Bevy Live Wallpaper

A Bevy plugin that renders your scene into a Wayland layer-shell surface, an X11 root window, or a Windows desktop background.

Compatibility

Requirements

• Wayland: A compositor that advertises zwlr_layer_shell_v1 (e.g. Sway, Hyprland, River, Niri).
• X11: An X server with the RandR extension enabled (standard on modern desktops).
• Windows: The standard desktop environment.

Configuration

• On Windows, the appropriate backend is selected automatically. No features need to be enabled.
• On Linux/BSD, enable the backend feature that matches your session (wayland or x11). Only one backend should be enabled at a time.

# In your Cargo.toml

# For Windows:
[dependencies]
bevy_live_wallpaper = "0.2.0"

# For Linux/BSD (Wayland):
[dependencies]
bevy_live_wallpaper = { version = "0.2.0", features = ["wayland"] }

# For Linux/BSD (X11):
[dependencies]
bevy_live_wallpaper = { version = "0.2.0", features = ["x11"] }

Usage

Add the LiveWallpaperPlugin to your app. To make your application cross-platform, you will need to use conditional compilation (#[cfg]) for platform-specific setup.

• On Wayland/X11, you must disable the primary window and add the LiveWallpaperCamera component to the camera you want to render.
• On Windows, the plugin will automatically find the primary window and parent it to the desktop background. LiveWallpaperCamera is not required, but keeping it attached is harmless.

Here is a complete, cross-platform example:

use bevy::prelude::*;
use bevy_live_wallpaper::{LiveWallpaperCamera, LiveWallpaperPlugin};

fn main() {
    let mut app = App::new();

    // Platform-specific window adjustments for wallpaper mode.
    // On Wayland/X11, the primary window must be disabled; on Windows, use a borderless window.
    let mut window_plugin = WindowPlugin::default();

    #[cfg(any(feature = "wayland", feature = "x11"))]
    {
        window_plugin.primary_window = None;
        window_plugin.exit_condition = bevy::window::ExitCondition::DontExit;
    }

    #[cfg(target_os = "windows")]
    {
        window_plugin.primary_window = Some(Window {
            decorations: false,
            ..default()
        });
    }

    app.add_plugins(DefaultPlugins.set(window_plugin));

    app.add_plugins(LiveWallpaperPlugin::default());

    app.add_systems(Startup, setup_scene).run();
}

fn setup_scene(mut commands: Commands) {
    // Spawn a camera. On Wayland/X11 this component is required; on Windows
    // it is optional but harmless to keep for consistency.
    commands.spawn((Camera2d, LiveWallpaperCamera));

    // ... spawn your scene entities here ...
    commands.spawn((
        Sprite::from_color(Color::srgb(0.15, 0.4, 0.85), Vec2::splat(1600.0)),
        Transform::from_xyz(0.0, 0.0, 0.0),
    ));
}

Examples

The included examples are cross-platform.

• Run on Wayland (Linux/BSD):

cargo run --features=wayland --example=3d_shapes -- --help
# or
nix run github:yadokani389/bevy_live_wallpaper -- --help

• Run on X11 (Linux/BSD):

cargo run --features=x11 --example=3d_shapes -- --help
# or
nix run github:yadokani389/bevy_live_wallpaper#x11 -- --help

• Run on Windows:

cargo run --example=3d_shapes -- --help

Known Issues

• On Windows, with Intel integrated graphics, the Vulkan backend may not work for setting the desktop background. In such cases, it is necessary to use the DX12 backend.
• On Wayland, cursor position is only reported while the pointer is directly over the layer surface; If another window is on top (or the pointer isn't reaching the background), the position won't update. This is a Wayland protocol limitation.

Credits & References

• comavius/wayggle-bg — licensed under the MIT License; portions of the Wayland layer-shell backend are adapted from this project.
• ohkashi/LiveWallpaper — licensed under the MIT License; the Windows WorkerW discovery and wallpaper lifecycle logic are adapted from this project.
• zuranthus/LivePaper — licensed under the MIT License; the X11 background attachment strategy is inspired by this project.