Re: [hxplay] Re: Helix Player virtual team meeting

[Ronald Bultje <rbultje ronald bitfreak net>]

Hi Ryan,

On Fri, 2003-12-12 at 20:36, Ryan Gammon wrote:
> Ronald Bultje wrote:
> > On Fri, 2003-12-12 at 00:36, Ryan Gammon wrote: 
> >> At the same time, I feel that it is too hard for your average gtk 
> >> developer to drop a video widget into his or her application.
> >
> > Why? This really isn't harder than a few keystrokes or mouseclicks.
> > Surely, people who can't code will find this hard, but I'm assuming
> > you're not aiming at them, are you? I'm sorry, but I really don't see
> > why a video widget would be harder to use for anyone if it's not
> > Gtk-prefixed. ;).
> 
> Here's my thinking: Let's say I am a random developer, new to gtk, 
> gnome, and unix in general, but handy with a C compiler.
> 
> I have written a cool application, and I want to add a short help 
> presentation to it using something like SMIL [1], because I think it 
> will make my app easier to use. I need a video widget.
> 
> My first instinct is going to be to check out gtk.org for anything 
> video-related in the gtk documentation.
> 
> Two things can happen at this point:
> 
> 1. Gtk has a documentation page with a gtk-prefixed interface for a 
> basic video widget, and a list of links to engines that implement that 
> interface, and maybe a "which engine is right for me" document.

But that doesn't need Gtk. What you're looking for is a widget lookup
page. That doesn't need integrating in the core desktop toolkit. ;).

Oh, and I, for one, wouldn't go to Gtk.org. Instead, I'd go to pages of
media projects (you know, xine, mplayer, Gst, etc.). But then again, I
know what I'm doing a bit. ;).

> > I like the video widget idea, though. Are there any practical ideas yet?
> > Are you intending to make it work similar to (e.g.) bacon, or will it
> > just be a 'new' design, not based on anything?
> 
> The basics of our widget work like Bacon's. We differ in our advanced 
> functionality, which is a reflection of the engines we are wrapping.

Well, it's interesting that the basics work the same way. The idea is
that you can use this to create similar (maybe even slightly compatible)
bonobo video elements. And that's where stuff becomes really
interesting. You can then basically 'swap' elements dynamically in a
player and use the 'best fit' (see the article on Gnome at OSNews a
while ago, it mentions this too).

> [1] SMIL is like w3c-ized flash: http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/

Yeah, I'm looking into that - I need something like that too in the
not-too-fat future.

Thanks,

Ronald

-- 
Ronald Bultje <rbultje ronald bitfreak net>
Linux Video/Multimedia developer