shuffle random wallpaper

[aloispichler]

To randomly pick (shuffle) a wallpaper out of a set of wallpapers, I had

exec-once=swaybg -i $(shuf -n1 -e /usr/share/backgrounds/xfce/ArchSimple.png /usr/share/backgrounds/xfce/arch2024.jpg /usr/share/backgrounds/xfce/arch2023.jpg /usr/share/backgrounds/xfce/arch10.jpg)

How can this be accomplished with hyprpaper?
I want to avoid preloading all.

[vaxerski]

edit the config with something like sed and then launch?

[jerilMJ]

Just adding a working example snippet from my config.

$SCRIPTS_DIR/pick_wallpaper.sh:

# Pick random wallpaper
random_pick=$(find "$wp_dir" -type f -name "*.png" -o -name "*.jpg" | shuf -n1)
# Replace the placeholder in template and save to .conf file
sed -e "s~<wp>~${random_pick}~g" $conf_dir/templates/hyprpaper.template > $conf_dir/hyprpaper.conf

$conf_dir/templates/hyprpaper.template:

$wp = <wp>
preload = $wp
wallpaper = , $wp

then just exec-once it

exec-once = $SCRIPTS_DIR/pick_wallpaper.sh && hyprpaper

[KobKobson]

@jerilMJ thanks for that simple but effective solution.

Simple keybinding to load random wallpaper in hyprland.conf:

bind = $mainMod, W, exec, pkill hyprpaper && $pickWallpaper && hyprpaper

[fxzzi]

An extremely simple script could do this for you:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

WALLPAPER_DIR="$HOME/walls/images/"
CURRENT_WALL=$(hyprctl hyprpaper listloaded)

# Get a random wallpaper that is not the current one
WALLPAPER=$(find "$WALLPAPER_DIR" -type f ! -name "$(basename "$CURRENT_WALL")" | shuf -n 1)

# Apply the selected wallpaper
hyprctl hyprpaper reload ,"$WALLPAPER"

no need to modify the config or preload anything or restart hyprpaper.

[KobKobson]

That's a good solution, if you don't want the change to be persistent.

jerilMJ's solution is on point for changing the default wallpaper as the change is persistent after restart.

[fxzzi]

does that not defeat the purpose of it being randomised? If you were to save the wallpaper isn't that just a less convenient wallpaper picker?

[KobKobson]

No, since I like to pick a random wallpaper from time to time, but not after every reboot.
That way I can choose the time when I want to change things up a bit, not the next update requiring a reboot.

[fxzzi]

ok, then you can pick a wallpaper, symlink it somewhere like ~/.local/state/wallpaper and have hyprpaper load from that path instead. then it will save across reboots and until you manually randomize the wallpaper again. a script like this should work (untested):

#!/usr/bin/env bash

WALLPAPER_DIR="$HOME/walls/images/"
WALL_LOC="$XDG_STATE_HOME/wallpaper"

# Get a random wallpaper that is not the current one
WALLPAPER=$(find "$WALLPAPER_DIR" -type f ! -name "$(basename "$(readlink -e $WALL_LOC)")" | shuf -n 1)

# symlink somewhere
ln -sf $WALLPAPER $WALL_LOC

# Apply the selected wallpaper
hyprctl hyprpaper reload ,"$WALLPAPER"

[KobKobson]

You really don't like the idea of modifying the config and restarting hyprpaper hahaha
Thanks for the tip, looks promising.

[fxzzi]

you're right xd

sed'ing the config file and then restarting hyprpaper is just really hacky tbh. I assume you lose the nice animation when switching wallpapers if you did it like that. I mean if it works for you then sure, go for it, but imo there are better methods than sed'ing and restarting

[KobKobson]

Yeah, you're right, reloading looks like the way to go.

[kierun]

I found this simple script, which potentially could be used from cron to rotate the wallpaper every $unit-of-time:

#!/bin/bash

WALLPAPER_DIRECTORY=~/Pictures/Wallpapers
WALLPAPER=$(find "$WALLPAPER_DIRECTORY" -type f | shuf -n 1)
hyprctl hyprpaper preload "$WALLPAPER"
hyprctl hyprpaper wallpaper "Virtual-1,$WALLPAPER"
sleep 1
hyprctl hyprpaper unload unused

Personally, I have numerous wallpapers that I like to rotate every 10 or so minutes… Therefore, this kind of appeals to me. However, is this a bad idea™ or would this work? 🤔

[thuslyandfurthermore]

That cannot be used as it is from cron because cron doesn't run things from Hyprland, so hyprpaper won't know where to send its commands. If you try, hyprpaper will complain HYPRLAND_INSTANCE_SIGNATURE not set! (is hyprland running?). After a lot of tinkering I've arrived at a pretty hacky solution that writes the information that hyprpaper needs to a file, which cron then reads to hyprpaper.

In my hyprland.conf, I have:

exec = printenv HYPRLAND_INSTANCE_SIGNATURE > ~/hypr-is

This writes down the instance ID of the instance of Hyprland that ran its config most recently. Then I have a pickwall.sh that reloads hyprpaper with a random wallpaper, I'm using fxzzi's above that skips preload.

Finally my crontab which sets the appropriate environment variable and runs pickwall.sh every 20 minutes:

*/20 * * * * HYPRLAND_INSTANCE_SIGNATURE=$(cat /home/emily/hypr-is) /home/emily/pickwall.sh