valw/docs/test-checklist.md

valw: end-of-project test checklist

Manual checks on niri that each phase leaves for one test pass once every phase is done. Each phase appends its own section; nothing here blocks a phase from landing. Automated checks (cargo clippy, cargo nextest, nix flake check) still run per phase.

Before starting: update copland's lock (nix flake update valw in ~/copland), rebuild, and check that valw doctor is all ok.

Preview drag-out (2026-10-02)

Already seen working while building it: a drop into Telegram delivered the image, a cancel brought the thumbnail back, and a swipe still dismissed it.

• Drop into Dolphin → the file is copied (the default name has spaces, so this also checks %20).
• Drop into a browser upload field → it uploads.
• Drop into a Discord message → it attaches.
• Drop into an image editor that takes image/png → the pixels arrive.
• Release on nothing, or Esc mid-drag → the thumbnail comes back.
• With timeout_secs = 3, hold a drag past 3 s, then release on nothing → it slides out.
• While dragging, press Print → after the capture the other thumbnails come back but the dragged one doesn't; finishing the drag then behaves normally.
• Same, with 5 thumbnails on that output and the oldest one being dragged → the dragged one is never evicted.
• A fast flick to the left and an immediate release → the thumbnail comes back (or the drag runs normally); it never stays invisible.
• Drag onto the other monitor and drop there → it works.
• Swipe right still dismisses; a click still opens Satty (installed build).

Known minors (deferred from the drag-out review)

• A drag-out press that never became a drag (no data device, or a second drag refused) ignores an expired timer; it should slide out on release.
• A receiver that opens its pipe O_NONBLOCK can get a truncated large PNG; clear O_NONBLOCK in the writer thread.
• A press during the slide-in gives a shifted grab point; use (x - offset, y).
• A swipe released back near its start opens Satty (Phase 2 behaviour); a locked swipe should never become a click.
• The (hidden, dragging) visibility/input decision has no unit test; extract it as a pure function.

Window mode (Phase 3)

• valw window, click a tiled window → that window alone is saved, preview on its monitor.
• Same for a floating window, and for a window partly covered by another (the covered part is still there).
• A window on the other monitor (different scale, if any) → right size and sharpness; preview on that monitor.
• Esc during the pick → nothing saved, exit code 3, thumbnails come back.
• --cursor with the pointer over the window → the pointer is in the shot.
• valw region, press Space before dragging → the overlay closes and the window pick starts; Space while dragging does nothing.
• --clipboard-only and -o - → clipboard / stdout get the window; no stray valw-window-*.png left in $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR.
• niri's own "Screenshot captured" notification appears (expected, see the spec); the clipboard ends up with the window.

Known minors (deferred from the window mode review)

• The 5 s wait includes niri's blocking "Screenshot captured" D-Bus notification; a hung notification daemon fails the shot and leaves the late temp file. Try decoding the temp file once on timeout.
• niri sets the clipboard itself even with copy_to_clipboard = false (no niri flag to avoid it); the spec's "end state unchanged" is wrong for that config. Document it.
• The Space path keeps the Wayland connection open through the pick (the spec says it is dropped). Harmless; align the spec or drop it earlier.
• Clicking something that isn't a window during the pick exits 3 silently, like Esc. Log "no window under the click".

Zoom (Phase 4)

• valw zoom → the focused output freezes at 1×; Esc and q leave, nothing saved, exit 0, thumbnails come back.
• The pointer is a magnifier (zoom-in) over the zoom, a grabbing hand while dragging, the magnifier again after.
• Wheel zooms towards the pointer (the point under it stays put), smoothly, up to 32×; pixels stay crisp.
• Touchpad scrolling zooms smoothly too.
• Left drag pans 1:1 and never shows anything outside the screenshot; the cursor turns into a grabbing hand.
• f toggles the flashlight (outside dimmed to 25 %), it follows the pointer; Ctrl+wheel resizes it.
• 0 animates back to 1×.
• c at some zoom → the saved image is exactly the visible area at native resolution; preview and clipboard as usual.
• On the 1366×768 laptop panel and the 1920×1080 monitor; stays smooth (no stutter) on the HD 4000.
• [zoom] scroll_step / flashlight_radius in the config take effect; valw doctor shows the EGL line.

Known minors (deferred from the zoom review)

• c during a zoom animation captures where the view is heading, not what is on screen.
• The crop can include an edge column/row that was never shown; use the shader's exact texel bounds.
• Panning during a zoom animation jumps; pan both the shown and target view.
• A cancelled pointer grab (no Release, only Leave) leaves panning on; clear it on Leave.
• The first frame of each animation uses dt = 0 (one frame of extra latency).
• libEGL is unloaded when the renderer drops; keep it loaded for the whole process.
• A panic during zoom frees the Wayland display before EGL is torn down (segfault instead of the panic message).
• zoom.scroll_step = nan passes validation.
• With Caps Lock on, c, f and q are ignored.
• valw doctor shows only the EGL vendor; a software (llvmpipe) fallback would look fine. Report GL_RENDERER.

