Honeysuckle Wall
an Arts-and-Crafts wallpaper that keeps growing

What you see on every new tab

Honeysuckle Wall is a wallpaper that grows. Rust-red stems wind across a deep cobalt-blue ground, putting out flat chartreuse leaves on alternate sides and, at about one node in ten, a bud that opens into a white honeysuckle head with red throats and yellow stamens. Honeybees work the flowers.

Every tab opens with the wall already half grown, because the first 110 seconds are simulated before you see it. Then it keeps going: new tips push into bare patches, and once the wall is full, old vines yellow and fade to make room.

• Growing tips: Up to about fourteen tips grow at once on a 16:9 screen, each wandering in a slow curl toward the emptiest space and away from the edges. A finished stem ends in a last leaf and a curled tendril.
• Leaves: Leaves come every few steps on alternating sides and unfold over four seconds. Side branches split off at some nodes.
• Flowers: A bud opens over five seconds once a bee lands on it, through six stages from a tight red knot to a full head of flared white trumpets.
• Bees: About seven striped honeybees pick a bud, hover in a small figure-eight, land, groom and shuffle round, then hop to a nearby flower, walk onto a leaf or fly off in a puff of pollen. Some fly under the leaves, glimpsed through gaps.
• Renewal: When the leaves are dense enough, a vine in a crowded patch is retired: over thirty seconds it turns yellow and fades away with its branches.

It is drawn on a flat 2-D canvas, not in 3-D. Leaves, flower stages and bee bodies are painted once into small cached images, finished vines sit on a cached layer, and each frame goes to the graphics card as a single picture.

What it reacts to

• Mouse: Growing tips within about a third of the screen height lean toward the pointer, so you can coax the wall toward a corner. Bees flying close to it swerve away.
• Music: With music sync on, bass makes the vines grow up to 1.8 times faster, and a strong kick sends every resting bee into the air at once.
• Night: It has no night scene of its own. After sunset the extension lays a dark veil over the wall, up to sixty percent, and lifts it again at sunrise.

Free or Pro?Pro

Ambient New Tab is free to install, with five free themes. Honeysuckle Wall is a Pro theme. Pro is $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year, cancel anytime, or $59 once for Pro Forever, and it unlocks every Pro theme, music sync, and every new theme as we release it. You can preview Honeysuckle Wall full screen before you buy: open the Themes panel and rest your mouse on it. Changed your mind? 14-day refund, no questions.

How to get it

1. Add Ambient New Tab to Chrome.
2. Open a new tab and click the Themes pill in the bottom-right corner.
3. Pick Honeysuckle Wall. Done.

Questions

Does the wall ever fill up and stop?

No. New tips start only while the wall is below its target density, and near it the theme begins retiring old vines, choosing one in a crowded patch. As it yellows and fades, new tips grow in from the edges or sprout from a nearby stem into the gap.

Is Honeysuckle Wall free?

It is a Pro theme. Pro is $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year, cancel anytime, or $59 once for Pro Forever. It unlocks every Pro theme, music sync, and every new theme as it is released.

Do the flowers only open when a bee lands?

Mostly. A bud starts opening the moment a bee settles on it and is in full bloom five seconds later. If no bee reaches it within two and a half minutes, it opens on its own, so the wall never stays all buds.

Why is it flat instead of 3-D?

It is meant to read as Arts and Crafts wallpaper: flat leaves with drawn veins and outlines on a plain ground, with a little paper grain and a soft vignette. Drawing it with 2-D sprites also keeps it light, since settled vines are cached and redrawn only when they change.

Does it work on my phone?

No. It's a desktop browser extension for Chrome on Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS. If you're reading this on a phone, send yourself the link.

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