Open Wallpaper Engine

1.0.0-beta.5

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 21:56:26 +0000

Added

Wallpaper Editor (Edit Wallpaper in the library's bottom bar, ⌥⌘E): a window for scene wallpapers with the layer hierarchy (visibility, lock), the live wallpaper as a canvas you can zoom and pan, and an inspector for the selected layer. Move, scale and rotate image and text layers on the canvas or with the inspector, change opacity, colour and blend mode, turn effects on and off, and set the wallpaper's properties; everything can be undone. Edits are kept beside the wallpaper and apply wherever it runs, without changing its files: Revert drops them, and Save as Local Wallpaper adds a copy with the edits to the library.
The Wallpaper Editor is an app of its own, inside Open Wallpaper Engine. It has its own Dock icon and menu bar ("Wallpaper Editor"), one process for every wallpaper you edit. Quitting Open Wallpaper Engine leaves it open, closing it leaves Open Wallpaper Engine as it was, and a crash of one doesn't take the other down. Edits, drags and property changes still show on the desktop as you make them; the editor quits when its last window closes.
Wallpaper Editor: layers and effects. Add image (imported from a file, converted when needed), text (with a clock or date script), solid colour, composition, fullscreen and sound layers; duplicate, delete, rename, reorder by dragging, group, ungroup and move layers in and out of groups, keeping them where they are. Dragged layers snap to the scene and to each other (with guides), align to the scene, and move, scale and rotate live without reloading. Text is edited on the canvas or in the inspector with its font, size, alignment and padding. Effects are added from Wallpaper Engine's catalog (searchable, by group) or the Workshop effects a wallpaper uses, removed, reordered and toggled, and every parameter is editable with the control its shader declares (sliders, colours, vectors, options, textures), live where the renderer allows; a parameter can follow a user property, and masks are painted on the canvas or imported. An Assets tab lists the wallpaper's textures, models, sounds and fonts and imports dropped files. Everything is undoable, kept in the overlay with its files beside it, and Save as Local Wallpaper writes it all into the copy.
Wallpaper Editor: the timeline. Timeline in the toolbar docks a panel under the canvas with the selected layer's animated properties as tracks: keyframes on a time ruler, a playhead you scrub (the canvas stands at its time), play, pause and loop, ease presets, Wallpaper Engine's Bézier handles on a curve view, and the clip's options (fps, length, loop, mirror or single, start paused). A diamond beside each animatable field keys it at the playhead, and while the timeline is open an edit keys it by itself. Effect parameters can be animated too. Clips are written in Wallpaper Engine's own format by Save as Local Wallpaper.
Wallpaper Editor: scripts and user properties. Every field in the inspector has a menu to add a SceneScript (or an object script), edit it, or bind the field to a user property. The script editor docks under the canvas with JavaScript highlighting, line numbers, find (⌘F), autocomplete of the SceneScript API (engine, thisLayer, thisScene, input, the audio and media APIs, WEMath/WEVector/WEColor), syntax errors at their line before Apply, the script's own properties, templates (clock, date, audio-reactive scale, follow the cursor, object script) and a console of what the running scripts log and the errors they raise. Apply runs the script in the wallpaper (it reloads). User Properties in the toolbar adds, edits, removes and reorders the wallpaper's properties of every type (checkbox, slider, colour, combo, text input, file, folder, label) with their defaults, slider ranges, combo options and conditions, beside a live preview of the panel; renaming one re-points its conditions and bindings. All of it is undoable, kept with the other edits, and written into scene.json and project.json by Save as Local Wallpaper.
Particle editor in the Wallpaper Editor: add a particle system (blank, or one of Wallpaper Engine's presets), move it on the canvas, duplicate or delete it, and edit it as Wallpaper Engine's editor lays it out: its texture and material, its own settings, emitters, initializers, operators, renderers, child systems, control points (dragged on the canvas) and the layer's instance override. Components are added, removed and reordered in lists, each field with the control Wallpaper Engine gives it. Changes show at once on the running system, only that system starting over (Restart System starts it again on demand), can be undone, and are written as Wallpaper Engine's particle files by Save as Local Wallpaper.
Wallpaper Editor: Puppet Warp. Make a puppet from an image layer (a mesh fitted to its outline, then vertices moved, added or deleted), build its skeleton on the canvas, weight it automatically or paint the weights, animate it in clips with onion skin and animation layers, and set Wallpaper Engine's bone physics per bone with a live preview. Existing puppets open too, with their attachments, blend shapes and texture channels kept. Save as Local Wallpaper writes the rig as Wallpaper Engine's model files.
