Wallpaper Engine seems to continue playing back your wallpaper, even when the screen is locked or the screensaver is active. This may not be desirable in some cases.
This program attempts to mitigate this, by launching a child process and using the application rules in Wallpaper Engine.
WallpaperSleep checks whether:
- Wallpaper Engine's screensaver is running every 3 seconds
- Windows is locked
If either are true, a child process (WallpaperSleep.ChildProcess.exe
) will be
launched, which can be used to trigger an application rule in Wallpaper Engine's
settings.
While Wallpaper Engine abides by the application rules, the screensaver ignores them. Thus, only the desktop wallpaper pauses.
- Both WallpaperSleep & Wallpaper Engine take a short while to pause & resume animations, as both applications only checks running processes every few seconds.
This program is only compatible with Windows.
- Install the .NET 6 Runtime or SDK
- Download the latest release
- Extract both files
- Run
WallpaperSleep.exe
Note that WallpaperSleep will no longer run when logging out or shutting down. View the Persistence section below to run WallpaperSleep upon startup.
- Open Wallpaper Engine's settings by clicking on its tray icon and selecting "Settings"
- Click on the "Edit" button right next to the application rules text
- Click on the "Create new rule" button
- Enter
WallpaperSleep.ChildProcess.exe
for the application name - Keep the condition set to "Is running"
- Choose any any wallpaper playback settings you desire
If you chose "Pause" you may notice how the Wallpaper Playback may be labeled "Paused per monitor". This is false: Wallpaper Engine pauses playback on all monitors, likely because WallpaperSleep doesn't create any windows.
From now on, Wallpaper Engine will pause playback whenever the screensaver is active or Windows is locked, whenever WallpaperSleep is running.
WallpaperSleep does not offer functionality to add itself to the startup. It can be done manually, though:
- Right click
WallpaperSleep.exe
-> Send to -> Desktop (create shortcut) - Navigate to
%appdata%\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
- Move the shortcut, created in step 1, into the Startup folder
Note that if you move the files to a different location, you will need to redo the shortcut.
Requirements:
- Git
- .NET 6 SDK
- Clone this repository
$ git clone https://github.com/MichailiK/WallpaperSleep.git
cd
to the directory & usedotnet publish
to create a release build:$ cd WallpaperSleep $ dotnet publish WallpaperSleep -c Release --output Publish
- If everything has gone well, you should find the executables in the
Publish
directory.