/f/cpy24tqy.webm

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 12,123

Re: live wallpapper development

Hello and welcome.

Not sure how helpful this is, but an existing enhancement request exists for this functionality. I have a post in there that talks about how it was implemented in 2016 but reverted due to a memory leak. I even posted a videoof it in action.

So i would like to
1. set main window to be 32bpp because it 24bpp by default
2. make wallpaper view widget 100% transaprent
3. put a program by pid or whatever beneath the desktop window
4. profit

Without changes to xfdesktop directly, this might not be possible as xfdesktop grabs the display. Also keep in mind that since Xfce now supports wayland, the solution will need to work for both X and wayland.

However, xfdesktop is optional. You can disable it and use some other solution that might give you that functionality.

---

Mark solved threads as [SOLVED] to make it easier for others to find solutions.
--- How To Ask For Help | FAQ | Developer Wiki  |  Community | Contribute ---

kagot

Member

Registered: 2025-07-28

Posts: 4

Re: live wallpapper development

just an update
setting 32 bit works
and painting into wallpaper works
tho its not updating whut beneath the desktop
any clues?
inb4

You need to write redraw function of icon view for every frame

Added later 22 h 24 min 50 s:
nvm
it's working
https://pomf2.lain.la/f/4idq1dcb.mp4

Last edited by kagot (2025-07-29 11:18:03)

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 12,123

Re: live wallpapper development

How did you get it work?

---

Mark solved threads as [SOLVED] to make it easier for others to find solutions.
--- How To Ask For Help | FAQ | Developer Wiki  |  Community | Contribute ---

kagot

Member

Registered: 2025-07-28

Posts: 4

Re: live wallpapper development

How did you get it work?

i uploaded it to github here: https://github.com/karolgotow/xfdesktop … -wallpaper
so I did:
1. set window depth to 32 bits to have alpha channel
2. changed window flags to normal window type so normal windows can get beneath
3. wrote a tiny .sh to control windows behaviour
its still a robust fix tho it dont redraw everything like with full script solutions
professionally it should be done by making desktop a child of blank dark window as desktop and a icon view a normal window with custom behaviour hard coded
would be fun to see such function support in next release

Last edited by kagot (2025-07-29 19:38:14)

kagot

Member

Registered: 2025-07-28

Posts: 4

Re: live wallpapper development

since the project is done, may i ask how to reach minimal size of build? which flags in compiler should be set?
i mean
my build is like 1.6mb and the build i got from native installation is liek 417kb