[MPlayer-G2-dev] Developing a GTK2 GUI

[Charles Ezell]

>I meant one for each Gui implementation, but of you think it's easier to
>write a common 'gui builder' with toolkit-specific backends, do it :)

Good.  It is not.  I wish it was.  Not even worth thinking about. :(

>> >the needs to extending gui), but it has some disadvantages too, 
>>especially
>> >may look worse, than a well-designed control window (although we could
>> >extend the config struct with gui-helper data, like position inside the
>> >window or grouping of options, if really required).
>>
>>The most I think you would need is grouping info.  I do not see being able 
>>to represent
>>positions usefully/accurately for different toolkits / GUIs.  I've got a 
>>couple of ideas for
>>implementing grouping.  I will send them later.

>Ok.
>Actually grouping is already present in config layer, but afaik not yet 
>used
>in any of teh plugins. Maybe we need more detailed grouping
>(multi-dimensional or hierarchieal?)...

I saw the TODO. :)  Hierarchical should be enough.  The more I think about 
it, the
more it would help to have, even for the command line player --it would 
provide
automatic grouping of options.  For GUIs it is much more important, though.
It should enable me (or anyone else) to just do one pass through the config
and only create the windows / controls that are needed.

Before I make the suggestion I want to test it.  No point in wasting 
everyone's
time if it isn't workable.

>As for looks, we'll see when we get there.  As long as there are not too 
>many
>items on a page it should look OK (it will depend on how smart the window 
>builder is).

>I think there wont be too much things.
>But it's sometimes possible that a module/plugin have options of type
>module_list_t, ie. a selection of other plugins/modules.
>I think this could be represented in gui by a pair of list boxes, the
>selected plugins on the left side, and the list of available modules (of
>that type) on right side. Then user can drag'n'drop (or other way
>add/remove) items from right to left, and by double-clicking on left side
>elements they can configure tehse modules (by pop-up new cofnig window).
>Or I'm just dreaming :)))

No.  I have already written a program that does such a thing with modules.
It worked very well.  It's what I had in mind. :)

>>Agreed.  I looked at the playtrees in G1 and was wondering why they were 
>>not used by the GUI.

>The playtree code in g1 was quite broken (dunno if it works ok now, i guess
>not yet), and Pontscho (g1 gui maker) didn't understand how it works.

>We were designing some metadata structure to use for exporting tracklists,
>playlists/trees etc from stream/demuxer layer, but it was not implemented
>yet. See teh mail archives if interested, but if you need it ASAP i'll
>increase its priority. Or if anyone interested in implementing that, tell 
>me.

Ah.  OK.  It is not a high priority.  I don't understand them yet, either. 
:)
They just looked neat.  My first priority is getting the GTK2
window builder written (at least mostly).  Once that is done I shouldn't 
have
to mess with it too much, so I can go on to other things.


-Charles

_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*.  
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus