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<p>Wrong sender address..<br>
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<th valign="BASELINE" nowrap="nowrap" align="RIGHT">Subject:
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<td>Re: Video backend selection</td>
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<th valign="BASELINE" nowrap="nowrap" align="RIGHT">Date: </th>
<td>Wed, 5 Jan 2022 16:45:22 +0100</td>
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<th valign="BASELINE" nowrap="nowrap" align="RIGHT">From: </th>
<td>Jesper K. Pedersen <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:jesper.pedersen@kdab.com"><jesper.pedersen@kdab.com></a></td>
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<th valign="BASELINE" nowrap="nowrap" align="RIGHT">To: </th>
<td>Andreas Schleth <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:schleth_es@web.de"><schleth_es@web.de></a>,
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:kphotoalbum@kde.org">kphotoalbum@kde.org</a></td>
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<br>
Uhh lots of emails six month after the feature his git :-)<br>
<br>
See comments inline.<br>
<br>
On 1/5/22 00:29, Andreas Schleth wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Hi,<br>
<br>
you know, that I greatly appreciate your work in KPA, but in the
case of<br>
video playback I do not fully understand why the internal video
viewer<br>
exists in the first place. Is it unthinkable to dump the
internal viewer<br>
and instead repurpose the "open with external program" dialog
(wrap it<br>
internally, with a config option and optionally a detection
module) and<br>
just call VLC, mplayer or whatever video player is installed.
There is<br>
probably no system around without any video player. If you need
to<br>
install one of the backends anyway, the GUI would be there too.
I think<br>
along similar lines as why we have no image manipulation options
in KPA:<br>
there are programs around that do a great job at this - Gimp,
Darktable,<br>
you name it. (Except for the old promise: "Kimdaba does not
touch your<br>
files").<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Well, KPA also has an image viewer, despite there exists good
image viewers out there.<br>
<br>
I can think of a few reasons to keep the video playback inside
KPA:<br>
1) Being able to see tags above your videos<br>
2) Being able to add tokens on your videos and delete them from
the DB while viewing them<br>
3) Taking the screenshot for us of the video.<br>
4) controlling placement - if we just started VLC we wouldn't be
able to know where the windows showed up<br>
5) being able to run slide shows with videos and images - if i
spawned VLC I wouldn't know when it was done.<br>
<br>
Of course had I started today I might have reconsidered not
implementing a video viewer, but 15 years ago there was the great
promise of Phonon doing it all, and at least IIRC much less
external videos viewers.<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
As Jesper pointed out in another post: it is a lot of work to<br>
re-implement all gui features of a full blown video player. The
keyword<br>
is "re-". I just had another look and found a lot of new(? or
new found)<br>
features integrated in the RMB menu. Still, while the features
present<br>
in the integrated viewer right now are quite a lot better than a
while<br>
ago, they are still far from perfect, so why bother...? The
effort spent<br>
on the video viewer seems to me a lot like re-inventing the
wheel. So,<br>
why not slim down the code base at this point?<br>
<br>
I may simply not understand why KPA really needs an integrated
video<br>
player (this might well be *my* problem). Loading time? Process<br>
overhead? ...? I only use the external program option (and am
happy for<br>
having it!) for viewing video anyway and only look at the
internal<br>
player for testing. OK: the tags and categories are only shown
with the<br>
internal version and the option to choose a customized thumbnail
is a<br>
unique feature ... but still ... If you have a few 1000 videos
in the<br>
database, you probably are just as content with being able to
select one<br>
of the autogenerated videothumbnails.<br>
I still miss the option to select or switch audio channels and
the many<br>
other features I learned to love in VLC and I understand, that
this<br>
would be a lot of implementation effort - and other people might
have<br>
other pain points (subtitles anyone?).<br>
A compromise might be to include the existing internal viewer in
the<br>
choices for a default video player in the settings dialog.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
Right, I like that idea: Among the three others simply have a
launch external every time. Of course at the cost of not having
