summary of the aKademy meetings

[Marco Lohse]

Alexander Neundorf wrote:
[..]

>A simple KDE API for simple purposes and a recommended framework for advanced 
>purposes is IMO a really good solution. And I guess most KDE developers 
>writing advanced MM apps will write some kind of bindings for their preferred 
>framework. Maybe this will naturally lead to one preferred framework with its 
>bindings, which can then (maybe in 2..5 years) become the defacto KDE 
>standard MM framework.
>
>  
>
I think I mostly agree with your opinion. And I am afraid, I did not 
make my ideas very clear in the beginning:

The 'simple KDE API' (aka the 'abstract player interface'? aka 
'meta-architecture'?) : Simplicity is fine. However, I am sure we can 
create a simple yet powerful API. For example: let's just say this API 
should only be used for file playback. So, the simplest API would allow 
to set a media source, automatically create a flow graph for audio/video 
rendering, start, stop, pause, ff, rew.

However, application developers want more: add audio effects, add 
visualizations, ... But: all this comes down to other plug-ins within 
the flow graph. And since a flow graph is a very simple structure (just 
nodes and connecting edges) all the API needs to provide is (roughly 
said) (a) a way to specify that you want some additional plug-ins to be 
added to the audio part (or the video part) of the flow graph, and (b) 
some way to control/setup these additional plug-ins. Of course, now we 
can discuss, if there are some more things you want to do, e.g. you 
might want to have a similar abstraction for recording, .., So please: 
just consider these ideas as starting point.

Have fun, Marco.