Arch Linux

ownself

Member

Registered: 2026-03-31

Posts: 4

A dynamic wallpaper cli tool - wewa

Hello, everyone:

I have created a dynamic wall paper cli tool called 'wewa' : https://github.com/ownself/wewa

It's still in early age, and it's made by rust, and uses Webview as backend

It can render any website or page, online or local as "Dynamic Wallpaper" (e.g. you can write a local static photo ppt webpage then 'wewa' it as your "wallpaper")

Especially it supports "ShaderToy", when you pass one of the shader toy page address as parameter to wewa, it will automatically make the preview fullscreen as your wallpaper (e.g. you can try it `wewa "https://www.shadertoy.com/view/7cfGzn"`)

It also natively support "Shader Mode" which pass a local "shader" file as parameter to directly render the shader as your wallpaper, in this mode you can set a "scaled" framebuffer so you can gain performance if you have huge resolution with your monitor.

It also supports "built-in" shader where I embedded so far 37 beautiful shader effects where you can start to use right out of box!

for giving it a try, `wewa -b singularity` (`wewa -b list` to list all the built-in shaders)

For arch users, you can `yay -S wewa-bin` to install and give it a try!

Caution : Gnome desktop does not implement 'zwlr_layer_shell_v1' protocol, so I have to hack it with Gnome Shell so far, it will automatically install the extension and need you to re-login to make it work, also when you press 'super' you will find wewa as seperate program rather than 'wallpaper'. For other desktop environment, it should just work. I tested it on Hyprland~

Also It's actually a cross-platform tool, windows(scoop bucket add) and mac(brew tap) also work~

Last edited by ownself (2026-04-01 15:43:22)

5hridhyan

Member

From: Asia

Registered: 2025-12-25

Posts: 529

Re: A dynamic wallpaper cli tool - wewa

If I had to choose between https://wiki.hypr.land/Hypr-Ecosystem/hyprpaper/ and wewa, I’d definitely go with wewa, with hyprpaper, I used to experience frame drops and micro-stutters, which made it feel pretty rough in daily use. In comparison, wewa performs noticeably better for me like no micro-stutters or frame drops so far (except with `aurora` and `ascend`, which seem heavier).

I especially liked the `singularity` and `plasma` shaders  they look great and run smoothly. `aurora` seems to have some rendering issues (or maybe my iGPU is struggling?), and `ascend` is quite heavy with visible lag, I haven’t tested all presets (also website or page, online or local as "Dynamic Wallpaper")  yet since I stuck with what worked well...

my setup
* Hyprland
* Ryzen 5 3500U (iGPU vega 8)

also the behavior/resource usage
* memory: ~400 MB
* Temps: noticeable increase, also reasonable
* battery: not tested yet

overall, really promising project  I might actually replace "awww" with this.
also, I think this might fit better under the "Community Contributions" section.
Thanks

Edit:
also, I noticed a libfakeroot internal error: payload not recognized! message while installing via yay, like it didn’t seem to affect the installation or runtime for me, but not sure if it indicates an underlying issue.

Edit2:
it kinda reminds me of "Lively Wallpaper" from Windows, when I was using it, I think this basically replaces it for me on Arch.

Last edited by 5hridhyan (2026-04-01 17:46:42)

---

---

trintlermint

Member

From: <??>< fish land

Registered: 2026-03-28

Posts: 22

Website

Re: A dynamic wallpaper cli tool - wewa

Will try it out and look for issues, I wanted something like this for displaying website canvases on my wallpaper, if I find any issues ill let you know on gh ))

edit: (im not a big fan of AI projects, regardless, this is still helpful, not sure if I trust vibed code to be running my system wallpapers, but still)

Last edited by trintlermint (2026-04-01 20:02:31)

---

Competitive Programming, C++ and some art. These are my drugs.
blog.trintler.me | trintler.me | team (() => {})();

ownself

Member

Registered: 2026-03-31

Posts: 4

Re: A dynamic wallpaper cli tool - wewa

Hi, 5hridhyan:

Thank you for the comprehensive feedback!!

Yes! 'Lively Wallpaper' is the original inspairation, it's basically using the same tech-stack, I just try to make it cli and bring it to all platforms with more perfermance considered.

All the built-in shader I've tuned a little bit for better performance, rendering it as native resolution just cost too much, 'ascend' is one of them. I probably will tweak that in the future version.

I mainly use it in my desktop setup, so far seems affordable. For laptop usage, from what I tested on my laptop, I probably still need to do more optimization >_<. I've tried to switch the backend from Webview to wgpu(native gpu rendering support), but sadly it cost much more than webview...(also have some rendering issue, I assume wgpu's still in its early age)

I'm planning embeded some basic HTML/JS templates for 'Picture Slide Show' or video playback in the future which would consume less than 'Shader mode'.

I'm new to yay distribution, I will fix the warning during the installation. Thank you for your generous feedback again!

If I had to choose between https://wiki.hypr.land/Hypr-Ecosystem/hyprpaper/ and wewa, I’d definitely go with wewa, with hyprpaper, I used to experience frame drops and micro-stutters, which made it feel pretty rough in daily use. In comparison, wewa performs noticeably better for me like no micro-stutters or frame drops so far (except with `aurora` and `ascend`, which seem heavier).

I especially liked the `singularity` and `plasma` shaders  they look great and run smoothly. `aurora` seems to have some rendering issues (or maybe my iGPU is struggling?), and `ascend` is quite heavy with visible lag, I haven’t tested all presets (also website or page, online or local as "Dynamic Wallpaper")  yet since I stuck with what worked well...

my setup
* Hyprland
* Ryzen 5 3500U (iGPU vega 8)

also the behavior/resource usage
* memory: ~400 MB
* Temps: noticeable increase, also reasonable
* battery: not tested yet

overall, really promising project  I might actually replace "awww" with this.
also, I think this might fit better under the "Community Contributions" section.
Thanks

Edit:
also, I noticed a libfakeroot internal error: payload not recognized! message while installing via yay, like it didn’t seem to affect the installation or runtime for me, but not sure if it indicates an underlying issue.

Edit2:
it kinda reminds me of "Lively Wallpaper" from Windows, when I was using it, I think this basically replaces it for me on Arch.

ownself

Member

Registered: 2026-03-31

Posts: 4

Re: A dynamic wallpaper cli tool - wewa

Yes, I vibe coded most of them, but I still put a lot of effort on this, especially about performance, at the beginning I just make it for my own usage, but as it's getting better and better, I think maybe I should share it, maybe there are people looking for the same thing.

Also, I think those ShaderToy artists should take the real credit.

Will try it out and look for issues, I wanted something like this for displaying website canvases on my wallpaper, if I find any issues ill let you know on gh ))

edit: (im not a big fan of AI projects, regardless, this is still helpful, not sure if I trust vibed code to be running my system wallpapers, but still)

Last edited by ownself (2026-04-01 23:39:15)