Wallpaper Carousel

Based on the original wallpaper picker by ilyamiro.

A DankMaterialShell and Noctalia plugin that lets you browse and pick wallpapers from a fullscreen skewed carousel overlay.

About

Wallpaper Carousel scans your current wallpaper directory and displays all images in an animated 3D-skewed carousel. Navigate with keyboard or mouse, press Enter to apply. Thumbnails are pre-cached in memory at boot for instant opening.

This plugin integrates with all shell features — selecting a wallpaper updates the shell wallpaper, color scheme, and wallpaper animations configured in the shell.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/39bcde76-7d7b-40c0-a083-3b8961edf10b

Credits

Original wallpaper picker by ilyamiro.

Wallpaper collection in the screenshot/video from Andreas Rocha.

Install

Note: Your shell (Noctalia or DankMaterialShell) must be managing your wallpaper for this plugin to work. It does not work with external wallpaper engines (e.g. swww, swaybg, hyprpaper). Enable wallpaper management in DMS Settings → Wallpaper or Noctalia Settings → Wallpaper.

Plugin manager (Dank Material Shell)

The plugin can be installed from the plugin browser in DankMaterialShell.

Manual install

DankMaterialShell

1. Download the latest archive from the Releases page
2. Extract it into your DMS plugins directory:

   tar xf wallpaperCarousel-*.tar.gz -C "${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/DankMaterialShell/plugins/"
   

3. Open DankMaterialShell Settings → Plugins and enable Wallpaper Carousel

Noctalia v4

1. Extract the archive into ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/noctalia/plugins/
2. Open Noctalia Settings → Plugins and enable Wallpaper Carousel

Noctalia v5

Noctalia v5 is a native C++ shell and no longer embeds Quickshell. qs (Quickshell ≥ 0.3) must be on your PATH.

1. Extract the archive into ${XDG_DATA_HOME:-$HOME/.local/share}/noctalia/plugins/ so that plugin.toml sits at .../noctalia/plugins/wallpaperCarousel/plugin.toml
2. Open Noctalia Settings → Plugins and enable Wallpaper Carousel
3. Toggle it from Control Center's shortcut grid, or bind a key (see below)

Settings live in Noctalia Settings → Plugins → Wallpaper Carousel. The overlay process starts on first use; enable Start With The Shell if you would rather pay that cost at login and have the first open be instant.

IPC Commands

DMS

Control the carousel via DMS IPC:

Command	Description
dms ipc wallpaperCarousel toggle	Open or close the overlay
dms ipc wallpaperCarousel open	Open the overlay
dms ipc wallpaperCarousel close	Close the overlay
dms ipc wallpaperCarousel cycleNext	Open (if closed) and highlight next wallpaper
dms ipc wallpaperCarousel cyclePrevious	Open (if closed) and highlight previous wallpaper

Noctalia v4

Control the carousel via Quickshell IPC:

Command	Description
qs -c noctalia-shell ipc call wallpaperCarousel toggle	Open or close the overlay
qs -c noctalia-shell ipc call wallpaperCarousel open	Open the overlay
qs -c noctalia-shell ipc call wallpaperCarousel close	Close the overlay
qs -c noctalia-shell ipc call wallpaperCarousel cycleNext	Open (if closed) and highlight next wallpaper
qs -c noctalia-shell ipc call wallpaperCarousel cyclePrevious	Open (if closed) and highlight previous wallpaper

Noctalia v5

Commands go to the plugin's service, which starts the overlay process on demand. An optional trailing argument names the output to open on; without one the focused output is used.

Command	Description
noctalia msg plugin yngwe/wallpaperCarousel:service all toggle	Open or close the overlay
noctalia msg plugin yngwe/wallpaperCarousel:service all open	Open the overlay
noctalia msg plugin yngwe/wallpaperCarousel:service all close	Close the overlay
noctalia msg plugin yngwe/wallpaperCarousel:service all next	Open (if closed) and highlight next wallpaper
noctalia msg plugin yngwe/wallpaperCarousel:service all prev	Open (if closed) and highlight previous wallpaper

cycleNext and cyclePrevious are accepted as aliases for next and prev, so keybindings carried over from the DMS/v4 builds keep working unchanged. | noctalia msg plugin yngwe/wallpaperCarousel:service all quit | Shut the overlay process down |

Keyboard shortcuts (when open): ← / → to navigate, Enter to apply, Escape to close.

Example Compositor Keybindings

Niri

In ~/.config/niri/config.kdl:

binds {
    // DankMaterialShell
    Mod+W { spawn "dms" "ipc" "wallpaperCarousel" "toggle"; }
    Mod+Shift+Right { spawn "dms" "ipc" "wallpaperCarousel" "cycleNext"; }
    Mod+Shift+Left { spawn "dms" "ipc" "wallpaperCarousel" "cyclePrevious"; }

    // Noctalia v5
    Mod+W { spawn "noctalia" "msg" "plugin" "yngwe/wallpaperCarousel:service" "all" "toggle"; }
    Mod+Shift+Right { spawn "noctalia" "msg" "plugin" "yngwe/wallpaperCarousel:service" "all" "next"; }
    Mod+Shift+Left { spawn "noctalia" "msg" "plugin" "yngwe/wallpaperCarousel:service" "all" "prev"; }
}

Hyprland

In ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf:

# DankMaterialShell
bind = SUPER, W, exec, dms ipc wallpaperCarousel toggle
bind = SUPER SHIFT, Right, exec, dms ipc wallpaperCarousel cycleNext
bind = SUPER SHIFT, Left, exec, dms ipc wallpaperCarousel cyclePrevious

# Noctalia v5
bind = SUPER, W, exec, noctalia msg plugin yngwe/wallpaperCarousel:service all toggle
bind = SUPER SHIFT, Right, exec, noctalia msg plugin yngwe/wallpaperCarousel:service all next
bind = SUPER SHIFT, Left, exec, noctalia msg plugin yngwe/wallpaperCarousel:service all prev