Getting Started - reallySmooll/smoollwallpaper GitHub Wiki

This guide showcases how to get started using SmoollWallpaper (swall).

Dependencies

Before we get started, we need to make sure that swall won't break on our first start. Below you will find a list of all the things you need to do before downloading swall.

  • First of all you need to have Linux (obviously).
  • This script only runs on Desktop Environments and Window Managers that have X11 support. NO WAYLAND! Don't worry most DEs and WMs have X11. You're probably running it right now.
  • xwinwrap. Here's how to install it.
  • Python. It should be preinstalled on your system. Python >=3.6 required!
  • mpv
  • colorama. $ pip3 install colorama
  • xorg-xprop
  • A way to unzip an archive.
  • Knowledge of the terminal. (sorry if you don't like using or don't want to use the terminal. A graphical interface will come in the future)

For now that's all, but there will probably be more as the script grows.

Actually getting started

Now that we have everything required for swall to run, we need to download swall itself. First we need to go to the releases page, so go back to the main page and on the right side of the page you will see a releases button.

releases

Click on the latest release and download the SmoollWallpaper.zip archive.

archive

Next unzip the archive and (using the terminal) go into the SmoollWallpaper directory. There will be a lot of confusing file names but the only one you're looking for is the swall_video.py file.

You can run it by typing in the terminal either this:

$ chmod +x ./swall_video.py
$ ./swall_video.py

or:

$ python ./swall_video.py

Either way you do it, it will probably work (if you have all the dependencies). After running the script, you will see a message that looks similar to this:

That means the program is working as expected. But we need to do some more configuration to be able to animate our wallpaper. If you look at the message again, you will see a path to a file in your .config folder. That's the swall configuration file in which you will specify the path to your wallpaper file (and other not as important settings). So open this file in your favorite text editor and edit the path-vid option to point it to your wallpaper.

Now if you save the file and run the program again you should see a terminal output similar to this:

Note: You need to click on your desktop or minimize the terminal and wait a couple of seconds so xwinwrap and mpv can load.

That means the program is running and your wallpaper is showing on your desktop.

And that's it! The wallpaper is running! (unless there were some errors that showed up on the way. Please make an issue so we can help you in fixing the problems)

Stopping the script

If you'd like to stop swall:

  • press Ctrl+C
  • focus on your desktop
  • focus on your terminal and keep pressing Ctrl+C until there's a KeyboardInterrupt error.