Detect changes in dependent shader source files & trigger reload

[dgtized]

I've been using figwheel-main to wonderful effect for experimenting with Quil sketches. It's really a pleasant experience to save a file and immediately see the corresponding update in running animation, so thank you so much for this tool.

However, I've recently started experimenting using fragment shaders by way of http://quil.info/api/rendering/shaders#load-shader and sadly the workflow isn't so happy. Changes to a shader require a save of the GLSL shader file & then restarting or reloading the sketch. From my understanding, there are a couple major impediments to using this by way of Figwheel:

1. Changes in GLSL shader source does not participate in file-watch, so it doesn't appear possible to relay changes in a dependent source file to a particular Clojurescript reload hook.
2. Shader's are usually loaded at script initialization at page load, so some additional logic is necessary to force a state change on the page.

There is one partial workaround, which is to save the GLSL fragment as a string inside of the Clojurescript source, but that's not so nice for editing purposes.

This is likely a niche use case, so it's unlikely that a solution to it would be baked directly into Figwheel, however it does speak to a broader issue about file dependencies other than css or clojure triggering a reload event. As example, it would be nice if changes to a referenced image, svg or I8n file triggered a reload in dependent pages.

A few simple ideas that jump to mind are:

1. Extend the watch dirs syntax to allow watching other directories & file types
2. Adding a handler that maps between a filename and namespaces to trigger a reload on
3. Extend the meta syntax around ^:figwheel-hooks so it either lists specific files it depends on, or has a namespace specific should-reload that is passed all watched file updates to determine if the namespace should reload.
4. Passing the save event + all dependencies updated to before-load & after-load to allow custom state changes based on which dependency changed.

I don't have a definite solution here, but am interested in exploring the space & implementing some solution, and wondered if anyone else had any ideas about how to resolve this.

[olymk2]

I just hit this similar but working with text files loaded via ajax I wanted a reload to be triggered when one of the file have been touched, any reason the watchers can not be made more generic even if its by supplying a list of valid extensions or something to extend them perhaps ?