Previews in the Wallpaper Editor's browsers. Add Effect shows each effect at its default values on a colour test card, and a new Add Particle System browser lists every particle system Wallpaper Engine's editor offers (its default systems and every preset's variants, grouped as it groups them, searchable), each on a dark background. The previews are rendered by the app's own renderer, in a helper process, the first time they are shown (a spinner meanwhile); moving ones loop. They are kept for the installed assets' build, so an assets update renders them again. Without the assets, both browsers offer to install them. The assets copy now keeps Wallpaper Engine's particle presets.
Depth Map Generation plugin (Settings › Plugins, off until installed): downloads Depth Anything V2 Small, Apple's Core ML package (Apache-2.0), from Apple's Hugging Face repository at a pinned commit, checks every file against its pinned SHA-256 and prepares it for the Mac. In the Scene Editor (Live) and the Wallpaper Editor, a Depth Map section generates a depth map on the Mac for an image, text, solid, composition or fullscreen layer, a particle system (from one frame) or the whole scene, previews it, sets its smoothing, and applies Wallpaper Engine's Depth Parallax effect bound to it (strength adjustable, removable, undoable), which follows the pointer as in Wallpaper Engine (on a scene without camera parallax it turns parallax on with the layers' own movement at 0, and back off with the last depth parallax removed). Depth maps are kept with the wallpaper's edits, so both editors share them and Save as Local Wallpaper writes them as a normal effect and texture. The model is loaded only while generating and released five minutes after the last generation. See docs/depth-maps.md.
Screen Saver in the Scene Editor (Live) (the middle tab: Wallpaper | Screen Saver | iPhone & iPad Export): make the screen saver from a scene wallpaper's own version. It runs a private copy of the wallpaper, so turning layers on or off and changing user properties there never touches your desktop, its properties or the Wallpaper Editor's edits. These choices are kept for each wallpaper as the screen saver's own, so the next recording reuses them. Record and Set as Screen Saver records the seamless loop as the screen saver plugin does and makes it the screen saver (turning the plugin on when it is off); the previous video is replaced at once, never left missing or half-written, and Preview Recording plays it in the tab beside the live preview. A note in the tab says that the screen saver is a video: dates, times, clocks, media info and audio-reactive parts show the moment it was recorded, so hide those layers or use the daily re-recording. See docs/screen-saver.md.
Re-record every day at a time you choose (off by default): while Open Wallpaper Engine is running, the screen saver is recorded again each day with that day's date and time, at background priority, waiting while the battery is below 30 %. A time missed while the Mac slept or the app was quit is recorded at the next wake or launch. The tab shows when it was last recorded and when it will be next.
iPhone & iPad Export in the Scene Editor (Live) (the last tab in its toolbar): frame a scene wallpaper as an iPhone or iPad lock screen and export it as a Live Photo, with AirDrop or to a folder. Pick any of 33 iPhones and 30 iPads that show Live Photo lock screens (iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 or later) from a searchable device list (type a name, family, year or resolution; the last choice is kept); the export has that device's exact pixels. The lock-screen guide follows the device, and for an iPad a landscape preview shows the part iPadOS keeps when the iPad is turned (the export itself is portrait). See docs/iphone-ipad-export.md.
The export mode never touches the desktop. It runs its own private copy of the wallpaper with its own properties and layer edits, copied from the wallpaper when the mode opens: change user properties, hide, move, resize, recolour or fade layers, change blending and effects, and only the preview and the export change. Your desktop, its properties and the Wallpaper Editor's edits stay as they were.
Export Settings: the mode's right-hand panel, also shown as a sheet before every export (and from the Export Settings toolbar button), holds the device, the lock-screen guide, the crop and zoom, the clip, the movie's quality, the Photos album, the selected layer's adjustments and the user properties.
Export Settings: Parallax Position. For a scene that follows the pointer (camera parallax, a depth parallax effect or a shader that reads the pointer), a small pad shaped like the device's screen sets where the pointer rests: drag its dot and the preview moves at once, and the Live Photo is rendered with the same pointer, depth parallax and camera parallax included. Reset to Center puts it back. It is kept for each wallpaper; other scenes show a one-line note instead.
Better Live Photos: the scene's first seconds are measured and the clip moves to its 1–3 s with the most motion, avoiding a cut mid-burst (shown on a motion timeline you can drag); the still is the sharpest frame near the middle of the clip, rendered at full resolution and marked as the movie's key frame; the clip blends in from and back into the still so it never jumps; the movie is HEVC at a bitrate for the device's resolution, tagged Rec. 709.
