Editing Wallpaper (computing) (section)

==History==
[[Image:original-wallpaper.png|frame|Original computer wallpaper pattern, as used in Xerox's Officetalk and [[Xerox Star|Star]]]]

The [[X Window System]] 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]] file. In 1989, a [[free software]] program called {{Not a typo|xgifroot}} was released that allowed an arbitrary color [[GIF]] 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 Microsystems|Sun]] 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]]) and the [[xv (software)|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 [[Classic Mac OS#System Software 5|System 5]] in 1987.<ref>Robert R. Wiggins, "All systems go. (Software Review) (System Tools 5.0 with MultiFinder.)", ''MacUser'' (1 March 1988)</ref>  [[Mac OS 8]] in 1997 was the first Macintosh version to include built-in support for using arbitrary images as desktop pictures, rather than small repeating patterns.<ref>Franklin N. Tessler, "Mac OS 8 arrives," ''Macworld'' (1 September 1997)</ref>

[[Windows 3.0]] in 1990 was the first version of Microsoft Windows to feature support for wallpaper customization, and used the term "wallpaper" for this feature.<ref>Gus Venditto, "Windows 3.0 brings icons, multitasking, and ends DOS's 640k program limit," ''PC Magazine'' (1 July 1990)</ref> 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]] with up to [[8-bit color]] (although the system was theoretically capable of handling [[24-bit color]] images, it did so by [[dithering]] them to an 8-bit [[Palette (computing)|palette]])<ref>[[Charles Petzold]], "Working with 24-bit color bitmaps for Windows," ''PC Magazine'' (10 September 1991)</ref> to provide similar wallpaper features otherwise lacking in those systems.  A wallpaper feature was added in a [[beta release]] of OS/2 2.0 in 1991.<ref>Wendy Goldman, "New version may tiop scales in IBM's favor over DOS, Windows: A look at OS/2 2.0," ''Computer Reseller News'' (24 June 1991)</ref>

Due to the widespread use of [[personal computer]]s, some wallpapers have become immensely recognizable and gained iconic cultural status. ''[[Bliss (image)|Bliss]]'', the default wallpaper of Windows XP, has become the most viewed [[photograph]] of the 2000s.<ref name="St. Helena Star story">{{cite news |last = Sweeney |first = Cynthia |title = Say goodbye to 'Bliss' |newspaper = [[St. Helena Star]] |url = http://napavalleyregister.com/star/lifestyles/say-goodbye-to-bliss/article_2c485132-b504-11e3-85ef-0019bb2963f4.html |access-date = May 19, 2014 |date = March 26, 2014 |archive-date = October 24, 2015 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151024191442/http://napavalleyregister.com/star/lifestyles/say-goodbye-to-bliss/article_2c485132-b504-11e3-85ef-0019bb2963f4.html |url-status = live }}</ref>