v0.9.9

What's new

Scene loading settings

New "Scene loading" section in the settings. While a scene loads, the engine can read and decode its textures and parse its shaders on worker threads. Both are on by default. You can switch each one off (to compare
load times or to rule it out when debugging) and set the number of worker threads (0 = automatic). Shader preparation runs on the same threads as texture loading, so it needs textures switched on.

Reset to defaults

A new "Reset to defaults" button sets the performance, display, audio and engine options back to their defaults. Folders, accounts, appearance and language are kept. If the display mode changes, running wallpapers
stop.

Playlists

New option to not resume playlists when WE Manager starts.

Interface

• Drag to reorder and drag to resize (double-click to reset) in the settings lists and panels
• New "List" preview size
• Shared settings components, so the settings pages look and behave the same

Packaging

• The .deb now has a proper synopsis and description, a copyright file, and declared dependencies (libc6, libstdc++6, python3 and the GTK/NSS libraries)
• RPM spec and a CI job that builds the .rpm from the release .deb

Security

• Screen, compositor and tray queries no longer go through a shell. The programs are started directly, through flatpak-spawn --host inside a Flatpak
• The local-source build fallback passes the repository path to the shell as an argument instead of building a command string
• CodeQL scanning, Dependabot and a SECURITY.md with the reporting process

Updated dependencies

Electron 45.1, lucide-react 1.62 and oxlint 1.90, plus the AUR deploy action 4.2.0.

Fixes

• Steam author lookups are cached for a week and rate-limited, with retry on 429, so the Workshop no longer hammers the Steam profile endpoint
• Lint findings went from 1016 to 140, and many dead exports and functions were removed
• Large test additions across the platform, Flatpak, HDR, GitHub, package and path helpers

• Bump the minor-and-patch group with 3 updates by @dependabot[bot] in #10
• Bump KSXGitHub/github-actions-deploy-aur from 4.1.1 to 4.2.0 in the actions group by @dependabot[bot] in #9

New Contributors

• @dependabot[bot] made their first contribution in #10

Full Changelog: v0.9.8...v0.9.9

v0.9.8

What's new

Lock and display-off pause

The engine now pauses the wallpaper while the session is locked or the display is blanked, and the Flatpak and Flathub builds get the D-Bus permissions it needs inside the sandbox (logind, the screen savers and Mutter's DisplayConfig). The pause is on by default and can be turned off with --no-lock-pause.

Schedule page

The "next run" times in the schedule list now stay current. Before, they froze at the time the page was opened.

Upgrade and downgrade

• Option to downgrade to earlier versions
• Manual button to check for update and install it

Updated dependencies

Electron 45, Vite 8, Vitest 5, electron-vite 6 and electron-store 12. CI now runs on Node 24.

Fixes

• Fixed an oxlint react purity error in the schedule settings.

Full Changelog: v0.9.7...v0.9.8

v0.9.7

What's new

Added

• Transitions: choose the animation between wallpapers (fade, slide, wipe, zoom) and its duration in the display options. It
  applies live through hotswap.
• Automute ignore list: a bell-off chip in the Volume header of the detail sidebar excludes a wallpaper from automute.
  Settings -> Performance lists the ignored wallpapers with a remove button, and warns when global automute is off.
• Support for the engine's new --transition flags, detected from --help so older engines are left alone.

Changed

• Engine flags for transitions are sent as choice flags, and the engine restarts only when needed.
• All new strings are translated in the 13 shipped languages.

Fixed

• Automute no longer applies to wallpapers on the ignore list while another app plays sound.

Full Changelog: v0.9.6...v0.9.7

v0.9.6

we_manager 0.9.6

• Turn individual outputs off in Settings. Mirrored outputs are ignored.
• Diagnostics: choose the wallpaper and screen, then launch it fresh. If it crashes, the engine's last output is kept.
• Verify files: repairs show overall progress and poll Steam less often when many items are repaired at once.
• "Reset compatibility notes" clears the crash history of all wallpapers.
• Frame limiter option in Performance.
• All 13 languages updated.

Testing

• 297 library scenes compared against the previous build: no crashes. Four scenes differ (3570723594, 3409595232, 3312373187, 3494965908); checked against real WE, each is as close
  or closer.
• Unit tests pass (217), and 26 distro VM profiles passed.
• The desktop icons check passed on 12 of the 13 runs, including 3 fedora-kde screen sizes. openSUSE Leap draws the icons but has no overlay because gtk4-layer-shell is missing.

Known limitations

• Web wallpapers and clickable bone scenes have limited support (see the README).
• On Plasma/Wayland the icons overlay needs gtk4-layer-shell.
  Full Changelog: v0.9.5...v0.9.6

v0.9.5

A notice at the top of the window shows when the engine reports a software renderer (llvmpipe, softpipe, swrast). Inside a Flatpak with an NVIDIA device and no NVIDIA GL in the sandbox it shows before any engine has started, names the extension for the host's driver version and has an Install driver button that runs flatpak install on the host, in the same installation (user or system) as the app.
Full Changelog: v0.9.4...v0.9.5

v0.9.4

What's new

GNOME

• Update button for the GNOME Shell extension. If the installed extension is older than the one bundled with WE Manager, the notice now offers Update extension. The old
  notice had no button and said a newer version was installed, which was the wrong way round. After updating, log out and back in once so GNOME Shell loads it.

