Backends

Backends

How the rendered PNG reaches your desktop, and how greyline picks the way it does.

The same page ships with greyline and always matches your installed version:

greyline help backends

Backends — how the rendered PNG reaches your desktop.

`backend = "auto"` (the default) tries these in order and takes the first that
is usable here:

  sway        sway / SwayFX, via swaymsg IPC and a swaybg client it manages itself
  swww        the swww daemon on Wayland, via the swww client
  hyprpaper   Hyprland's hyprpaper, via hyprctl
  x11         bare X11 window managers, via feh or xwallpaper
  windows     Windows, via the desktop wallpaper API
  macos       macOS, via System Events

  command     anything else — your own shell command, run once per output.
              Never auto-detected — set it explicitly, see
              `greyline help desktops`.

Pin one with `greyline config set backend sway`, or override for a single run
with `greyline --backend sway`. Check the result with `greyline doctor`.

Note: on a full desktop environment (GNOME/KDE/XFCE) the x11 backend paints the
root window and the DE paints straight over it — use the `command` backend there.