Also Save to Photos Album (off by default): each export is also added to an album in the Mac's Photos library ("Open Wallpaper Engine" unless you name another; created when missing), as a Live Photo. With iCloud Photos on, it appears on your iPhone and iPad. Photos access is asked for only when you turn it on; if it is refused, the switch turns back off and offers Open Privacy Settings. A save that fails is reported without failing the export. (iCloud Shared Albums can't be written by apps, so this is a regular album.)
Export for Android… (the library's context menu and the Details panel; one wallpaper or a whole selection): Wallpaper Engine's "Export .mpkg" for its Android app. Copy the .mpkg to the phone or tablet and import it in the Wallpaper Engine app. The sheet is Wallpaper Engine's dialog: scenes export Dynamic (the scene itself, rendered on the device; High Quality or Balanced, which halves the textures, with Pixel art optimization and Texture Reduction under Show advanced settings) or Pre-Rendered (High Performance: a seamless 30 s H.264 video, with Video Cropping, Video Preset, FPS and an alignment slider over a live preview of the portrait crop, in a private copy of the wallpaper that never touches the desktop); videos are packed as they are. Web and application wallpapers are listed as skipped, as Wallpaper Engine doesn't support them on Android. A selection exports as a queue with overall and per-wallpaper progress (pre-renders one at a time, the rest beside them), cancellable, into a chosen folder as <title>.mpkg (unique names); "Save to the Same Folder Each Time" skips the panel, e.g. for an iCloud Drive folder. The packages have the layout, files and JSON of Wallpaper Engine 2.8.42's own exports. MCP clients get export_android. See docs/android-export.md.
Send over Wi-Fi for Android exports: after a batch export (or from Send over Wi-Fi… in the export sheet) a sheet shows a QR code and a link for the phone or tablet, which downloads the packages from the Mac over the local network in its browser, one by one or with Download All; the import in the Wallpaper Engine app is unchanged. The link serves only that batch, behind a random token, to devices on the same local network, and expires after 15 minutes or when the sheet closes. The sheet shows each file's progress and the devices that downloaded it, helps with the macOS firewall prompt and with networks that keep devices apart, and offers Save to Folder… when the Mac has no local network. MCP clients get android_send_wifi. See docs/android-export.md.
Display layouts (Displays in the toolbar), as in Wallpaper Engine: a wallpaper per display, one wallpaper stretched across every display, or one cloned onto every display; or, per display, stretch and clone groups of some displays beside the others. A clone or stretch runs the wallpaper once (a scene renders one frame, a video decodes once) and each display shows its part. Right-click a display to group it, choose the main clone display, flip a clone, mute a display, or split it into regions with a wallpaper each (nested, left/right or top/bottom). Profiles save, load and delete the whole layout with its wallpapers, and import a Wallpaper Engine config.json. The screen saver layout is the wallpapers' (the default) or its own: per display, stretched or cloned. See docs/display-layouts.md.
Theming (Settings › General › Theming, off by default): macOS follows the scheme colour of the main display's wallpaper, or its picture's main colour when it has none. Checkboxes for the menu bar, the accent and highlight colours (applied at once), the tinted icon colour and the folder colour (the Dock restarts by itself to show them, or with a button when that's turned off). The originals are restored when a checkbox goes off and on quit. See docs/theming.md.
MCP Server plugin (Settings › Plugins, not installed by default): lets MCP clients (AI assistants and other tools that speak the Model Context Protocol) control the app. Installing it puts owe-mcp, which ships signed inside the app, in Application Support and opens a local control connection only your user account can use; Copy Configuration For gives the configuration for Claude Desktop, Claude Code, VS Code / GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Kiro, Windsurf, Zed, OpenAI Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, Cline, Continue or any other stdio client. owe-mcp speaks MCP 2025-06-18, 2025-03-26 and 2024-11-05, with tool schemas plain enough for strict clients, and can save a snapshot to a file for clients without image support. Clients can list displays, wallpapers, playlists and a wallpaper's user properties, get what each display shows, set wallpapers, pause, resume, change the volume and mute, change user properties (checked against each property's type and applied live, as the Details panel does), play playlists, step to the next or previous wallpaper, import a wallpaper folder or zip, open the Scene Editor (Live) or the Wallpaper Editor, and take a snapshot of a display's wallpaper. A client starts the app when it isn't running. Removing the plugin deletes owe-mcp and closes the connection. See docs/mcp.md.