Editor (Phase 5a)

• Clicking a preview opens valw edit (title <name> — valw); [editor] backend = "satty" still opens Satty.
• [editor] backend = "noctalia": clicking a preview opens the shot in Noctalia's annotator, in the Noctalia theme; Save writes a new "annotated" file in the screenshots folder (the shot stays as it was), Copy puts the result on the clipboard.
• Each tool draws (arrow head at the release point, outline rectangle/ellipse, line, pen dot on a click, translucent highlighter); Shift snaps lines to 45° and makes squares/circles.
• Colours and S/M/L change new shapes only; A/R/O/L/P/H switch tools.
• Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z / Ctrl+Y and the toolbar buttons undo and redo.
• Ctrl+S overwrites the file (the preview's file shows the edits); Ctrl+Shift+S writes … edited.png; "Saved" appears for 2 s.
• The saved PNG matches the canvas (same positions and widths), also for a window shot with transparent corners.
• Ctrl+C then Esc: the edited image is still pasteable afterwards.
• Esc with unsaved changes shows the bar; Esc again discards; Ctrl+S in the bar saves and closes. Closing the window with Mod+Q behaves the same.
• A large (1920×1080) shot fits the window; a small one isn't blown up; the window can be resized.

Known minors (deferred from the editor review)

• Esc during a drag commits the half-drawn shape.
• A Pen click always stores two equal points; a touchpad tap in one frame draws nothing; Pen points aren't de-duplicated.
• Any mouse button draws; it should be the primary one.
• "Copied" shows even if the clipboard child fails; finished clipboard children aren't reaped until the editor exits.
• After undoing back to the saved state, Ctrl+S still closes; the unsaved bar can come back without a new Esc.
• The close guard runs only while the window is shown (App::ui, not App::logic).
• Saving round-trips pixels through premultiplied alpha (tiny RGB changes on nearly transparent pixels).
• The dev shell's LD_LIBRARY_PATH applies to every tool; Cargo.lock has duplicate smithay-client-toolkit/calloop/glow versions.

Editor tools (Phase 5b)

• T: click, type (Turkish: ğüşıöçİ), Shift+Enter for a new line, Enter finishes; a click elsewhere also finishes; Esc drops it; while typing, letters don't switch tools and Ctrl+Z/Esc don't undo or close.
• Text is bold in the chosen colour with a dark outline, readable on light and dark backgrounds; S/M/L sizes; the saved PNG matches the canvas.
• B: dragging pixelates the area (also earlier arrows inside it); S/M/L block sizes; edges of the image are fine.
• N: clicks place 1, 2, 3 …; undo then a new click reuses the freed number.
• C: drag a crop, adjust its edges and corners (the cursor changes), Enter applies, Esc cancels; the canvas then shows only the crop; drawing after a crop lands where you click; undo restores the full image; the saved PNG has the crop's size.
• The toolbar shows all 10 tools and still wraps in a narrow window.

Known minors (deferred from the editor tools review)

• A crop thinner than 16 screen px grabs both opposite edges when pressed and collapses.
• Redo while a crop is being adjusted can apply a crop that isn't inside the current one.
• The canvas edge of a crop can show a faint fringe from outside it (export unaffected).
• Every keystroke re-renders the whole image; fine at 1080p, may lag on 4K.
• The pixelate drag preview is hard to see on white.
• The unsaved bar mentions Ctrl+S, which is ignored while typing.

Toolbar (Phase 6)

• valw toolbar shows the bar bottom-centre on the focused output (both monitors), crisp; the last mode is highlighted; hovering highlights buttons.
• Screen, Window, Region and Zoom each start their mode at once; the bar is not in the shot.
• Options ▾ opens the menu; timer None/5/10, Show cursor and Show preview toggle (✓) and are remembered next time (~/.local/state/valw/toolbar.toml).
• With a 5 s timer the pill counts 5 → 1 bottom-centre, the desktop stays usable meanwhile, and the pill is not in the shot; clicking the pill cancels (exit 3).
• Esc or a click beside the bar closes it without capturing (exit 3).
• A broken toolbar.toml doesn't stop the bar (warning in the log, defaults used).
• Bind it in niri (Mod+Shift+5 is taken in copland; pick a key).

Known minors (deferred from the toolbar review)

• A Wayland error during the countdown counts as a tick: the timer is skipped instead of failing.
• Each hover change allocates a full-output buffer; the pool can grow large on 4K.
• Hover isn't set when the pointer enters and isn't cleared when it leaves.
• On two monitors, a click on the other one doesn't close the bar (Esc does).
• With the menu open, a click elsewhere closes the whole bar, and option changes made before a cancel aren't saved.
• The toolbar doesn't take the capture lock: two bars can stack, and a capture started during the countdown makes the toolbar's capture fail.
• The bar can cover a bottom panel, while the countdown pill sits above it.

