![Computer monitor screen image simulated](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Computer_monitor_screen_image_simulated.jpg)
A wallpaper or background (also known as a desktop background, desktop picture or desktop image on computers) is a digital image (photo, drawing etc.) used as a decorative background of a
graphical user interface
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
on the screen of a
computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...
,
smartphone
A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
or other electronic device. On a computer, wallpapers are generally used on the
desktop
A desktop traditionally refers to:
* The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor)
Desktop may refer to various compu ...
, while on a
mobile phone
A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
they serve as the background for the ''home screen''. Though most devices come with a default background image, modern devices usually allow users to manually change the background image.
The term "
wallpaper
Wallpaper is a material used in interior decoration to decorate the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as "lining paper" (so t ...
" was used in
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
before
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
(where it is called the "desktop background"), while
macOS
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
refers to it as "desktop picture". On older systems which allowed small repeated patterns to be set as background images, the term desktop pattern was used.
History
The
X Window System
The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems.
X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wit ...
was one of the earliest systems to include support for an arbitrary image as wallpaper via the xsetroot program, which at least as early as the X10R3 release in 1985 could tile the screen with any solid color or any
binary-image X BitMap
In computer graphics, the X Window System used X BitMap (XBM), a plain text binary image format, for storing cursor and icon bitmaps used in the X GUI. The XBM format is superseded by XPM, which first appeared for X11 in 1989.
Format
XBM files ...
file. In 1989, a
free software
Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...
program called was released that allowed an arbitrary color
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...
image to be used as wallpaper, and in the same year the free xloadimage program was released which could display a variety of image formats (including color images in
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...
Rasterfile format) as the desktop background. Subsequently, a number of programs were released that added wallpaper support for additional image formats and other features, such as the xpmroot program (released in 1993 as part of
fvwm
The F Virtual Window Manager is a virtual window manager for the X Window System. Originally a twm derivative, FVWM has evolved into a powerful and highly configurable environment for Unix-like systems.
History
In 1993, during his work analyzin ...
) and the
xv software (released in 1994).
The original Macintosh operating system only allowed a selection of 8×8-pixel binary-image tiled patterns; the ability to use small color patterns was added in
System 5 in 1987.
Mac OS 8
Mac OS 8 is an operating system that was released by Apple Computer on July 26, 1997. It includes the largest overhaul of the classic Mac OS experience since the release of System 7, approximately six years before. It places a greater emphasis on ...
in 1997 was the first Macintosh version to include built-in support for using arbitrary images as desktop pictures, rather than small repeating patterns.
Windows 3.0
Windows 3.0 is the third major release of Microsoft Windows, launched in 1990. It features a new graphical user interface (GUI) where applications are represented as clickable icons, as opposed to the list of file names seen in its predecesso ...
in 1990 was the first version of Microsoft Windows to come with support for wallpaper customization, and used the term "wallpaper" for this feature. Although Windows 3.0 only came with 7 small patterns (2 black-and-white and 5 16-color), the user could supply other images in the
BMP file format
The BMP file format, also known as bitmap image file, device independent bitmap (DIB) file format and bitmap, is a raster graphics image file format used to store bitmap digital images, independently of the display device (such as a graphics adapt ...
with up to
8-bit color
8-bit color graphics are a method of storing image information in a computer's memory or in an image file, so that each pixel is represented by 8 bits (1 byte). The maximum number of colors that can be displayed at any one time is 256 or 28.
Color ...
(although the system was theoretically capable of handling
24-bit color
In computer architecture, 4-bit integers, or other data units are those that are 4 bits wide. Also, 4-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) architectures are those that are based on registers, or data buses of that siz ...
images, it did so by
dithering
Dither is an intentionally applied form of noise used to randomize quantization error, preventing large-scale patterns such as color banding in images. Dither is routinely used in processing of both digital audio and video data, and is often ...
them to an 8-bit
palette) to provide similar wallpaper features otherwise lacking in those systems. A wallpaper feature was added in a
beta release
A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...
of OS/2 2.0 in 1991.
Due to the widespread use of
personal computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
s, some wallpapers have become immensely recognizable and gained iconic cultural status. ''
Bliss
BLISS is a system programming language developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) by W. A. Wulf, D. B. Russell, and A. N. Habermann around 1970. It was perhaps the best known system language until C debuted a few years later. Since then, C b ...
'', the default wallpaper of
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
has become the most viewed
photograph
A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...
of the 2000s.