Full control from MCP clients (66 tools): clients edit scene wallpapers through the Wallpaper Editor's own edit model, as one undo step per request (layers, transforms, text, effects and their parameters, particle systems field by field, Puppet Warp bones, animations and blend weights, timeline keyframes, SceneScripts with the script editor's syntax check, the wallpaper's own user properties and bindings, depth maps), with Undo, Revert and Save as Local Wallpaper; an open Wallpaper Editor window shows each change and its Undo undoes it. They can also open and close both editors and switch the Scene Editor (Live)'s tab; play, pause and seek an editor's timeline; create, fill, reorder and delete playlists; favourite and delete wallpapers (deleting needs an explicit confirmation); turn displays on and off; read and change an allow-list of settings; read the plugins' status; export iPhone and iPad Live Photos (with the Photos album only as already allowed); set the screen saver's layers, record it and set its daily re-recording; and turn the lock-screen picture on, off or refresh it. Every tool is marked read-only, idempotent or destructive for clients that ask first. Nothing touches Steam accounts, Workshop subscriptions, plugins or anything outside the app's own data, and nothing makes macOS ask for a permission.
Application Rules (Settings › Performance › Application Rules › Edit): pause, stop or mute wallpapers while an application is running, focused, maximized, in full screen or playing audio, or load a wallpaper, a playlist or a display profile while it does (and go back to what was shown when the rule stops matching). Pause has per-display and all-display versions, and Stop all stops every display. The playing-audio condition needs macOS 14.2 or later.
Library and Workshop: Library Folders (Settings › Assets) add folders of wallpapers beside Wallpaper Storage, watched for changes and never written to. Workshop preset items play their base wallpaper with the preset's values, as in Wallpaper Engine, and a Category filter (Wallpaper, Preset) is in the Installed and Workshop filters. A Discover tab lists Wallpaper Engine's curated Workshop lists. Workshop items have Block (the wallpaper or its author; Settings › Assets › Manage Blocklist), Report… (opens its page in Steam) and Related Wallpapers, and Open in Workshop opens the item in Steam.
Hotkeys (Settings › General › Hotkeys): system-wide shortcuts for Wallpaper Engine's actions (pause, mute, next and previous wallpaper, audio recording, hide desktop icons, take a screenshot, start the screen saver, and the main windows), with no Accessibility permission and conflict checks. Each playlist can have a shortcut that starts it.
Take Screenshot (the menu bar menu, a hotkey; Settings › General › Screenshots): a PNG of the wallpaper on the display under the pointer, without icons or windows, at the display's size, 4K or 8K.
Per-wallpaper display options in the Details panel: position, zoom, horizontal and vertical flip, and the playback rate of videos, kept per wallpaper and display.
Recording threshold (Settings › Optimizations › Audio): Wallpaper Engine's audio input threshold; quieter sound counts as silence for audio-reactive wallpapers.
Show Wallpaper on Lock Screen (Settings › General, on by default): each display's desktop picture, which the lock screen and the menu bar's tint use, is a picture of what that display shows, layouts and display options included. Your own picture comes back when it's turned off or the app quits.
Screen Saver plugin (Settings › Plugins, off by default): installs an Open Wallpaper Engine screen saver that plays a seamless loop of your wallpaper, recorded in the background (scenes, web pages and WebM videos; video wallpapers play their own file). Audio-reactive wallpapers get a steady beat in the loop. The Details panel shows whether a wallpaper's screen saver is available, rendering or not available, and why. See docs/screen-saver.md.
Render Resolution shows each choice's size: Display (the display's size in points), Retina (its pixels) or Full (the wallpaper's own size). Upscaling with MetalFX and a Render Scale (50–75 %) render scenes smaller and scale them up; the Low preset turns it on. Under Display, text and album art are drawn at the display's pixels.
Next and Previous Wallpaper in the menu bar menu (⌥⌘→, ⌥⌘←): the active playlist's next or previous item, or a random wallpaper from the library as shown and the one you had before.
Web wallpapers in Chromium: with the optional Chromium web engine installed (Settings › Plugins), a web wallpaper that uses Chromium-only features plays in Chromium; the rest stay in WebKit, which uses far less memory. A wallpaper's details have a Web engine choice (Automatic, WebKit, Chromium) to force one. In Chromium, user and general properties, the audio and media listeners, pause, mute, suspend while covered, the FPS limit and mouse input work as in WebKit, and local files are served with the same folder containment.
Wallpapers that need Chromium are pointed out when Chromium isn't installed: applying one shows which Chromium-only web APIs it uses, with Open Plugins and Use Anyway (remembered for that wallpaper until it changes), and its details carry a "Some features only available on Chromium" badge.
Settings that did nothing now work: Reload when changing output device, Pause when VRAM is exhausted, Process Priority and Restart after crashing. Every setting has a tooltip saying what it does.
Workshop wallpapers converted by an older version whose original package was deleted are downloaded again in the background so they pick up converter fixes; a wallpaper on screen waits until it isn't shown.
Video textures in image layers play (SceneScript's getVideoTexture), and Puppet Warp texture channels draw as in Wallpaper Engine.

