Sway: Proposal: only one swaybg instance for all outputs

[emersion]

Instead of starting one swaybg instance per output, only have one for all of them.

• This is more consistent with swaybar
• This removes the need for the compositor to (re-)spawn or kill swaybg when an output is hotplugged or when the config is updated
• This makes swaybg easier to run on other compositors

[ddevault]

+1

[ddevault]

We might also consider making the command line interface user-friendly

[ianyfan]

What about: swaybg -o <output> [-i <image> -m <mode> -c <color>] -o <another-output> etc. as CLI, with long options?

Also, would this mean that if no valid outputs are found, swaybg would continue to run in case a valid output is then hotplugged?

[ddevault]

+1

[ianyfan]

Unfortunately, my above suggestion would break any other programs that can currently be used as swaybg_command.

[emersion]

I don't think we want to keep the current swaybg CLI interface.

[ddevault]

We've never made any API stability promises about the swaybg interface. In fact...

[RedSoxFan]

This removes the need for the compositor to (re-)spawn or kill swaybg when an output is hotplugged or when the config is updated

If swaybg doesn't get (re-)spawned when the output config changes, wouldn't that require an IPC protocol or a wallpaper wayland protocol to obtain the change?

[emersion]

Yes. Let's keep it simple and restart on config change.