Guide

Put the habitat behind your desktop icons

Six hours of client work, one octopus. It may as well swim behind the spreadsheet. Lively Wallpaper and Wallpaper Engine can both turn a share link into a live Windows background. The habitat keeps drifting and new arrivals turn up on their own.

Start with the share link

Open the habitat you want on the desktop, then Share. Create a link if it does not have one yet, copy it, and paste it below. Only a Toiling Away habitat link works here. The link this page makes is the share link with?chrome=none on the end, which is what leaves the habitat filling the screen with no interface around it.

Free and open source

Lively Wallpaper

  1. 1. Install Lively Wallpaper.Get it from the Microsoft Store or theLively project page.
  2. 2. Add a wallpaper.Open Lively and press + Add Wallpaper.
  3. 3. Paste the wallpaper link.Use the link made above, then press Enter. There is no file to save and no project to unpack.

If you already own it

Wallpaper Engine

Wallpaper Engine wants an HTML file. This one contains no copy of the habitat. It opens the wallpaper link as the whole page, which is what leaves the habitat filling the screen.

  1. 1. Make the link above.The download button wakes up when the share link is valid.
  2. 2. Put the file in its own folder.Wallpaper Engine copies the folder around an imported web wallpaper. An empty folder stops it taking unrelated files along for the ride.
  3. 3. Import the HTML file.Open the Wallpaper Engine editor and drag the file ontoCreate Wallpaper.

What the wallpaper leaves out

The wallpaper link has no habitat name, owner, other habitats, invitation, camera controls or sound. It keeps the slow camera drift. A desktop should move without asking to be operated.

If you revoke the share link or issue a new one, the wallpaper says the habitat is no longer shared. Come back here with the new link and replace it.