Changed

The Scene Inspector is now the Scene Editor (Live) in its window, the Details panel, the Window menu (⌥⌘I), tooltips and the onboarding tour, in every language: its Wallpaper mode edits the running wallpaper. Image layers gain Opacity and Color controls.
Display Settings shows each display's wallpaper as a miniature of that screen: a rounded rectangle with the display's own shape (16:10, 21:9…) holding the full-resolution picture of the scene's own frame at that display's size, instead of the square Workshop preview. Without one it uses the scene's picture at another size, a frame of a video wallpaper, then the preview, placed as the wallpaper's Fill, Fit or Stretch setting places it. It updates when a running scene takes a new picture.
Loading a scene wallpaper shows a full-resolution picture of the scene's own frame instead of its low-resolution Workshop preview, then crossfades to the live scene as before. The picture is taken when a wallpaper is downloaded or imported, and refreshed once per session while a wallpaper runs (and after its properties change), for each display size. It is stored in the Caches folder, capped in size, and removed with the wallpaper. The Workshop preview is still shown until a wallpaper has one.
Closing the last window leaves Open Wallpaper Engine in the menu bar without a Dock icon; the icon comes back when a window opens (from the menu bar, a menu or reopening the app). A minimised window keeps the Dock icon, where it is restored from. The app also starts without a Dock icon when it opens no window.
Animated library previews are built in and always on (no longer a plugin).
Turning camera parallax on or off eases it in or out without reloading the scene.
Shaders are translated in a helper process, so a shader that hangs or crashes the translator no longer takes the app with it; pipeline compiles are bounded and retried.

Fixed

Next and Previous Wallpaper always move to another wallpaper: on every display they act on, in a playlist that isn't rotating, with Shuffle, and after a playlist item was applied by hand.
No more white sheen in the menu bar on a second display: each display's desktop picture is a file that exists and shows what that display shows, after Space changes, wakes and display changes too.
Scene sound fades like Wallpaper Engine's: volume changes apply at once, and only mute, pause and resume fade (about 0.75 s); nothing fades in at start.
Editing a local wallpaper's tags, title or rating no longer drops its user properties and other keys from project.json.
Web wallpapers whose listener is set up late get their user properties; a scene loads with the values you set, on every display.
The trust prompt for web wallpapers is asked whatever the case of the wallpaper's type ("Web").
Rendering: Puppet Warp layers with effects no longer clip at the image or show seams or holes between parts; posed skinned models aren't culled; animated sprite layers run their effects on the current frame (rain splashes drew as rectangles); composition layers without copybackground start transparent; wallpapers that bundle other Workshop items' files load them; Deep Space's flowing layer flows; objects without an id keep their parents, text and bindings; root motion, orthographic zoom and bone angles in scripts follow Wallpaper Engine 2.8.
Text settles at its exact sharpness once an animated scale stops, and scene sounds are cached under stable names in a capped folder.
Sort by File Size sorts by size; deleting wallpapers no longer blocks the app and reports a failure; unreadable settings are kept as a copy before the defaults are used; a text layer's Font and Size from the Wallpaper Editor are no longer overridden.
Reset Config resets every setting, Log Level None and Errors Only differ, and Use Default Location refreshes the library.
A stray file in the wallpaper storage folder is no longer listed as a broken wallpaper.
Quitting with SIGTERM no longer makes the next launch hold back the wallpapers as crash suspects.
Opening the Wallpaper Editor no longer crashes; the Scene Editor (Live)'s sidebar button sits right before its tabs (⌃⌘S); the iPhone & iPad Export preview pans to the scene's left edge.
A selected library tile shows one rounded selection outline in the accent colour.
Settings › Plugins › Screen Saver now acts on the setting as changed: turning it on or off, or changing Render Resolution, used the value from before the change.
Two scenes drawing at once no longer read each other's properties: each wallpaper instance renders on its own thread, but every frame shared one property snapshot, so a frame could draw with the other instance's values (two displays with their own properties, or the iPhone & iPad Export's preview beside the desktop), and the two could crash the app. Each thread now keeps its own.
Wallpaper Editor and Scene Editor (Live): a number's unit (×, %, °, px, s, fps) stays beside the number on one line in a narrow inspector or beside a long translated label, instead of the number showing above it.
Settings › Assets › Update from Steam no longer downloads Wallpaper Engine again when the assets are current: it first reads the public build from SteamCMD's app info and reports "up to date" when it matches the installed build and the files are there. If the check fails (offline, not logged in), nothing is downloaded. Re-download downloads regardless, to repair a damaged copy.

