Wallpaper Prompt not loading

[torrancew]

I can't seem to load the wallpaper prompt with the M-z keystroke listed in the docs. I have confirmed that feh, wallhaven and rss-image-download are all available, am I missing some other application, possibly?

[lingnand]

You need to confirm these directories exist:

mkdir -p $HOME/Pictures/wallpapers/{'#favorites','#rss','#standard'}

The #favorites stores images you 'liked' inside the Wallpaper prompt, #rss stores directories of images obtained from rss-image-download, #standard stores images obtained from wallhaven via default settings (this is also the default channel).

Some quick guides:

• each directory/subdirectory inside $HOME/Pictures/wallpapers is called a channel
• the wallpaper prompt is designed to choose pictures inside a channel
• you can change channel via setch <ch> or wallhaven <ch> or flickr <ch>
  • setch <ch> sets the channel to <ch>, autocompletion is available
  • if <ch> is not a directory inside wallpapers, it automatically triggers wallhaven <ch> to download images to that channel. e.g., setch TV/Archer, this will search and download images for Archer into TV/Archer
  • wallhaven <ch> always downloads the images into <ch> regardless of whether that <ch> exists; this is what you want initially because I assume you don't have any wallpapers from the start
  • flickr <ch> downloads images into <ch> using flickr, note that pictures searched using flickr might not be well-suited for wallpaper
• Wallpaper prompt always chooses a picture randomly
  • next chooses the next random picture inside the current channel
  • rate copies the current image into #favorites
  • ban bans the image - puts it to $HOME/Pictures/others so that the prompt will never stumble onto the image again
  • trash deletes the image - puts it to $HOME/.Trash
• some keybindings are available inside the prompt (so you can <M-z><M-n> to switch to the next random wallpaper
  • M-n: next
  • M-s: setch
  • M-u: ban
  • M-a: rate
  • M-t: trash
  • M-f: flickr

Sorry this should really be in the doc from the start. Remember to pop back to confirm if it works or not on your system.

[torrancew]

@lynnard Thanks! Adding the subdirectories allowed the prompt to appear, and I grasp the concept of what's going on, however, there definitely appears to a quirk or two. Currently, preview/setting wallpaper isn't functioning from the wallpaper prompt. "next" seems to have no effect at all, though I can issue setch commands. Downloading is a bit quirky as well, but some of that may be my unfamiliarity with wallhaven.

Are there any requirements or expectations about what wallpaper files are named inside of channel directories? I would like to use some existing wallpaper directories with this tool, if possible.

[torrancew]

I also wanted to confirm what the requirements were for the transparent functionality. I have 2 machines I'm testing vimonad on, and one is a clean arch install, so it currently has no compositing tool installed.

[lingnand]

Have you put down wallpaper-change somewhere? Make sure that wallpaper-change <directory> works before trying the Wallpaper Prompt.

If you take a look at wallpaper-change you'll realise there really isn't any magic there - any image ending with .png or .jpg works fine. If you need to support more image formats just add the extensions into the script.

For the transparency to work you need to install compton.

[lingnand]

Oh, forgot to mention: wallpaper-change requires imagemagick to work, so that might be what's missing on your machine. The quirks you mentioned should go away when all the required programs are found as well.

[torrancew]

Ok, thanks for the heads up! I have wallpaper-change functioning well, but am still having some problems with the prompt.

[lingnand]

1. are you able to call wallpaper-change from a normal shell (it's inside $PATH)?
2. do windows fade when Wallpaper Prompt is active?

[torrancew]

1) yes 2) no, though I only just now installed compton

[torrancew]

I take that back! My $PATH for bash is correct, but X is more restricted! Will update after correcting that.

[lingnand]

Try putting compton -cGb inside your .xinit, restarting your computer and see what happens.

[torrancew]

With compton running and the X $PATH corrected, things are working now. Thanks!