KDE4 MM, a view from usability and general applicaiton development

[Matthias Kretz]

On Monday 06 September 2004 23:40, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> From a usability standpoint, having the user have to configure the sound
> system is a nightmare.

I agree.

> From the perspective of an application developer, a simplified API is a
> must.

I agree.

> e.g. KPresenter should allow recording a 
> sound track for slides, or KWord should allow audio notations, or simple
> games should have a simple way to play sounds.

That's my objectives that I want to solve with the kdemm API.

> [...] need access to a full-featured multimedia API. [...]
> But there should be ONE and 
> only ONE such official API. Why? Because this will concentrate testing (and
> therefore quality) of the chosen backend, it will create a shared body of
> knowledge that will be transferable between KDE MM apps and it will allow
> authoritative "KDE MM Development Documentation" to be written that 3rd
> party developers really do need.

Yes, you have a point here. But I wouldn't like the idea of a "official API", 
at least not at this point. IMHO we should start to discuss this at the 
earliest in 6 months from now.
What I would currently would be able to live with is a recomendation for a 
full-featured API. But not something like official or unofficial. Especially 
since the usage of mm frameworks are not mutually exclusive. Like you could 
use one MM app using gst and one using nmm and one doing it all by itself and 
then connect them in jack.
I believe the developer of the app should decide by looking at the features 
and the available APIs (and bindings for the APIs) which one he wants to use.

Tackling the point of overconfigurability. Yes I admit I want to have it all 
configurable. But I also don't want to put an extra burden on the average 
user. So what I would think of is the following:
- continue the kdemm API
- create reasonable defaults and if really needed create a few configuration 
options for the user (hopefully we don't need any)
- Create an app for full access to the whole power of the kdemm API and 
underlying frameworks. This would serve the geeks with the power they want. 
The reason I want to work on KDE MM is to have KDE not in my way when working 
with MM on Linux but rather to integrate as smoothly as possible.

-- 
C'ya
        Matthias
________________________________________________________
Matthias Kretz (Germany)                          <><
http://Vir.homeip.net/
MatthiasKretz at gmx.net, kretz at kde.org,
Matthias.Kretz at urz.uni-heidelberg.de
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-multimedia/attachments/20040907/d54065f4/attachment.sig>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
kde-multimedia mailing list
kde-multimedia at kde.org
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-multimedia