1.0.0-beta.4

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 06:28:13 +0000

What's Changed

perf(render): draw scene wallpapers on a dedicated render thread by @deepratna-awale in #22
Particles: emitter shapes match Wallpaper Engine's by @deepratna-awale in #28
fix(render): stop render threads synchronously and fix the CI failures since #22 by @deepratna-awale in #39
fix(puppets): pose from the rig's rest block, not the skinning bind by @deepratna-awale in #43
Decode JPEG .tex mipmaps from their stored bytes; drop the JPEG thumbnail limitation by @deepratna-awale in #27
feat(scenescript): implement setParent, lookAt, lookAtYaw, rotateObjectSpace, transformAttachmentToTexture by @deepratna-awale in #29
feat(particles): draw every renderer of a particle system by @deepratna-awale in #31
fix: Beta 3 UI fixes (sort label, settings width, shortcuts list) by @deepratna-awale in #33
feat: complete Your Presets with local storage, export and import by @deepratna-awale in #34
fix(updates): name versions by their release label in the update window by @deepratna-awale in #35
feat(inspector): material Blending picker for image layers and particle systems by @deepratna-awale in #37
fix(media): an item without artwork has its player's icon as the thumbnail by @deepratna-awale in #40
fix(isolation): isolated copies leave the desktop picture alone by @deepratna-awale in #41
Harden wallpaper input handling by @deepratna-awale in #42
fix(build): main doesn't compile after #31 and #37 by @deepratna-awale in #44
fix(assets): check the Steam build before Update from Steam downloads by @deepratna-awale in #36
SceneScript parity: renderContext, console, applyGeneralSettings language, parity tests by @deepratna-awale in #32
feat(audio): capture system audio with a Core Audio process tap by @deepratna-awale in #30
ci: harden workflows and keep Steam secrets on main by @deepratna-awale in #45
feat(video): music sync for WebM videos by @deepratna-awale in #26
build(deps): bump actions/cache from 4.3.0 to 6.1.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #46
build(deps): bump actions/configure-pages from 5.0.0 to 6.0.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #47
build(deps): bump actions/deploy-pages from 4.0.5 to 5.0.1 by @dependabot[bot] in #48
build(deps): bump actions/upload-artifact from 4.6.2 to 7.0.1 by @dependabot[bot] in #49
build(deps): bump actions/download-artifact from 4.3.0 to 8.0.1 by @dependabot[bot] in #50
Harden wallpaper input handling, part 2 by @deepratna-awale in #51
docs(security): September 2026 security audit by @deepratna-awale in #38
ci: cache the Wallpaper Engine assets as an encrypted archive by @deepratna-awale in #52
fix: main after the merge round (model pipeline crash, 3 CI failures) by @deepratna-awale in #53
perf(shadows): cheaper shadows, toggleable by @deepratna-awale in #54
feat(scene): full-resolution loading snapshots instead of the Workshop preview by @deepratna-awale in #55
fix: Cyberpunk Samurai moves and its cars fly by @deepratna-awale in #56
fix(explorer): keep Installed pagination in range when the page count changes by @deepratna-awale in #57
fix(scene): draw a scene only on its render thread at startup by @deepratna-awale in #58
fix(workshop): skip removed or private Workshop dependencies by @deepratna-awale in #59
fix(settings): size the Settings window to the current toolbar and screen by @deepratna-awale in #60
Quality presets set the frame rate; the user's own FPS wins by @deepratna-awale in #61
fix: the last two CI test failures on main by @deepratna-awale in #62
ci: shard the tests, retry flakes, run affected tests on PRs, report failures by @deepratna-awale in #63
fix: Katana Girl's eye properties, and property changes without a rebuild while editing by @deepratna-awale in #64
feat(video): play hev1 and avc3 MP4s through a lossless remux by @deepratna-awale in #65
ci: faster, optimised test runs with durations, shader caches and a working asset cache by @deepratna-awale in #66
test: move the CI-scene dependency sweep into the slow tier by @deepratna-awale in #69
feat(scene): one generic user-property binding layer by @deepratna-awale in #67

