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My proposal is to introduce some kind of interactive (by supporting a subset of Plasma) wallpapers.

The root of this idea stems from e17, where besides the normal images it supports wallpapers which are executables-widgets (see Edje, which refers to theming as a whole)

Please notice i am not proposing an implementation of a Plasmoid but some kind of a new filetype, let's name it kwp ("kde wallpaper" - purely random).


The main reason for such "need" is to create wallpapers with nice and neat animations or effects using Plasma.

This is just for eyecandy mainly

This could be done using QML. See Splash Screens and QML.

Another advantage of edje is that you can set which elements of the image are scaled and which have specific dimensions which is intended to allow you to use the same file for many different resolutions and still have it look correct (example: http://exchange.enlightenment.org/theme/show/2074). Edje also allows things like animated and interactive wallpapers (just peruse the other wallpapers at exchange.enlightenment.org or e17-stuff.org)

Yes please!

Then we could have those legendary (already from the 90's) mist, water etc. effects as wallpapers also in KDE :]

@TheBlackCat, yes i had read that but i was not aware of the capabilities of QML.

Because i am familiar neither of QML nor the internals of KDE (or kwin not sure what is responsible for desktop wallpapers ), i was thinking:

in order to keep it simple, maybe only "plasma-enhaced" (more likely qml) wallpapers should be supported.
* so, when a user selects an image it is converted to a simple (i believe) qml file.
* or the user selects a user made more complex qml file.

just a thought, maybe i am too innocent/ignorant


@airdrik, nice link.

I don't think that is a good idea, since it prevents currently-existing wallpapers from being used, parmarily the Marble wallpaper and Mandelbrot wallpaper, and could prevent the development of potential future wallpapers, like a screensaver wallpaper or a kstars wallpaper.

I think it would also require a major reworking of plasma. Plasma's wallpapers are already designed to be plugin-based, so it is easy to write new plugins that generate new wallpapers. Removing that functionality would probably require quite a bit of work, but would only hurt users.

TheBlackCat wrote:I don't think that is a good idea, since it prevents currently-existing wallpapers from being used, parmarily the Marble wallpaper and Mandelbrot wallpaper, and could prevent the development of potential future wallpapers, like a screensaver wallpaper or a kstars wallpaper.

I think it would also require a major reworking of plasma. Plasma's wallpapers are already designed to be plugin-based, so it is easy to write new plugins that generate new wallpapers. Removing that functionality would probably require quite a bit of work, but would only hurt users.

i see. it seems that it is more complex than i anticipated.

How about if instead of making all wallpapers be qml-based, we make a qml wallpaper plugin instead? Then we can keep the existing framework as-is, while adding the new functionality.

On the other hand how would writing plugins for the current framework compare to writing plugins in qml if all of the plugins were converted to qml (assuming such is possible in the first place)? Of course it may not be worth the effort to rewrite plasma's wallpaper plugin framework if the ease of using qml is negligible, in which case you would just implement the qml wallpaper idea as a plugin.

Ain't all wallpapers now just images what are positioned different ways?
If there is existing plasma technology for some specific kinds effects (like for virus and mandlebrot) then they should use other plugin.

I dont even currently fully realize what kind effects we would do with QML. But only few I would like to see.

The Android used wallpaper what moves littlebit when changing homescreen, in this case, move wallpaper littlebit according virtualdesktop.
Or move background same way when mouse moves. (how about mouse + background + window shadows moving to give a 3D effect?)

For color changing and others I just can not imagine effects. So someone should give examples of them.

Plasma supports this already.

There's a full API for making wallpaper plugins, and you simply select them from the main interface.

There are already some examples:
http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/pl ... ent=118590

http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/St ... ent=105973

Plus plenty more. There was a really cool one that turned the whole wallpaper into a clock, can't find it now.

If you want more, make more. (or at least do the designing)

I think the point of this idea is to provide an easy way to make such wallpapers. Yes, there is an API for plasma wallpapers, but in terms of actually making the wallpaper the developer is largely on his or her own. Further, the wallpapers are binary, which makes distribution difficult.

A simple and easy way to make and distribute animated and perhaps slightly interactive wallpapers I think would greatly encourage the creation of more such wallpapers.

There are only a handful of third-party plasma wallpapers, and most of those are slight variants on the slideshow or image wallpapers. As far as I am aware starfield and wallpaper clock are the only exceptions. Starfield is about as simple as you can get, and wallpaper clock is an implementation of a simple method to distribute fancy clock animated clock wallpapers (so a specialized version of what is suggested here). The lack of animated wallpapers implies that either people don't care about them or that making them is too difficult. I suspect it is the latter.

In the link I posted above Ivan said that he plans to do this using QML, hopefully before 4.8, so I am marking this as "submitted".

Fri13 wrote:(how about mouse + background + window shadows moving to give a 3D effect?)

You mean a parallax effect?

That's a cool idea, however I'm not sure whether it might not drive the user crazy after some time...

Maybe if it would only move very subtly?

It should be slow moving for some parts (windowses being faster, background slower/smaller effect).

Something like this: http://www.youtube.com/user/TATMobileUI ... SImOIMcMlk
(Nokia is trying to get patent for that technology even that they dont have any devices working with it)

Someone working at Canonical have been trying to do same for GNOME (or just for Unity?) http://design.canonical.com/2010/09/getting-physical/ but I would not take webcam for computer use.

Already for many years it has been possible to use webcam as recognizing when someone is front of the computer and do actions by that. But getting a nice effect for wallpaper with mouse cursor is something what at least I haven't seen.

At least it could be nice effect to demo computers in summits etc.