Animated backgrounds
![Animated Wallpaper Windows 10 - Wallpaper Engine](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Animated_Wallpaper_Windows_10_-_Wallpaper_Engine.gif)
Animated backgrounds (sometimes referred to as ''live backgrounds'' or ''dynamic backgrounds'') refers to wallpapers which feature a moving image or a 2D / 3D scene as an operating system background rather than a static image, it may also refer to wallpapers being cycled in a playlist, often with certain transition effects. Some operating systems, such as
Android, provide native support for animated wallpapers.
Microsoft
Windows
Since
Windows 7
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...
, modern
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
systems can be configured to cycle through pictures from a folder at regular intervals. Windows does not natively support animated backgrounds, however, third-party software can be installed to have full support for placing animated images, video files, 2D or 3D scenes, and web pages as wallpapers. Similar functionality could be found in the
Active Desktop
Active Desktop was a feature of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0's optional Windows Desktop Update that allowed users to add HTML content to the desktop, along with some other features. This function was intended to be installed on the then-curre ...
feature of
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Microsoft Wind ...
versions
4 to
6, which is included in
Windows 95 OSR 2.5 through
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
.
Google
Android
Live wallpapers have been introduced in
Android Eclair
Android Eclair is a codename of the Android mobile operating system developed by Google, the fifth operating system for Android and the second major release of Android. Eclair spans the versions 2.0.x and 2.1. Unveiled on October 26, 2009, Andro ...
to provide native support for animated wallpapers. From a technical point of view, live wallpapers are software applications that provide a moving background image and may allow for user interaction or utilize other hardware and software features within the device (accelerometer, GPS, network access, etc.).
Apple
macOS
macOS
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
has built-in support, via the Desktop & Screen Saver panel in its System Preferences, for cycling through a folder collection of images on a timed interval or when logging in or waking from sleep. Since
macOS Mojave
macOS Mojave ( ; version 10.14) is the fifteenth software versioning, major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. Mojave was announced at Apple's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Worldwide Devel ...
, the user can also select a "Dynamic Desktop" that automatically updates to visually match the time of the day.
Additionally, macOS has the native ability to run a
screen saver
Screen Savers or screensaver or ''variation'', may refer to:
* Screensaver, computer programs intended to preserve CRT monitors from "burn-in"
** GNOME ''Screensaver'', GNOME Project's screen blanking tool
** Google Pack ''Screensaver'', a termi ...
on the desktop; in this configuration, the screen saver appears beneath the desktop icons in place of the system wallpaper. However, macOS does not come with a built-in interface to do this; it must be done through
Terminal
Terminal may refer to:
Computing Hardware
* Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together
* Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line
* Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output devic ...
commands or various third-party applications.
Set a Screen Saver as the Desktop Background , Terminal
Mac OS X Tips (2006-11-09). Retrieved on 2013-07-21.
iOS
Dynamically animated backgrounds have also been introduced in iOS 7
iOS 7 is the seventh major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iOS 6. It was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 10, 2013, and was released on September 18 o ...
and later versions, however they are restricted to the ones provided by Apple. Jailbroken iOS devices can download other dynamic backgrounds.
Linux / Unix
Linux distributions
A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...
usually provides their own original backgrounds as well. For example, Debian
Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of D ...
put many alternative backgrounds under its system's /usr/share/backgrounds directory.
GNOME
GNOME
A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...
2 also can be set to cycle through pictures from a folder at regular intervals, similarly to Windows 7.
MATE
MATE
Mate may refer to:
Science
* Mate, one of a pair of animals involved in:
** Mate choice, intersexual selection
** Mating
* Multi-antimicrobial extrusion protein, or MATE, an efflux transporter family of proteins
Person or title
* Friendship ...
also provides various wallpapers, usually in system's /usr/share/backgrounds/mate directory.
KDE
KDE
KDE is an international Free software movement, free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-know ...
version 4 and later provide various dynamic wallpapers, including a slideshow, and other options provided by plugins, such as fractals and Earth map.
Enlightenment
Enlightenment v17 supports image sequences, animated and interactive desktop backgrounds in its default configuration.
See also
* Wallpaper group
A wallpaper is a mathematical object covering a whole Euclidean plane by repeating a motif indefinitely, in manner that certain isometries keep the drawing unchanged. To a given wallpaper there corresponds a group of such congruent transformatio ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Computer Wallpaper
Graphical user interface elements
Desktop environments