New Contributors

@dependabot[bot] made their first contribution in #46

Full Changelog: v1.0.0-beta.3...v1.0.0-beta.4

What's Changed

perf(render): draw scene wallpapers on a dedicated render thread by @deepratna-awale in #22
Particles: emitter shapes match Wallpaper Engine's by @deepratna-awale in #28
fix(render): stop render threads synchronously and fix the CI failures since #22 by @deepratna-awale in #39
fix(puppets): pose from the rig's rest block, not the skinning bind by @deepratna-awale in #43
Decode JPEG .tex mipmaps from their stored bytes; drop the JPEG thumbnail limitation by @deepratna-awale in #27
feat(scenescript): implement setParent, lookAt, lookAtYaw, rotateObjectSpace, transformAttachmentToTexture by @deepratna-awale in #29
feat(particles): draw every renderer of a particle system by @deepratna-awale in #31
fix: Beta 3 UI fixes (sort label, settings width, shortcuts list) by @deepratna-awale in #33
feat: complete Your Presets with local storage, export and import by @deepratna-awale in #34
fix(updates): name versions by their release label in the update window by @deepratna-awale in #35
feat(inspector): material Blending picker for image layers and particle systems by @deepratna-awale in #37
fix(media): an item without artwork has its player's icon as the thumbnail by @deepratna-awale in #40
fix(isolation): isolated copies leave the desktop picture alone by @deepratna-awale in #41
Harden wallpaper input handling by @deepratna-awale in #42
fix(build): main doesn't compile after #31 and #37 by @deepratna-awale in #44
fix(assets): check the Steam build before Update from Steam downloads by @deepratna-awale in #36
SceneScript parity: renderContext, console, applyGeneralSettings language, parity tests by @deepratna-awale in #32
feat(audio): capture system audio with a Core Audio process tap by @deepratna-awale in #30
ci: harden workflows and keep Steam secrets on main by @deepratna-awale in #45
feat(video): music sync for WebM videos by @deepratna-awale in #26
build(deps): bump actions/cache from 4.3.0 to 6.1.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #46
build(deps): bump actions/configure-pages from 5.0.0 to 6.0.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #47
build(deps): bump actions/deploy-pages from 4.0.5 to 5.0.1 by @dependabot[bot] in #48
build(deps): bump actions/upload-artifact from 4.6.2 to 7.0.1 by @dependabot[bot] in #49
build(deps): bump actions/download-artifact from 4.3.0 to 8.0.1 by @dependabot[bot] in #50
Harden wallpaper input handling, part 2 by @deepratna-awale in #51
docs(security): September 2026 security audit by @deepratna-awale in #38
ci: cache the Wallpaper Engine assets as an encrypted archive by @deepratna-awale in #52
fix: main after the merge round (model pipeline crash, 3 CI failures) by @deepratna-awale in #53
perf(shadows): cheaper shadows, toggleable by @deepratna-awale in #54
feat(scene): full-resolution loading snapshots instead of the Workshop preview by @deepratna-awale in #55
fix: Cyberpunk Samurai moves and its cars fly by @deepratna-awale in #56
fix(explorer): keep Installed pagination in range when the page count changes by @deepratna-awale in #57
fix(scene): draw a scene only on its render thread at startup by @deepratna-awale in #58
fix(workshop): skip removed or private Workshop dependencies by @deepratna-awale in #59
fix(settings): size the Settings window to the current toolbar and screen by @deepratna-awale in #60
Quality presets set the frame rate; the user's own FPS wins by @deepratna-awale in #61
fix: the last two CI test failures on main by @deepratna-awale in #62
ci: shard the tests, retry flakes, run affected tests on PRs, report failures by @deepratna-awale in #63
fix: Katana Girl's eye properties, and property changes without a rebuild while editing by @deepratna-awale in #64
feat(video): play hev1 and avc3 MP4s through a lossless remux by @deepratna-awale in #65
ci: faster, optimised test runs with durations, shader caches and a working asset cache by @deepratna-awale in #66
test: move the CI-scene dependency sweep into the slow tier by @deepratna-awale in #69
feat(scene): one generic user-property binding layer by @deepratna-awale in #67

New Contributors

@dependabot[bot] made their first contribution in #46

Full Changelog: v1.0.0-beta.3...v1.0.0-beta.4

1.0.0-beta.3

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 12:38:51 +0000

A performance release: wallpapers use less GPU, memory and battery, and a still wallpaper uses almost none.

Faster and lighter

Idle wallpapers stop drawing. A scene with nothing changing draws no frames, and the frame rate follows what's moving.
Quality ↔ Efficiency slider (Settings › Performance) sets frame-rate caps and effect detail. Low Power Mode and heat move it toward efficiency.
Video wallpapers draw only when there's a new frame. A 4K test video went from 180 to 24 frames in 3 s, using 91% less GPU time.
Texture compression (Settings › Optimizations, on by default): wallpaper images use about a third of the GPU memory, and loading can be faster.
Less memory: decoded images are dropped after upload, two screen buffers instead of three at 60 fps or less, and 3D meshes are no longer kept in RAM after upload.
Covered or sleeping displays stop drawing. Covered, muted web wallpapers are suspended.
Audio capture runs only while a wallpaper needs it.
Particles and 3D: empty particle systems are skipped, rope particles are cheaper, 3D models are culled per mesh, and unchanged puppets skip re-posing.
Text (clocks, scores) is drawn off the render thread.
Moving a property slider for position, scale, rotation, colour or opacity updates live, without reloading the scene.
New downloads are prepared in the background, so they open faster the first time.

Web wallpapers

Pausing now pauses the page's scripts, animations, video and audio, as in Wallpaper Engine.
Pages receive your FPS setting.
Optional: render web wallpapers at standard resolution on Retina displays (Settings › Optimizations, off by default).
Displays showing the same web wallpaper share one web process.

