Wallpaper Engine

Wallpaper Engine draws its wallpapers on the Windows desktop, one wallpaper per display. A Nexus panel that is itself a display of the PC - the HYTE Y70 touch panel, or a monitor you promoted to a panel - can let that desktop show through, so the animated wallpaper plays behind the widgets. The switch is one setting, Backdrop, on the panel's Theme tab.

Phones, Q-Series screens, and USB display panels are not Windows displays. There is no desktop behind them to show, so the setting does not appear for them.

1. Give the panel's display a wallpaper

Windows treats the Y70, like any promoted monitor panel, as one more display, and Wallpaper Engine assigns wallpapers per display. In Wallpaper Engine, select the panel's display and choose the wallpaper you want under the widgets. If that display has no wallpaper of its own, the panel shows the plain Windows desktop background there instead.

2. Set the panel's Backdrop to Desktop

Open the panel under Devices in the dashboard sidebar and switch to the Theme tab. In the Background section, Backdrop picks what renders behind the widgets:

  • Theme - the panel's own background: a solid color, an animation, or uploaded media.
  • Wallpaper - redraws your desktop wallpaper behind the widgets. It copies the still picture Windows has set as its wallpaper, so an animated wallpaper does not move here.
  • Desktop - the live desktop shows through, animated wallpapers included.

Pick Desktop. The panel window closes and re-opens as a see-through window, and everything on that display's desktop - the Wallpaper Engine scene included - shows through wherever the panel paints nothing. On the Y70 you can make the same change on the glass: swipe up to open the tray, tap Settings, and find Backdrop in the Background section.

3. What changes under Desktop

  • Background Opacity disappears: there is no panel background left to dim.
  • Frosted glass is greyed out. The blur samples what the panel itself paints, and a see-through panel paints nothing behind the widgets.
  • Widget opacity still applies, so you can let the wallpaper show through the widget tiles as well.
  • On a secondary display, the taskbar is hidden while the panel is see-through, so it cannot show through the widgets. Your main taskbar, with Start and the notification area, is never touched: if the panel is your primary display, that taskbar stays and shows through.
  • Touch and clicks still land on the panel everywhere, including the see-through areas.

4. Keep the wallpaper running

  • Wallpaper Engine's Settings > Performance tab has playback rules for Other application focused, Other application maximized, and Other application fullscreen. If the wallpaper pauses once the panel is up, set the rule that trips to Keep running, or add an application rule for nexus-overlay.exe, the process that hosts the panel window.
  • Keep panel clear of other windows on the Y70's Settings tab sends stray windows back to your main monitor. It leaves the desktop layer alone, so the wallpaper stays where it is.
  • To go back, pick Theme or Wallpaper again: the panel re-opens as an opaque window and a hidden taskbar on that display returns.

Note

Wallpaper Engine runs on Windows, and so does the see-through panel window. The other backdrops work everywhere the panel does.

For the rest of the Theme tab - opacity, frost, accent, and the panel's own backgrounds - see Panel Appearance.