From icefox@mediaone.net Mon, 06 Dec 1999 05:09:53 -0800
Date: Mon, 06 Dec 1999 05:09:53 -0800
From: Benjamin Meyer icefox@mediaone.net
Subject: [Livid-dev] GUI app + more

    Hello there from the LSDVD group.  We have been active and working
this past while and I thought I might show you guys what has been going
on in this neck of the woods.

A GUI app that can be a front-end has been in very heavy development.  A
recent screenshot of it can be seen here:
http://icefox.rh.rit.edu/lsdvd/snapshot03.jpg
    There are two other older screenshots also in the dir if you care to
take a look.  The application is fully skinable and configurable.  There
is nothing hard coded in the application.  When released there will be
two skins with it, one like the one in the screenshot (only much
cleaner) and a Circle, where as the movie plays the thing (player?) will
go around the circle two show off just how configurable the app is.  For
anyone who happens to do QT programming I created two widgets, a slider
and button (both skinners) that can be easily reused in any app.    It
is currently in Version .21  The actual main GUI app is finished and the
calls to the lib are the only thing in development at this time.  The
Player_API that we are using is from the Convergance web page.  A link
is: http://www.linuxtv.org/dvd/api/DVDPlayerAPI.h  The first release of
the GUI is expected as soon as the library calls finished. This could be
as sort as two weeks.  It will be posted on the LSDVD web site. (and I
will let you know :)  The source code along with stub libraries will be
included with the base release.
    Myself and another got together a weekend ago and did out some
simple sketches of how the DVD app should work.  You have have already
seen this else where, but here it is again.  After three hours of
drawing we came up with two basic sketches.  The first one:

http://icefox.rh.rit.edu/lsdvd/lsdvd1.gif

shows the current layout of the DVD application.  The DVD player calls a
navigator, weather it be a hardware decoder or some other navigator and
from there the navigator controls the rest.  I know you all have a lot
of input on weather this is actually how it is, and honestly it isn't,
but it is a ruff outline of what is out there.  Then comes the second
layout:

http://icefox.rh.rit.edu/lsdvd/lsdvd3.gif

This should be how it should be.  Again we already see problems with
this design, so just view for the fun sake for right now.  The MP3 part
was thrown in just to show that it is so well organized that adding
something like MP3 shouldn't be a problem.  This app should run off of
shared libraries so you can plug and play.  Also it is not illegal to
have a MPEG2 decoder in library form. :) A nice little loophole.
    If there is anyone out there who was working on a DVD GUI player for
the Unix environment (or wants to) please get in contact with Benjamin
at icefox@mediaone.net, so that there wont be any cross development that
isn't necessary.  (also if anyone want to make a skin) The source code
to the GUI will be under LGPL so that it could link to libraries that
aren't GPL'd if so desired. (i.e. hardware/software decoder libs)  The
spec and a comprehensive layout for all the layout (shown in the two
diagrams) will be wrote out much more clearly within the next two weeks
(guaranteed by the 18th) for all of your criticism.  Please do not bash
these ideas yet, there are only primary thoughts put down.

Benjamin Meyer
LSDVD