Settings, legal and more

Settings reorganised into ten tabs, with search, export and import, and per-tab reset.
Mac keyboard shortcuts, and a new Playback menu.
Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, shown once in the setup assistant.
The app checks for updates at launch.

Fixes

Background texture compression no longer uses every CPU core; it runs gently in the background.
A wallpaper could stay unlit when a shader finished compiling between frames.
A script-created layer now draws in the frame that created it.
Web wallpapers no longer get silent audio.
Video no longer keeps the display awake, and AVKit videos loop.

Checked in tests, not yet widely in the app

Web pause, FPS and suspension; the shared web process; hidden-display freezing; background preparation. Please report anything odd.

1.0.0-beta.2

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 10:10:16 +0000

The second beta of Open Wallpaper Engine 1.0. Installed betas update to it automatically.

Note

This is a beta. Please report problems in Issues.

Fixed

Steam login: a login that succeeded with Steam Guard (a code or the Steam Mobile app's approval) was reported as failed. Logins now count as soon as SteamCMD confirms them.
Subscriptions: "Download my subscriptions" now lists your Workshop subscriptions.
Sprite sheets: an image or script-created layer without its own size is one frame big, not the whole sprite sheet (e.g. the coins in the Dino Run wallpaper).
Stability: a crash when a wallpaper's script replaced a 3D model's data with a different number of meshes.
Text: changing labels (scores, clocks) cause much shorter hitches.

Changed

Video wallpapers play through Metal on the GPU by default, so wallpaper effects apply to video. Apple AVKit remains available in Settings › General › Video Framework.
Test and development copies of the app are marked with a badge on their Dock icon.

Install: download the DMG, drag the app to Applications and open it. Signed and notarized by Apple. Requires macOS 14 or later; scene wallpapers need a Steam account that owns Wallpaper Engine.

1.0.0-beta.1

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 07:55:41 +0000

The first beta of Open Wallpaper Engine 1.0: a rebuilt macOS player for Wallpaper Engine wallpapers — scene, video and web — with a native Metal renderer, Wallpaper Engine's own shaders, GPU particles, 3D models, puppets, lighting, SceneScript and audio-reactive visuals. See the README for what changed since 0.8.1 and the wiki for guides.

Note

This is a beta. Please report problems in Issues.

Install: download the DMG, drag the app to Applications and open it. It is signed and notarized by Apple. Requires macOS 14 or later; scene wallpapers need a Steam account that owns Wallpaper Engine (the setup assistant installs the assets from your copy).

Highlights

Automatic updates (Sparkle 2): updates are signed with EdDSA, listed in an appcast on GitHub Pages and downloaded from GitHub Releases. "Update automatically" (on by default) checks, downloads and installs by itself: an update installs on quit, after 10 minutes away from the Mac, or within a day, with a quick relaunch that restores the wallpapers. With it off, "Automatically check for updates" asks before installing. "Receive beta updates" (off by default, on for pre-release builds) offers vX.Y.Z-(alpha|beta|rc).N releases. Settings › General › Updates shows when the app last checked, with Check Now; Check for Updates… is in the app menu and the menu bar menu. Builds without the update signing key (Debug and local builds from source) never check.
Setup assistant: replaces the welcome sheet with skippable steps for the language, privacy, SteamCMD, the Steam login, an optional Steam Web API key, the Wallpaper Engine assets and importing wallpapers. The Privacy step has "Keep Open Wallpaper Engine up to date automatically".
SteamCMD sets itself up: Valve's SteamCMD is downloaded when none is found; Homebrew's, Steam's or a chosen one is used when present. Terminal login and privacy notes explain what is sent where.
Imports: Workshop collections and subscriptions read from Steam's Web API, the Workshop items of an existing Steam library (Valve KeyValues/ACF manifests), and wallpaper folders.
Assets after signing in: the Wallpaper Engine assets can install automatically from the user's Steam copy once SteamCMD is logged in, with or without the default wallpapers.
Wiki: Support & FAQ opens the project wiki's Troubleshooting page.

Changed

The privacy notes now say the app contacts GitHub, without personal data, to check for and download updates, which can be turned off in Settings › General.
Quality presets set Shadows (a new Performance control) and volumetrics as Wallpaper Engine does.
The repository is now deepratna-awale/open-wallpaper-engine-mac; the default Wallpaper Storage folder is ~/Documents/Open Wallpaper Engine, and the assets cache and hidden data move with it.

Fixed

A SteamCMD login counts only once SteamCMD confirms it, and the cached Steam session is restored before installing assets.
Unrated import items list as the Installed rating filter does; asset packs without a type stay out of the library.
Video: WebM plays through WebKit, AVKit videos keep looping, Metal video frames live until the GPU is done, and wallpaper players let the display sleep.
Now-playing artwork binds to effect and material passes; inspector sliders update live; puppets without effects draw past their image's rect.