all of the above (tokens, showing tags, playing slideshow, making
screenshot)<br>
<br>
Would that work for you?<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
As for the original UX question:<br>
<br>
The first time I tested it, I clicked the one time dialog away
too<br>
quickly </blockquote>
<br>
*sniff* and here I though KPA users was better than that :-D<br>
<br>
Put I take your point.<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">(nobody reads, understands and remembers
dialogs if not forced<br>
to :-) and then found the option to choose the backend in the
viewer<br>
settings. However, when switching backends (at one time I had
all 3<br>
options available) I never found any difference in the behaviour
of the<br>
player. Did I not look closely enough? So, why bother. </blockquote>
<br>
Well you for sure was lucky then. Phonon crashed on me for every
few videos nevertheless how hard I tried installing different
backends<br>
QtAV was pretty awesome, every video played, had nice feature set
etc, only problem was that it got out of sync with the audio. I
asked the developer for help, but never heard back<br>
VLC was also pretty good, BUT it didn't (when I looked at it)
support wayland, so had you chosen that, the video would show up
outsite of KPA's window.<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">If it plays it<br>
plays. (To be honest, I was quite disappointed at that time as
in my<br>
naivety I expected to find a VLC backend with all the bells and
whistles<br>
of VLC - never mind!)<br>
Only if it doesn't play (or, beware, crashes), the user needs to
find an<br>
option to remedy the situation. And then, the backends may all
use the<br>
same deficient libavcodec. So, the problem might not be fixable
inside<br>
KPA at all. I had situations when a certain video would only
play in<br>
Mplayer and nothing else. This could only be fixed by carefully<br>
reinstalling the proper codec libraries. Therefore, some
documentation<br>
for troubleshooting would go a long way.<br>
<br>
Therefore, my vote goes to "autodetect" with the option to
choose in the<br>
settings dialog.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Right, I'm still a bit torn, I can see how noone will ever see the
dialog, I just fear whether they will ever find their way to
change the backend.<br>
<br>
Maybe add an entry to the overcrowded context menu saying "change
video backend" would help.<br>
<br>
Thoughts?<br>
<br>
<br>
Cheers and thanks for the feedback.<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
Best regards, Andreas<br>
<br>
<br>
Am 04.01.22 um 19:38 schrieb Jesper K. Pedersen:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">I don't feel strong either way.<br>
<br>
The dialog is a one time dialog that shows up as you upgrade
KDV, and<br>
given the trouble that all three plugins have I think the user
should<br>
know what he chooses otherwise he will just end up wondering
why the<br>
preview doesn't work all of a sudden (if you switch from QtAV
to one<br>
of the other backends behind his back).<br>
<br>
But again, I don't feel strong about it. Maybe at least inform
him<br>
that you are switching backend when doing so, and offer him
the config<br>
dialog<br>
<br>
Cheers<br>
Jesper.<br>
<br>
On 1/4/22 00:53, Johannes Zarl-Zierl wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Hi!<br>
<br>
I'm not yet totally pleased with the way the user is
prompted to<br>
choose a<br>
video player backend.<br>
<br>
So instead of prompting right away I thought that maybe just
choosing a<br>
sensible default would be a nicer user experience (currently
the first<br>
available of VLC > QtAV > Phonon).<br>
<br>
Since there have been reports with some players crashing
outside of<br>
KPHotoAlbums control, I've also added a crash detection: if
KPA<br>
terminated<br>
during video playback, it automatically selects a different
video<br>
player next<br>
time. As a last resort, the selection dialog is shown.<br>
<br>
I've not yet commited the change to master, but I would like
some<br>
feedback<br>
regarding the UX. What do you think?<br>
<br>
The feature is currently in branch work/jzarl/crash-sentinel<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://invent.kde.org/graphics/kphotoalbum/-/commit/">https://invent.kde.org/graphics/kphotoalbum/-/commit/</a><br>
78cfa242b9972792eee4661466508beed66b37aa<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
Johannes<br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-signature">--
Jesper K. Pedersen | <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:jesper.pedersen@kdab.com">jesper.pedersen@kdab.com</a>
HR Director / COO
Klarälvdalens Datakonsult AB, a KDAB Group company
Tel. Direct: +45 2726 8078, Sweden (HQ) +46-563-540090
KDAB - The Qt, C++ and OpenGL Experts
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