GLava

GLava is an (in development) OpenGL audio spectrum visualizer. Its primary use case is for desktop widgets or backgrounds. Displayed to the left is the radial shader module running in GLava.

Compiling (Or use the glava-git AUR package):

$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/wacossusca34/glava
$ cd glava
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ glava

You can pass BUILD=debug to the makefile for debug builds of both glad and glava, and you can manually specify install targets with INSTALL=..., possible arguments are unix for FHS compliant Linux and BSD distros, osx for Mac OSX, and standalone which allows you to run GLava in the build directory.

Requirements:

• X11
• PulseAudio
• GLFW 3.2+
• Linux or BSD

Additional compile time requirements:

• glad (included as a submodule)
• python (required to generate bindings with glad)
• GCC (this program uses GNU C features)

Configuration

GLava will start by looking for an entry point in the user configuration folder (~/.config/glava/rc.glsl*), and will fall back to loading from the shader installation folder (/etc/xdg/glava*). The entry point will specify a module to load and should set global configuration variables. Configuration for specific modules can be done in their respective .glsl files, which the module itself will include.

You should start by running glava --copy-config. This will copy over default configuration files and create symlinks to modules in your user config folder. GLava will either load system configuration files or the user provided ones, so it's not advised to copy these files selectively.

To embed GLava in your desktop (for EWMH compliant window managers), use #request setxwintype "desktop" and then position it accordingly with #request setgeometry x y width height. You may want to also use #request setforcegeometry true for some window managers.

* On an XDG compliant Linux or BSD system. OSX will use /Library/glava and ~/Library/Preferences/glava instead.

Note for #request setopacity: While most users will prefer the faster xroot transparency, GLFW 3.3 (unreleased) is needed in order to support the native transparency option (older versions still work). Arch users can install glfw-x11-git from the AUR and recompile GLava for this feature.

Compatibility with #request setxwintype "desktop":

GLava aims to be compatible with most EWMH compliant window managers. Below is a list of common window managers and issues specific to them for trying to get GLava to behave as a desktop window or widget:

WM	Status	Details
GNOME (on X11)	Works	No notable issues
Openbox (LXDE or standalone)	Works*	Untested, but should work without issues
Xfwm (XFCE)	Works*	Untested, but should work without issues
Fluxbox	Works*	Untested, but should work without issues
iceWM	Works	No notable issues
kwin (KDE)	Problems	Issues with workspaces and stacking, needs further testing
i3 (and i3-gaps)	Problems	i3 does not respect the "desktop" window type
EXWM	Problems	EXWM does not have a desktop, and forces window decorations
AwesomeWM	Problems	Requires the WM to be restarted (Super + Ctl + R) in order for new desktop windows to behave correctly, may require other changes to config depending on layout
Unity	Unknown	Needs testing
Enlightenment	Unknown	Needs testing
Bspwm	Unknown	Needs testing
Herbstluftwm	Unknown	Needs testing
xmonad	Unknown	Needs testing
Any non EWMH-compliant WM	Problems	Window types and hints will not work if the window manager does not support the EWMH standards.

Licensing

GLava is licensed under the terms of the GPLv3. GLava includes some (heavily modified) source code that originated from cava, which was initially provided under the MIT license. The source files that originated from cava are the following:

• [cava]/input/fifo.c -> [glava]/fifo.c
• [cava]/input/fifo.h -> [glava]/fifo.h
• [cava]/input/pulse.c -> [glava]/pulse_input.c
• [cava]/input/pulse.h -> [glava]/pulse_input.h

The below copyright notice applies for the original versions of these files:

Copyright (c) 2015 Karl Stavestrand <karl@stavestrand.no>

The modified files are relicensed under the terms of the GPLv3. The MIT license is included for your convience and to satisfy the requirements of the original license, although it (no longer) applies to any code in this repository. You will find the original copyright notice and MIT license in the LICENSE_ORIGINAL file.

The below copyright applies for the modifications to the files listed above, and the remaining sources in the repository:

Copyright (c) 2017 Levi Webb

Porting

GLava was built with GLFW, making the graphics frontend mostly compatible if it were to be ported to Windows, and I have taken all the Xlib-specific code and placed it into xwin.c if anyone decides they wish to attempt at a port.