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Claude 5e8884d01e Allow selecting animated GIFs as live wallpapers

The playback pipeline already typefinds by content and decodes GIFs
via GStreamer's decodebin like any other video, but the preferences
file picker filtered to video/* MIME types only, hiding .gif files.
Widen the filter to include image/gif and *.gif, add an "All files"
fallback, and update the related copy/docs to mention GIF support.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_019RDqbdjsiisSU7CbQke4g8

2026-08-04 00:18:43 +00:00

4.6 KiB

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BenthicBloom

A GNOME Shell 50 extension that automatically rotates your wallpaper, supports looping video (live) wallpapers, and includes built-in protection against OLED burn-in.

Features

Auto rotation — pick one or more folders and BenthicBloom cycles through the images inside them on a timer, in sequential or shuffled order, with an optional crossfade between changes. The chosen wallpaper can also be applied to the lock screen.
Live wallpapers — play a looping video or animated GIF as your desktop background. Frames are decoded with GStreamer and rendered directly by GNOME Shell's own Clutter stage (no external, incompatible Clutter build involved). Playback can automatically pause on battery power or while a window is fullscreen.
OLED burn-in protection — three independent, individually toggled techniques:
- Pixel shifting: nudges the background a few pixels on a slow drift cycle so the same subpixels aren't lit continuously.
- Idle dimming: fades the background to a configurable lower brightness after the system has been idle for a while, and restores it the moment you're back.
- Forced rotation: guarantees the wallpaper changes after a maximum static duration, even if automatic rotation is otherwise switched off.
A top-bar indicator for quick access to rotation, live wallpaper, and OLED protection toggles, plus a "Next Wallpaper" action, and a full libadwaita preferences window.

Requirements

GNOME Shell 50.
For live wallpapers: GStreamer with its good and base plugin sets (e.g. gstreamer1.0-plugins-good and gstreamer1.0-plugins-base, or your distribution's equivalent) — the good set is also what provides animated GIF decoding. If these aren't installed, the live wallpaper toggle stays disabled and BenthicBloom's other features work normally.

Installation

From source

git clone https://github.com/quinta0/benthicbloom.git
cd benthicbloom
make install

Then reload GNOME Shell — press Alt+F2, type r, press Enter on X11, or log out and back in on Wayland — and enable the extension:

gnome-extensions enable benthicbloom@quinta0.github.io

Packaging a zip

make pack

produces dist/benthicbloom@quinta0.github.io.shell-extension.zip, installable via gnome-extensions install <file> or the Extensions app.

Configuration

Open preferences from the panel indicator's "Wallpaper Settings…" entry, or run:

gnome-extensions prefs benthicbloom@quinta0.github.io

General — panel indicator visibility, lock screen syncing, debug logging, and the folders scanned for wallpapers.
Rotation — enable/disable, interval, shuffle vs. sequential order, and crossfade transition settings.
Live Wallpaper — enable/disable, video file, mute, playback speed, and power-saving pause behavior.
OLED Protection — master switch plus independent controls for pixel shifting, idle dimming, and forced periodic rotation.

Architecture

extension.js            Entry point: wires up the three managers + indicator
prefs.js                 libadwaita preferences window
lib/settingsKeys.js       GSettings key name constants
lib/logger.js             Small logging wrapper gated by the debug-logging setting
lib/wallpaperSource.js    Async folder scanning for image files
lib/shuffleBag.js         No-immediate-repeat random ordering for shuffle mode
lib/rotationManager.js    Timer-driven wallpaper rotation + crossfade overlay
lib/liveWallpaper.js      GStreamer video playback rendered onto a Clutter actor
lib/oledProtection.js     Pixel shifting, idle dimming, forced rotation
lib/indicator.js          Top-bar quick-access menu
schemas/                  GSettings schema

Known limitations

The live wallpaper currently renders across the full stage as a single layer, so on multi-monitor setups the video spans across all monitors as one canvas rather than being tiled per-monitor.
Pixel shifting and idle dimming rely on GNOME Shell's private Main.layoutManager._backgroundGroup and Meta.IdleMonitor APIs, which are not part of the stable extension API and could change in future shell versions.

Testing

This was developed and validated (JSON, GSettings schema compilation, and JavaScript syntax) without a live GNOME Shell 50 session available in the development environment. Before relying on it, test in a nested session:

dbus-run-session -- gnome-shell --nested --wayland

or on a real GNOME 50 desktop, and please file an issue with any problems you hit.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later — see LICENSE.

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