Unload UI when it's not in use, to reduce the performance impact even further

[Tyrrrz]

As a result of the discussion that took place in #273, it became apparent that the biggest culprit in LightBulb's passive CPU/RAM consumption is the GUI rendering loop, which is active even when the application is hidden to tray. To deal with that, we can try to detach the UI from the core gamma manipulation loop and only load the UI (and the associated resources) when needed.

Ideally, we should try to achieve this within a single process. Would need to investigate if Avalonia supports shutting down the application without exiting the process. If so, we may be able to shut down and re-start multiple application lifetimes within a single process lifetime, which should do the trick.

Worst case scenario, we would have to split the application into two separate processes (headless backend and on-demand frontend) and figure out a way to make them communicate with each other. This is possible, but significantly more difficult.

[e-t-l]

two separate processes (headless backend and on-demand frontend) and figure out a way to make them communicate with each other. This is possible, but significantly more difficult

Granted, I have zero familiarity with Avalonia, but I suspect that two separate processes will ultimately be much simpler, both to create and to maintain/update. There are tons of applications that have multiple processes, and Inter-Process Communications are not a new concept. I guarantee You may even want the frontend to be a child process of the backend, since the backend should be persistent anyway.

[7sparrow]

Better yet - a setting to launch the program x minutes before X time would be ideal.

There is no need to have it running during the day and since the app triggers when it needs to, it can be complektey exited to save resources.

Just a thought.

[SublimePeace]

Would love this. Currently on my system LightBulb uses 115MB of RAM. That's quite a lot for an app that runs 24/7 and does absolutely nothing in ~70% of my PC's uptime. I'm tempted to switch it from auto start on log-on to Task Schedule its launch 5 minutes before my pre-determined sunset time.

To put this in context with other similar always-on open source apps: ShareX uses 25MB, AutoDarkMode 22MB, FanControl 32MB.