Diagnostics

• New Diagnostics page in Settings. It shows what the running engines printed since they started, so you can see why a wallpaper misbehaves without starting the app from a
  terminal.
• Optional per frame timing output of the engine while you investigate (it costs a little speed, so it is off by default).

Engine options

• New --web-frames option for web wallpapers: auto, shm or dmabuf. auto is what you want unless you are chasing a problem.

Fixes

• COSMIC in virtual machines: the app crashed at startup on a virtio GPU because cosmic-comp refused Chromium's GPU buffers. WE Manager now starts with software compositing
  there.
• Installing missing runtime libraries now tells you whether it worked.

Packaging

• Flatpak/AppStream metadata: screenshots, keywords, branding colors, content rating and a longer description.
• README feature list updated.

Tested on

Each release is tried in KVM virtual machines with a real desktop session. This round: Fedora 44 (KDE, GNOME), Ubuntu 24.04, Debian 13 (GNOME, XFCE), openSUSE Tumbleweed (KDE,
XFCE) and Leap 16, Arch (Hyprland, XFCE), Manjaro (KDE, XFCE), CachyOS (KDE, Hyprland), Garuda, EndeavourOS (KDE, XFCE), Linux Mint 22.2, MX Linux, Zorin OS, Pop!_OS COSMIC,
Bazzite, SteamOS and elementary OS. The Steam Deck VM is still work in progress.

Notes

• Needs linux-wallpaperengine-kde with the same release for --web-frames.
• On GNOME, update the extension from the notice and log out and back in once.
  Full Changelog: v0.9.3...v0.9.4

v0.9.3

What's new

• Missing system libraries are installed for Arch and Debian/Ubuntu based systems, and only the ones that are actually absent.
• Garuda, Manjaro and other Arch systems with a stale package database: pacman refreshes its databases before installing.
• GNOME: the screen list is read correctly and without duplicates.
• openSUSE: works without which installed.
• The autostart entry starts WE Manager with --no-sandbox where the Chromium sandbox helper is not set up (AppImage).
• Library and workshop lists scroll back to the top when you change page.

Full Changelog: v0.9.2...v0.9.3

v0.9.2

Full Changelog: v0.9.1...v0.9.2

v0.9.1

• New toggle in Settings -> Performance: "Run in a window". When on, wallpapers start with --window sized to the screen plus --window-background.
• It opens one window, on the first screen. It needs an engine with --window-background, otherwise it falls back to a plain window.
  Full Changelog: v0.9.0...v0.9.1

v0.9.0

Highlights

• GNOME on Wayland (GNOME 45 to 50). WE Manager detects a GNOME Wayland session and offers to install and enable the engine's GNOME Shell extension from Settings (also from the Flatpak). You log out and back in once. It tells you when the extension is missing, turned off, failed to load or outdated.
• 13 languages. English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, and Simplified and Traditional Chinese. It follows the system language, or you pick one in Settings.
• Updates itself. WE Manager checks for new versions and updates an AppImage in place (size and checksum verified), or a .deb through the system's package dialog. Other installs get a notice with a link.
• Works on more distros. The engine installer picks the right build for Ubuntu 24.04, Fedora 44 or any other distro with glibc 2.35+, and works on Bazzite, Silverblue and Kinoite without layering packages.
• Flatpak with the engine built in.

Wallpapers and screens

• Split screen: several wallpapers side by side on one monitor, equal or by aspect ratio.
• Each screen can have its own wallpaper and playlist, and switching a screen no longer restarts the others.
• Wallpapers that need another Workshop item offer to download it.
• Verify files: check a Workshop item and repair broken files.
• Extra library folders on other disks, with names.
• Per-wallpaper settings: image filters, brightness, contrast, saturation, hue and flip, scaling, position, zoom, corner color, playback speed, hiding single layers and effects, custom launch arguments, and x-ray, fog and parallax toggles.
• Video trim: loop part of a video, or several parts one after another.
• User shortcuts: set which app, file, folder or command a wallpaper element opens.
• Schedule: switch wallpapers or playlists at set times, or when the system goes dark or light.
• Crash watching: wallpapers that crash are skipped in playlists, and you can retest them and add notes.
• Favorites in playlists: play only your Steam favorites.

Engine settings

• HDR output and HDR badges and filters, headphone (HRTF) badges and filters.
• Shadows, volumetrics, post-processing, MSAA and SSAA, video decoding backend (fixes video crashes on NVIDIA), FPS on battery, pause when idle, pause while another app is focused or behind maximized apps.
• Separate ambient volume, sound on one screen only, audio reactivity sensitivity.
• Hyprland, Sway and niri: screens come from the compositor, the background layer option, click forwarding files and the autostart line to copy.

Workshop and Steam

• Likes, dislikes and favorites are confirmed against Steam and cached, with colored card borders you can change.
• Outdated backup filter: shows which backups are older than the Workshop version.
• Steam is only connected while the window is open, as with Wallpaper Engine on Windows, so game recording works normally.

Look and feel

• Light and dark theme, accent colors, window opacity and KDE blur behind the window.
• Animated GIF previews only play on hover, if you like.
• Card badges and borders you can turn on and off.

Backups

• Backups are written staged, synced to disk and verified. Scanning runs in the background.

Fixes and hardening

• The AppImage relaunches correctly after an update.
• Settings files that can't be read are kept as a copy and reset, instead of breaking the app.
• Stricter checks on links and paths, and a stricter content security policy.
• Fixed an install that reused an old build from /tmp.
• Many tests added.

Full Changelog: v0.8.4...v0.9.0