Plasma Media Center and state machines

[Shantanu Tushar Jha]

On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 6:40 PM, Christopher Blauvelt
<cblauvelt at gmail.com> wrote:
> Perhaps I haven't been paying close enough attention but what is the need of
> the state machine?
>
>>>
>>> So we can now have:
>>> Pictures,
>>> Videos,
>>> Audio tracks,
>>> Games,
>>> Olographic films :-)
>>> ...
>>>
>>> That's probably enough for now :-P
>
> Your joke I think proves that it would be better not to have one.  If we're
> going to use a plugin architecture then the whole point is that we don't
> know how many states we're going to have.  I really think the model-view
> framework is our friend here and, while I don't like the visual interface,
> MythTV has done a good job with defining a menu system.  When it all comes
> down to it, that's what this really is.  Instead of a state machine I think
> it would make more sense to have layouts defined which you move to once a
> selection is entered.  You can zoom and twirl your way there however you
> like.    The layouts could be defined via some kind of XML schema, like
> MythTV, or through some other means.

Well, seems similar to GUIXML, hmm..... will think over this.
>
> To illustrate my point a little better:
> You're at the home screen and the user selects "Pictures."  You move to the
> picture/album browser layout where you can scroll to the album or picture
> that you like.  Your menubar changes based on parameters defined in the
> plugin instead of parameters defined in the part of the program that
> launches the plugins.  This gives the flexibility to the plugin writer to
> define what he/she wants without requiring changes to the main program.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Chris
>
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>



-- 
Shantanu Tushar    (UTC +0530)
http://www.shantanutushar.com