[MPlayer-G2-dev] Re: G2 CLI/GUI and config API again - a little request.

[D Richard Felker III]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 08:20:02PM +0300, Andriy N. Gritsenko wrote:
> Do you have any suggestions to do it without management of plugins by
> UI/parser? I want to hear it, tell me, please.

Yes.

1) Inserting and removing filters is not the job of the config engine,
   aside from preparing the config variables for a filter when it's
   being added.

2) For initializing a chain, the config system can just take in the
   string, and return a chain of config structures. The player then
   proceeds to load and initialize the filters along with the codecs.

3) This is a side-note, but I want to make sure that it's possible for
   mp g2 to support not just filter chains, but filter trees. For
   example, we should be able to have two video sources and render
   them side-by-side, or pip. I'm not thinking just of toy-type things
   in the player, but rather a professional-quality digital filmmaking
   environment where you need to do cross-fades, overlay special
   effects, etc.

4) With that in mind, I think it might make more sense for the config
   system not to handle filters at all during the initial parsing
   phase, but just store filter chain strings provided from the
   command line or whatever. Then, when we get to the relevant file in
   the playtree, the player can split up the filter chain/tree, load
   the appropriate filters and connect them, then call the config code
   *again* with the config strings it has for each filter to
   initialize them.

5) Perhaps you'll also consider this part of the config code, but it's
   very different from the main options parser, IMO: There needs to be
   code somewhere to allow interactive editing of the filter tree, so
   that a gui interface could let you graphically connect the nodes,
   or or so that a script-based editing system could add and remove
   filters as needed during editing. (Perhaps some filters would even
   want to add and remove filters, e.g. a telecine detect filter
   removing/adding inverse telecine or interpolative deinterlace
   filters based on the detected content.)

Arpi, comments?

Rich