change name of clear arg to color

[exoess]

the name clear doesn't really make sense for just changing the background to a solid color, i recommend changing clear to making the background black, and having an arg color that requires a color after it and doesn't have a default

[LGFae]

I just realized that clear already does this. Maybe it's not been documented visibly enough. Calling just swww clear will make the background black by default. swww clear <color> will make the background whatever color you sent in.

So, I am not sure this is necessary at all.

[flick0]

imo its just an alternative to clear to set solid colors with transitions and cache, also #195 might seem unnecessary according to this issue but this idea originally started on discord with a conversation with op

[LGFae]

Ah, I see. Well, ok then. Let's go with it.

[hkupty]

Can I offer a different perspective?One could simplify here and take the same approach of grim + slurp. It might make sense to generate the bitmap/image in a separate process and pass it on to swww instead...

[LGFae]

Yeah, I think I like @hkupty's idea better. We can create the image straight in swww itself, consisting of one full static color. We get transitions and cache "for free".

That would actually even simplify some code in the daemon, because we could both merge Clear and Image requests into one.

The problem would only be how to cache it, because colors aren't associated with any filepath. But this should be easy: we store the image's fullpath in the cache right now, so all we have to do is:

• if it's a file, store its fullpath
• if it's a color, store its value, with a starting #.

Since no fullpath will ever start with # (as far as I know), we should be safe.

EDIT: ah, this is fact mostly what @flick0 already implemented in his PR. It's been a while since I had a look at this, so I had forgotten, my bad.

[flick0]

That does sound like a better idea, i can update this pr to move the image stuff to swww

[flick0]

sorry im a bit late to this, but dont we already do the image gen in swww instead of daemon lol

[LGFae]

we do??? I mean, in master we have:

        Swww::Clear(c) => {
            let (format, _, _) = get_format_dims_and_outputs(&[])?;
            let mut color = c.color;
            if format.must_swap_r_and_b_channels() {
                color.swap(0, 2);
            }
            let clear = ipc::ClearSend {
                color,
                outputs: split_cmdline_outputs(&c.outputs),
            };
            Ok(Some(RequestSend::Clear(clear.create_request())))
        }

So, right now we don't. Maybe in the PR you've already implemented it.

[flick0]

I didn't change the clear request but img generating and stuff happens in swww instead of daemon for color, we cud also alias clear