🌌 ZeroWall — Dynamic Multi-Monitor Wallpaper Studio

Modern, high-performance Windows desktop wallpaper orchestrator with per-monitor management, rich curated online providers, frosted glass photo metadata watermarking, and dynamic scheduling.

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📖 Overview

ZeroWall is a precision wallpaper management studio engineered for multi-monitor setups and aesthetic desktops. Part of the sovereign ZeroUniverse application suite, it couples direct Win32 COM IDesktopWallpaper topology control with hardware-accelerated SkiaSharp metadata rendering and curated online art providers.

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🌟 Key Features

• 🎨 7 Rich Wallpaper Sources:

  • Pexels API: Hand-curated professional photography tagged by themes (nature, cyberpunk, architecture, minimal, space, ocean). Pre-configured ready-to-use API key included.
  • Bing Daily 4K: Official Microsoft Bing daily high-resolution landscape photography.
  • Wallhaven: World's leading repository for high-resolution 2K/4K/8K anime, digital art, cyberpunk, and fantasy artwork.
  • NASA APOD: Astronomy Picture of the Day from Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes with deep space annotations.
  • Unsplash Photos: Stunning real-world high-resolution photography from global contributors.
  • Reddit Wallpapers: Top upvoted submissions from r/wallpapers, r/EarthPorn, r/spaceporn, r/AnimeWallpaper, and custom subreddits.
  • Local Folder: Randomize and loop your own personal photo library with multi-format support (.jpg, .jpeg, .png, .webp, .bmp).

• 🖥️ Per-Monitor Multi-Display Topology:

  • Direct Win32 COM integration (IDesktopWallpaper) allows independent rotation for each connected display.
  • Assign distinct keywords, categories, or providers per monitor (e.g., Cyberpunk on Monitor 1, NASA Space on Monitor 2).
  • Supports Synced (single shared picture), Per-Monitor (individual photos), and Span (across physical screens).

• ⚡ Master-Detail 2-Column UX & Instant Preview:

  • Left column visual list of providers; right column instant configuration panel.
  • ⚡ Test Sample Preview: Test queries and API keys with 1-click preview directly inside the app without changing your current Windows desktop wallpaper.

• ⏱️ Live Countdown Timer & Dynamic Scheduling:

  • Fine-grained switch frequency slider ranging from 1 to 1440 minutes.
  • Quick-preset pills for instant interval switching (15m, 30m, 1h, 2h, 4h, 24h).
  • Real-time live countdown indicator in the bottom status bar (⏱️ Next switch in: 14m 32s).

• 🖼️ Spotlight Frosted Glass Desktop Watermark:

  • High-performance SkiaSharp rendering pipeline draws an elegant frosted glass pill badge at the bottom corner of your wallpaper.
  • Displays the photograph's title, artist, and provider source in native screen resolution without blur or distortion.

• 💾 Smart Rolling Cache & Favorites:

  • FIFO auto-purging cache prevents disk clutter while enabling smooth offline rotations.
  • 1-click Add to Favorites copies full-resolution images into your dedicated collection.
  • Blacklist capability ensures unwanted wallpapers never appear again.

• 🌐 Instant Bilingual Localization:

  • On-the-fly switching between Bilingual (English / Tiếng Việt), English, and Tiếng Việt across the entire UI without restarting.

• 🛸 Silent Background & System Tray Operation:

  • Clean minimization to Windows System Tray.
  • Right-click tray menu provides quick actions: Change Wallpaper Now, Previous Wallpaper, Pause / Resume, Open Favorites, Settings, Exit.

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🏗️ Architecture

ZeroWall/
├── Assets/                 # High-resolution icons and branding assets
├── Common/                 # WPF Converters, RelayCommands, AsyncRelayCommand
├── Models/                 # Configuration, Monitor info, Metadata, Enums
├── Providers/              # Modular image providers (Pexels, Wallhaven, Bing, Nasa, Unsplash, Reddit, Local)
│   ├── IImageProvider.cs
│   └── ImageProviderFactory.cs
├── Services/               # Core business services
│   ├── WallpaperManager.cs         # Win32 IDesktopWallpaper COM interop
│   ├── Scheduler.cs                # Interval timer, countdown, and rotation loop
│   ├── WatermarkService.cs         # SkiaSharp frosted glass badge compositor
│   ├── CacheManager.cs             # FIFO rolling cache and Favorites management
│   ├── BlacklistManager.cs         # SQLite/JSON image blacklisting
│   ├── LocalizationManager.cs      # Bilingual runtime localization dictionary
│   └── TrayIconService.cs          # WinForms NotifyIcon system tray integration
├── ViewModels/             # MVVM ViewModels
│   ├── MainViewModel.cs            # Primary application state and commands
│   └── MonitorItemViewModel.cs     # Per-monitor card state and individual actions
└── Views / MainWindow.xaml # ZeroUI Dark Theme High-Contrast XAML Interface

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🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Windows 10 (build 1809 or later) or Windows 11
• .NET 8 SDK (or .NET 8 Desktop Runtime)

Clone and Run

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/kzxl/ZeroWall.git
cd ZeroWall

# Run development build
dotnet run

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📦 Publishing & Deployment

ZeroWall supports two deployment options:

1. Lite (Framework-Dependent Single File)

Requires .NET 8 Desktop Runtime installed on the machine. Small footprint (~15MB).

dotnet publish -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained false -p:PublishSingleFile=true -o ./publish/lite

2. Full (Self-Contained Single File)

Standalone executable. Can be copied and run on any modern Windows 64-bit PC without installing .NET Runtime.

dotnet publish -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained true -p:PublishSingleFile=true -o ./publish/full

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. Part of the ZeroUniverse ecosystem.