[mythtv] NEW MythPlugin functionality (PATCH)

[Joseph A. Caputo]

Well, my recent changes have managed to speed up mythmusic startup time
so that I now find it tolerable, although I still think it would be nice
if it came up as quickly as some of the 'internal' Myth screens (i.e.,
'Watch Recordings').  I'm going to give it a try on my box and see how
it works out, plus take a look at how it affects the overall memory
usage.

Aside from the startup time, though, I think a plugin architecture would
make Myth that much more versatile.  For instance, as long as the
appropriate symbols were exported, there's no reason why any menu within
Myth couldn't directly call up the 'Play Music' screen without going
through the initial mythmusic menu first.  You could group all the setup
options for all the modules under a single menu.  Plus, I like the idea
that exiting a module's main screen wouldn't necessarily lose the state
of the module.  So maybe you could be listening to a playlist, pause it,
exit out to schedule a recording or watch one, then go back into the
'Play Music' screen, where your paused selection is still there, still
paused.  (I realize you could partially achieve this at the track level
by saving the current position in the playlist table, but that's not
what I'm getting at).  One feature I'd really like would be to go into
mythmusic, kick off a CD import, then do something else while it rips. 
(I realize this would also take some tweaking of the mythmusic
internals, but you get the idea)

Best of all, plugins are optional.  It's very easy (as I've stated
before) to make a module work as a plugin, but also build it in a
standalone application wrapper.  Then you could choose which way you
wanted to invoke it by changing your XML menu file.

In short, I see plugins as a way to really leverage the ability of
different elements of Myth to interact with each other.

I'm interested to see what sorts of features people can come up with as
plugins.  And please, if anyone has ideas for how to make the plugin
interface more mature (besides the simple init & run API), have at it!

-Joe C.


On Thu, 2003-04-10 at 18:38, Isaac Richards wrote:
> 
> Is the startup time of mythmusic still that much of an issue, what with all 
> the recent improvements Thor's made to it?  And, with large music 
> collections, I wouldn't think you would want to keep all that metadata in ram 
> at all times..  
> 
> That aside, looks interesting =)  I'm just a little hesitant to apply it 
> without there being an actual use for it yet, though.
> 
> Isaac
> 
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