A Modest Proposal: Standard for naming shaders and programs

gistfile1.md

##A Modest Proposal##

As per version 1.0.13 of the Shader Editor Extension, it will look for #define SHADERNAME name in both the vertex shader code and the fragment shader code.

If name is defined for both shaders, and it's the same string, the name of the program is that string, e.g.: "Shadertoy".

If only one of the two is defined, the name of the program is "vs_name / fs_name", e.g.: "Quad / Shadertoy"

If there's no #define on any of the sources, the program name is the program number, e.g.: "Program 3"

At first I thought using a #pragma, but I was getting warnings:

The SHADERNAME string is pretty random, just thinking of something that wouldn't collide with other #defines. It can be changed, but I think the important part is that we all agree.

Does it make sense? Would this be something it'd be interesting for developers to identify shaders, programs, materials, etc. regardless of frameworks or libraries?

Does it make sense?

I think so :), nice and simple.

A preference for SHADER_NAME (ensure less conflicts than NAME?).

Why do both vertex and fragment shader have to have the same name? Technically each one is an individual shader. I'd call the program "vertexShaderName / fragmentShaderName" and if they match just call it "shaderName".

You've got my vote. I don't really care what you call it, though NAME is probably a bit too generic. I'd be happy to put this into the Seriously.js shaders.

+1 SHADER_NAME :)

Down to include this in glslify. Was wondering if we wanted to support non-GLSL strings in there too? Quotes etc. won't compile on some machines. Opt into base64?

Ok, looks like SHADER_NAME has the lead.

@bhouston i think that's what I wrote in my post

@hughsk you're right... SHADER_NAME and SHADER_NAME_B64?

@spite perfect :D

Does that compile on all platforms? Just wondering, most macros that I've seen are valid GLSL code like:

#define FOO vec4(1.0)

Does getShaderSource preserve comments? If so it could also be done like so:

/*@name fancy-shader*/

+1 SHADER_NAME

@mattdesl there are many ways, of course. I discarded #pragma because of the compiling warnings; and discarded using comments because it feels less hacky to use #define; I think getShaderSource can't be entirely relied on (from an instrumenting tool perspective) since a lot of WebGL programs delete the shaders once they're attached to the program.

I think the way the coder gets the relevant string (analyse the source independently, augment the WebGLProgram methods, inject set/getShaderSource) is not that important, as long as we agree on the basic things: it's in the source code, it's a #define, and it's called SHADER_NAME

I've tested OSX and Windows/ANGLE and the #define works correctly. Most of three.js #defines are not correct GLSL and there are no problems that I'm aware of.

mrdoob/three.js@b428a19 ^_^

Cool! Updated on v1.0.14 (spite/ShaderEditorExtension#10)

brianchirls/Seriously.js@2d51781

@brianchirls Awesome! 😄

awesome thanks dude