Polish

• Region: while dragging, a square-cornered W × H label follows the pointer (physical pixels, same as the saved PNG), flipping near the edges.
• Shift locks the dimension you move first; Alt grows from the centre; Space held moves the selection, and after letting go resizing continues without a jump; Space before a drag still switches to window mode.
• [capture] window_shadow = true: window shots get a soft shadow following the rounded corners; preview, clipboard and file all have it.
• Each shot is a two-hit "ka-chunk" (macOS-like) with a metallic clatter that grows from shot 2; shots in quick succession play sounds 1 → 5 getting faster and brighter, then 6, 7, 6, 7 (a climbing bell arpeggio over a glide) rising endlessly; every shot about as loud; after a 5 s pause it starts at 1 again. valw __combo-demo plays the whole sequence for tuning.
• [sound] enabled = false, volume, combo_reset_secs take effect; the toolbar's Play sound option overrides the config; no pw-play → no sound, capture still works (warning in the log).

Known minors (deferred from the polish review)

• Releasing Shift mid-drag only updates the rectangle on the next pointer motion.
• The Shift axis is decided by the very first motion; a few pixels of threshold would feel steadier.
• __combo-demo and a capture regenerating the same WAV at once can race on the temp file (one silent shot).
• Without XDG_RUNTIME_DIR the sound cache and combo state in /tmp are shared between users.
• pipewire on the wrapper's PATH adds its whole closure to the package.

home-manager module

• copland: home-valw.ulu.nix uses inputs.valw.homeModules.default with programs.valw.enable = true and a few settings; rebuild; ~/.config/valw/config.toml is the store file with those settings.
• A typo in settings (e.g. preview.timout_secs) fails the rebuild naming the key.
• The toolbar still remembers its options (state file stays writable).
• New binds for valw window, valw zoom, valw toolbar in copland's niri keybinds.

Known minors (deferred from the home-manager review)

• Cross-compiled home configurations can't run the build-time check; skip it when the build platform can't run the host binary.
• The check derivation may be sent to remote builders (no preferLocalBuild).
• The README's module example assumes inputs is passed to home-manager modules.
• The source filter drops any docs or README.md at any depth, not just the root ones.
• The README's niri binds clash with niri's default Print bind if pasted next to it.

Theme

• Region (Mod+Shift+S): the dim outside the selection takes the Noctalia theme's colour (light and dark mode), still see-through; it opens as fast as before.
• valw window (Mod+Shift+W): cards for every window, most recently used first, icons right (Ghostty, Dolphin, Telegram, Spotify…), long titles ellipsised; Tab/Shift+Tab/arrows/hover move the selection; Enter or a click captures that window (shadow, sound, preview); Esc or a click outside cancels.
• The picker's shader alternates swirl/flow per run and takes the selected window's colours, easing between cards; the picker never appears in the shot.
• 20+ windows still fit (cards shrink); a window without an icon shows its initial.
• Toolbar → Window opens the picker; Space in region mode still uses niri's click-a-window.
• Overview (Mod+Tab): the paint flows slowly behind the workspaces, coloured from the current wallpaper; after the wallpaper changes, the next overview eases to the new colours; no GPU load while the overview is closed (cat /sys/class/drm/card1/gt_act_freq_mhz stays low).
• Two monitors: each has its own backdrop; unplugging/replugging one keeps the other working.
• Picker → Enter on the focused window of a libadwaita/GTK app: the headerbar isn't dimmed in the shot (150 ms settle).

Known minors (deferred from the theme review)

• The wallpaper is decoded again on every overview open after a pause.
• Icon lookup misses Breeze-style apps/<size>/ layouts, relative Icon=foo.png, .svgz/.xpm; non-square icons aren't centred.
• Each selection change rebuilds a full-output overlay; long titles make ellipsising slow.
• Palette names with non-space special characters fall back to the default palette.
• The backdrop calls every lock error "another backdrop is running"; it keeps its first scale after a scale change.
• libEGL is unloaded when the last backdrop surface goes; a removed output leaks its viewport object.
• Holding Tab doesn't repeat in the picker; "no windows" exits as an error instead of a cancel.

Noctalia plugin

• programs.valw.noctalia.enable + elars/valw enabled: the camera button appears where the widget is placed; its tooltip says Screenshot.
• Left click opens the toolbar panel next to the bar; it uses Noctalia's colours, font, corners and border; switching the palette or light/dark restyles it.
• The remembered mode is highlighted; Screen / Region / Window / Zoom each capture, and the panel is never in the shot.
• Timer and the three toggles persist, and match what valw toolbar (the self-drawn bar) shows, both ways; the timer shows valw's countdown.
• Right click on the button: a region shot (no timer).
• Control-center tile: click closes the control center, then a region shot; right click opens the toolbar panel.
• noctalia msg panel-toggle elars/valw:toolbar (Mod+Shift+T) opens and closes the panel.
• With valw off Noctalia's PATH: "valw is not available" and a notification, no crash.
• Turkish locale: the Turkish strings appear.