awww is a Wayland wallpaper daemon that allows desktop backgrounds to be changed while the daemon remains running. It supports static and animated images, transition effects and controls for individual displays.
Unlike wallpaper setters that need to be restarted whenever an image changes, awww maintains a background process and accepts commands through its accompanying command-line client. This makes it particularly suitable for automated desktop customisation, keyboard shortcuts and shell scripts.
The program is designed for Wayland compositors supporting the layer-shell protocol. Its functionality is particularly relevant to wlroots-based compositors and other environments implementing the necessary Wayland protocols.
The project focuses on efficient wallpaper rendering, animated backgrounds and runtime control without requiring a separate graphical wallpaper management interface.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Change wallpapers without restarting the background daemon.
- Display static and animated wallpapers, including animated GIF images.
- Supports JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, WebP, BMP, farbfeld and static SVG images, with optional AVIF support.
- Apply smooth transition effects when switching between wallpapers.
- Control wallpaper changes from the command line for integration with scripts and keybindings.
- Assign wallpapers to selected Wayland outputs in multi-monitor configurations.
- Query available outputs and inspect the daemon’s current state.
- Supports multiple namespaces for more advanced wallpaper arrangements.
- Restore previously selected wallpapers.
- Clear wallpaper surfaces and replace them with a specified solid colour.
- Clear cached wallpaper data through the command-line interface.
- Stop the running daemon using a client command.
- Uses compressed animation data to reduce resource requirements.
- Designed for compositors implementing the Wayland layer-shell protocol.
Website: codeberg.org/LGFae/awww
Support:
Developer: LGFae
License: GNU General Public License v3.0
awww is written in Rust. Learn Rust with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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