Split application into library + app

[sshcrack]

This software could also be very useful as a library. In my repository shadertoy-headless, I’ve removed all UI components. I believe it would be a good idea to separate the main project into a desktop application and a standalone library.

What do you think about this suggestion?

[dtcxzyw]

This is an interesting idea. Currently this project contains four components:

• STTF (ShaderToy Transmission Format)
• Editor
• Shadertoy importer
• Rendering pipeline (OpenGL backend)

I am fine to split the project into two or more independent libraries/executables.
BTW, it is welcome if you want to upstream your changes :)

[sshcrack]

I'm unsure on how we could split the structures into multiple parts yet as every editor / node is somewhat dependent on the imgui node library.
Maybe a first step is to add #ifdef guards?
Something like that?

#ifdef DESKTOP
PipelineEditor::render()  {
//... 
} 
#endif

Or what approaches do you think are the best to get started?
We could also create base classes which contain only from/to STTF methods and extend those further for the desktop frontend

[dtcxzyw]

I'm unsure on how we could split the structures into multiple parts yet as every editor / node is somewhat dependent on the imgui node library.

Can we decouple the Shadertoy importer and the node editor first? I plan to let the Shadertoy importer create an STTF representation in memory, instead of interacting with the node editor directly.

Something like that?

#ifdef DESKTOP
PipelineEditor::render()  {
//... 
} 
#endif

Personally, I don't like this way. Different components should be put into different translation units. We may need a CMake option like SHADERTOY_BUILD_APP to control whether the desktop application should be built.

We can start with splitting the project into a library called shadertoy_sttf and an executable called shadertoy.