[mythtv] Making MythTV more OSX Friendly

Jeremiah Morris jm at whpress.com
Mon Jan 24 17:09:14 EST 2005


On 24 Jan 2005, at 3:03 PM, Patrick Tescher wrote:

>  I
> propose that the Mac version simply disables anything related to
> recording TV from a tuner or watching live TV.

What exactly would this gain you? If you don't have anything to capture 
TV, how would a Mac backend help you actually make use of MythTV?

> 2. Some plugins such as MythDVD are written to only support linux /dev
> devices and not MacOS. This should be pretty easy to fix and I will
> look into it. Other plugins such as MythMusic might need a little work
> to compile properly and also should look into the user's ~/Music
> folder (or ~/Pictures for MythGallery) and would thus work out of the
> box without any user interraction.

Plugins need attention for the OS X platform, I agree. Ed Wildgoose's 
mythmusic patch is a prerequisite for getting the MythMusic plugin to 
work, as it will enable the CoreAudio driver already in libmyth to be 
used.

The video and weather plugins are known to work, music is on hold 
pending Ed's work, but I'm not aware of work on the other plugins -- 
feel free to pick one and jump in.

> 3. Currelty there is one binary package and it does not include any
> plugins.

OS X support was not in place for 0.16; the current binary is a heavily 
patched code base and took more work than most packagers would tackle. 
When the next release comes out, the Mac version and some plugins will 
build out of the box, and more binaries will appear.

>  QT framework installed somewhere where other QT apps can
> access it

This part of the idea is incompatible with the Mac idea of 
self-contained apps, and provides little benefit in practice. Why 
should Myth provide "the" Qt install for all programs on the system? 
Why would other Qt-based apps require the end user to install something 
from Myth, instead of bundling it themselves? What happens when the 
user needs a Qt plugin that's not built by Myth? Without support from 
Trolltech or Apple, it seems unlikely that it would save time for any 
developers or users.

>  and some documentation.

Another area where any help would be greatly appreciated. Once a Mac 
binary is ready, it would be nice to have docs more tailored for that; 
the standard MythTV docs aren't very applicable to a frontend-only 
setup that's already compiled. A "Myth Frontend User's Guide" might be 
a good project, combining keys.txt and relevant info from the main 
docs. Most projects have separate installation vs. user guides, but 
documentation manpower is scarce (and Myth is still pre-1.0).

Don't forget about the MythTV wiki, where there's lots of good info, 
even a guide to compiling on OS X.

http://www.mythtv.info/

> if there is someone else who is working on Mac specific
> issues I would love to work with them.

Nigel Pearson and myself are the primary Mac developers; drop us a line 
and we'd be happy to coordinate our efforts and discuss the Mac to-do 
list in more detail.

- Jeremiah



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