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The terms wallpaper and desktop picture refer to an image used as a background on a computer screen, usually for the desktop of a graphical user interface. 'Wallpaper' is the term used in Microsoft Windows, while the Mac OS avoids mixing metaphors by calling it a 'desktop picture' (prior to Mac OS X, the term desktop pattern was used to refer to a small pattern that was repeated to fill the screen).
Formats
Images used as computer wallpaper are usually raster graphics with the same size as the display resolution (for example 1024×768 pixels, or 1280×1024 pixels) in order to fill the whole background. Many screen resolutions are proportional, so an image scaled to fit in a different-sized screen will often be the correct shape, albeit that scaling may impact quality. PNG and JPEG format are common.
Users with widescreen (16:9 or 16:10) monitors have different aspect ratio requirements for wallpaper, although images designed for standard (4:3) monitors can often be scaled or cropped to the correct shape without loss of quality.
Wallpapers are sometimes available in double-width versions (e.g. 2560×1024) for displaying on multi-monitor computers, where the image appears to fill two monitors. Digital Blasphemy is one of the main sources for multi-monitor wallpapers.
Smaller images can be tiled (repeated) to fill large areas, and depending on how skilfully the wallpaper was created, the effect can look reasonably good. However, if the join is too obvious, or the image repeats too many times, it will look very repetitive.
With the increase in color screen mobile phones, wallpapers are starting to appear scaled to their lower resolution. These are often sold at a high profit to telephone users, although some phones have software which allows images to be uploaded from a computer. Mobile telephones with cameras can often use images from the camera, or from a received image, as the wallpaper.
Most display systems are capable of specifying a single-colour to use as the background in place of a wallpaper, and some (such as KDE) allow colour-gradients to be specified. MS Windows 9x systems allow using editable repeating two-color 8x8 tiles for background.
From version 3.4, KDE supports vector wallpaper in SVG format. This has the advantage that a single file may be used for screens of any size, or stretched across several screens, without loss of quality.
Styles
Wallpaper styles are as varied as people themselves, using photographs, drawings, 3D renders or abstract pattern with complex gradients. It can be useful to have plain areas so that icons can be clearly seen atop the wallpaper.
Typical categories can include cars, models and celebrities, holiday photos, abstract art, movies, pets, symmetrical and scenery.
In business use, corporate logos or plain backgrounds are often specified by the IT department.
When using rack mounted computers through a keyboard switch, it can often be useful to create a wallpaper with the computer's name on it, to easily identify which computer you're connected to.
Timed wallpapers
Some operating environments (e.g. KDE and Mac OS X) allow a number of different wallpapers to be used, and "rotated" to display a different wallpaper at different times, to display a random image from a directory. If the facility is not available in the OS' wallpaper settings, it may be possible to get an external program which can change the wallpaper at certain times.
Active wallpapers
Programs such as xplanet and EarthDesk use Internet connections and graphics calculations to change the wallpaper with real data, such as a shadowed view of the earth, the latest cloud or weather map, or various events. Some media players can redirect video playback to desktop, allowing using any video as a wallpaper. Other tools (for example WireChanger) can add to wallpaper interactive widgets like calendar, notes, RSS feed or generate wallpaper image using various algorithms.
Setting the wallpaper on a computer
- Fluxbox: Use the fbsetbg command to specify a wallpaper.
- GNOME: gnome-control-center shows the control panel, with options for wallpaper, or right-click on the background to select the wallpaper directly.
- IceWM: Needs to be done in the theme config file.
- KDE: kcontrol shows the control panel, with options for wallpaper, or right-click on the background to select the wallpaper directly.
- Mac OS X: Use the Desktop or Desktop & Screensaver panel in System Preferences, or control-click the desktop and choose 'Change Desktop Background'.
- Mac OS: Use the Desktop tab of the Appearance control panel in versions 8.5-9.2, the Desktop Pictures control panel in versions 8.0-8.1, the Desktop Patterns control panel in versions 7.5-7.6, or the General Controls control panel in earlier versions.
- Windows XP/2000/9x: Start, Run, Control panel, Display, or right-click on the background and select "Properties".
- WindowMaker: Use the wmsetbg command to specify a wallpaper.
Web browsers and image viewers often have the ability to set an image as the desktop background if you right-click it or choose a menu option.