Creating your own wallpapers

Desktop wallpaper in MineOS is simple GUI object that is managed by the system. Wallpapers are small applications which providing drawing method for this object and (if needed) a configuration method for the settings app.

Creating your own wallpapers

If you want to make custom wallpaper for your beautiful system, start by creating a new directory with extension .wlp under the /Wallpapers/. For example, i will create /Wallpapers/Random.wlp.

The only required file here is Main.lua. System will automatically run it and pass 2 objects - workspace and wallpaper itself, so you can define your own draw function and use Screen API to create masterpieces.

Let's see an example:

local screen = require("Screen")

-------------------------------------------------------

-- Obtain system workspace & wallpaper objects
local workspace, wallpaper = select(1, ...), select(2, ...)

local points = {}
local limit = 20
local backgroundColor = 0x0F0F0F
local pointColor = 0xFFFFFF

-- Define custom draw function
wallpaper.draw = function()
  -- Spawn new point
  table.insert(points, {
    x = math.random(0, wallpaper.width  - 1),
    y = math.random(0, wallpaper.height - 1)
  })

  -- Remove first point if limit was reached
  if #points > limit then
    table.remove(points, 1, #points - limit)
  end

  -- Clear area
  screen.drawRectangle(wallpaper.x, wallpaper.y, wallpaper.width, wallpaper.height, backgroundColor, 0, " ")

  -- Draw points
  for i = 1, #points do
    screen.set(wallpaper.x + points[i].x, wallpaper.y + points[i].y, pointColor, 0, " ")
  end
end

Integration with Settings app

You'll probably want to control the behavior and appearance of wallpaper via GUI. For these purposes, we've developed an interface that allows you to add custom controls to the Wallpaper tab of default Settings app.

Just define configure function, which takes GUI.layout instance as first argument. You can fill it with buttons, sliders, comboxes - anything that needs to be shown when user goes to settings.

Let's improve our script:

local screen = require("Screen")
local system = require("System")
local filesystem = require("Filesystem")
local GUI = require("GUI")

-------------------------------------------------------

-- Obtain system workspace & wallpaper objects
local workspace, wallpaper = select(1, ...), select(2, ...)

-- Define a path to store the wallpaper config file
-- For convenience, we can do it directly with Main.lua script
local configPath = filesystem.path(system.getCurrentScript()) .. "Config.cfg"

-- Read config if it exists or create default one otherwise
local config =
  filesystem.exists(configPath) and
  filesystem.readTable(configPath) or
  {
    backgroundColor = 0x0F0F0F,
    pointColor = 0xFFFFFF
  }

-- Define function to save config table
local function saveConfig()
  filesystem.writeTable(configPath, config)
end

local limit = 20
local points = {}

-- Define custom draw function
wallpaper.draw = function()
  -- Spawn new point
  table.insert(points, {
    x = math.random(0, wallpaper.width  - 1),
    y = math.random(0, wallpaper.height - 1)
  })

  -- Remove first point if limit was reached
  if #points > limit then
    table.remove(points, 1, #points - limit)
  end

  -- Clear area
  screen.drawRectangle(wallpaper.x, wallpaper.y, wallpaper.width, wallpaper.height, config.backgroundColor, 0, " ")

  -- Draw points
  for i = 1, #points do
    screen.set(wallpaper.x + points[i].x, wallpaper.y + points[i].y, config.pointColor, 0, " ")
  end
end

-- Define a function that will populate settings layout with some controls
wallpaper.configure = function(layout)
  -- Add selector for the background color
  layout:addChild(GUI.colorSelector(1, 1, 36, 3, config.backgroundColor, "Background color")).onColorSelected = function(_, selector)
    config.backgroundColor = selector.color

    -- Save config to file when parameter has changed
    saveConfig()
  end

  -- Add selector for the point color
  layout:addChild(GUI.colorSelector(1, 1, 36, 3, config.pointColor, "Point color")).onColorSelected = function(_, selector)
    config.pointColor = selector.color
    saveConfig()
  end
end