No ipc-server?

[supashang]

When I set video wallpapers on "mpvpaper", I use the "ipc-server", like so:

SOCKET_PATH="/tmp/mpvsocket-mpvpaper"  
pidvp=$(pidof mpvpaper)
  if [[ ! -n "$pidvp" ]]; then 
    uwsm app -- mpvpaper -f -v -o "loop no-audio --input-ipc-server=$SOCKET_PATH" '*' "$wallpaper_file" &
  else
    printf '{ "command": ["loadfile", "%s", "%s"] }\n' "$wallpaper_file" "${2:-replace}" | socat - UNIX-CONNECT:"$SOCKET_PATH"
  fi

However, when I try this with "gSlapper". I don't get the same expected result. It doesn't change the wallpaper.

Is there a "ipc-server" built-in to gSlapper or am I missing something? It says on the page here, that gSlapper is a drop-in replacement for "mpvpaper", so I thought it would work the same.

I've checked "gslapper -h", but didn't see anything there about it, nor is it mentioned on the GitHub page.

[Nomadcxx]

IPC support was just added in recent commits to dev (along with image support). You can now use --ipc-socket (or -I) to enable runtime control with that build e.g. gslapper --ipc-socket /tmp/gslapper.sock -o "loop" DP-1 video.mp4 and control via socket. Check the dev branch readme for details.

Re: the "drop-in replacement" positioning you are right that it's becoming less accurate. The project started that way, but with static image support, different IPC commands, and other features, it's evolving into its own thing, will need to update the readme.

[supashang]

Hi.

When I run:
gslapper -f -I /tmp/gslapper.sock -o "loop" ALL ~/Videos/Live_Wallpapers/xmas/christmas-ball.1920x1080.mp4

It does play a video wallpaper. However, when following the documentation to change to another video, I get an error:

echo "change /home/supa/Videos/Live_Wallpapers/game/Witcher_001.mp4" | nc -U /tmp/gslapper.sock
ERROR: cannot update path (use --auto-stop for video changes)

gslapper version: 1.4.0-1 (Arch Linux)

[Nomadcxx]

Hey man.. for video-to-video changes, you would need the --auto-stop flag e.g.
gslapper -f -I /tmp/gslapper.sock -s -o "loop" '*' ~/Videos/video1.mp4

It's required because basically gstreamer can't hot-swap video pipelines like mpv can. The -s flag enables the stop-restart mechanism that makes video changes work, images don't need it because they're decoded frames, not streaming pipelines.

Hopefully that makes sense.

[supashang]

Thanks for the clarification. I'll test it out.

I was working directly from the provided documentation. I was not aware that the "-s" flag was needed, as it wasn't shown in the example when initializing the first video - which then moves onto the example script later on in the guide which uses "change" to load another video file.

[supashang]

Ok, I have tested the commands you provided. However, this only plays a video once, then gslapper exits. I was under the impression that the video would loop?

gslapper -f -I /tmp/gslapper.sock -s -o "loop" '*' ~/Videos/Live_Wallpapers/xmas/christmas-ball.1920x1080.mp4

supa_screenclip_2025_12_28_15-52-26.mp4