Product Lab Showcase
WallCore
Desktop wallpaper downloader for multi-source search, smart filters, and parallel downloads.
- Tech Stack
- SvelteKit Svelte 5 TypeScript Tauri v2 Rust Tailwind CSS Reqwest Tokio
- Project Type
- Personal Product Lab
Product Concept
How it works & why I built it
A premium desktop wallpaper downloader built as an optimized successor to my earlier WallpaperDownloader project, using SvelteKit and Tauri v2 for a faster, more polished native experience.
My Role & Engineering Scope
Product redesign, desktop UX, SvelteKit frontend, Tauri/Rust backend, provider integrations, download engine, security policy, and release workflow.
Problem
The original wallpaper downloader worked as a utility, but it needed a more modern UX, safer provider handling, and a stronger desktop download architecture.
Concept
WallCore turns wallpaper discovery into a focused desktop product with fast search, bulk actions, image previewing, and reliable multi-provider downloads.
Built
- SvelteKit desktop interface with dark glass panels, source badges, and keyboard-first navigation.
- Rust/Tauri command layer for provider search, proxied image loading, and streaming downloads.
- Provider-aware filtering, NSFW policy controls, retry behavior, and bulk download workflows.
Product Highlights
- Multi-source wallpaper search across Wallhaven, Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, and Bing.
- Parallel streaming downloads with retry logic, progress tracking, speed, and ETA.
- Provider-aware filters for resolution, aspect ratio, color, sort order, and safety settings.
Key Features
Multi-Source Search
Searches wallpapers across Wallhaven, Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, and Bing curated images.
Users can explore several sources from one desktop interface instead of jumping between websites.
Smart Provider Filters
Filters adapt by provider, including resolution, ratio, color, sorting, and safe-search behavior.
The UI exposes powerful search controls without pretending every provider supports the same options.
Parallel Download Engine
Downloads up to five wallpapers simultaneously with streaming, retry logic, and per-file progress.
Bulk downloads remain visible and recoverable instead of becoming silent background failures.
Image Viewer and More Like This
A full-resolution viewer supports proxied loading and related wallpaper discovery.
The product supports browsing and curation, not only one-off downloading.
UX Decisions
- Used a dark desktop-first interface with glass panels and blue source accents.
- Added keyboard shortcuts for search, source switching, selection, pagination, and downloads.
- Kept source badges visible so users always understand where a result comes from.
- Designed filters as provider-aware controls to avoid invalid or misleading options.
Engineering Decisions
- Used Tauri v2 so desktop behavior could run through a Rust backend instead of a browser-only download flow.
- Handled downloads with Reqwest streaming and Tokio concurrency guarded by a semaphore.
- Centralized API keys and provider opt-in flags through environment variables consumed by the backend.
- Added a strict content security policy and backend-level NSFW disable flag for restricted environments.
Challenges
- Normalizing different provider APIs and capabilities into one consistent search experience.
- Keeping high-volume downloads observable with retry handling, progress, speed, and ETA.
- Balancing a polished desktop UI with safer API key handling and provider compliance boundaries.
Outcome
Rebuilt an older wallpaper utility into a modern desktop product with stronger UX, safer configuration, and a more reliable Rust-powered download pipeline.