BlurWal

A background application that smoothly blurs your wallpaper when a given number of windows is opened.

Example

dotfiles used in this example | Wallpaper by Ian Valerio

Feature(s)

BlurWal will first generate transition frames for the current wallpaper, with each of them being an increasingly blurred version. When you then open a given number of windows, these frames will be set as your wallpaper in quick succession, giving the effect of a smooth blur transition. When the number of open windows goes below the threshold again, the transition will run in reverse and consequently unblur the wallpaper.

tl;dr: A sleek-looking blur effect for your minimal desktop's wallpaper.

Installation

Requirements

• Python 3.6+
• ImageMagick (for generating transition frames)
• feh (for setting the wallpaper)

From PyPI repository

pip install --user blurwal

Manually via Git clone

git clone https://gitlab.com/BVollmerhaus/blurwal
cd blurwal
pip install --user .

Usage

Simply run blurwal and it will regenerate its transition frames and blur on the appropriate window events.

Options

This list includes only the interesting options – run blurwal -h for a complete list and further information.

Option	Description
-m, --min	The minimum number of windows to blur the wallpaper (default: 2)
-s, --steps	The number of steps in a blur transition (default: 10, minimum: 2)
-b, --blur	The blur strength (sigma) to use when fully blurred (default: 10)
-i, --ignore	A space-separated list of window classes to exclude

Additional thanks to

• Matthias Bräuer (Testing and Feedback)