winwal

A wrapper around pywal/pywal16 for Windows.

Art from wallpaperhub

Dependencies

Only 1 backend is needed to get started, but each backend will provide slightly different color schemes.

pywal supports more backends, but I have not tried figuring them all out on Windows yet.

Use pip to install:

• pywal16
• colorthief
• colorz (does not install on arm64 versions of Python on Windows)
• haishoku

For wal Backend, install ImageMagick and add the install directory to your path:

winget install imagemagick.imagemagick

Windows on ARM64 Please install the static version of ImageMagick from their downloads to avoid issues.

For schemer2 backend, install Go and run:

go install github.com/thefryscorer/schemer2@latest

PowerShell-Core winget install -e Microsoft.PowerShell

Note: PowerShell versions less that 6 don't support JSON with comments

winget install Python.Python.3.13
pip install pywal colorthief colorz haishoku

Installing

Clone the repository and update your powershell profile to have:

Import-Module .\path\to\winwal.psm1

To open your profile with code:

code $profile

Using

To update wal cache Windows Terminal Color Scheme using the current wallpaper:

Update-WalTheme

To use a different backend with the current wallpaper:

Update-WalTheme -Backend haishoku

To update wal cache, Windows Terminal Color Scheme, and set the desktop wallpaper:

Update-WalTheme -Image .\path\to\new\background.jpg

Notes: winwal will download ColorTool and use it to set the new default color schemes to cmd.exe.

Keep WSL in sync

In WSL, you can symlink the wal cache directory to the Windows directory:

ln -s /mnt/c/Users/username/.cache/wal ~/.cache/wal

There's also instructions in pywal on setting up your dot files that need to be followed (look for .bashrc instructions).

VS Code Plugins Used

• wal-theme - Wal Theme for VS Code
• GlassIt-VSC - Transparency for VS Code

Recommended PowerShell Modules

• Terminal-Icons (requires using a nerd font)
• oh-my-posh