[mythtv] Making MythTV more OSX Friendly

Patrick Tescher pat2man at gmail.com
Mon Jan 24 17:20:27 EST 2005


On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 17:09:14 -0500, Jeremiah Morris <jm at whpress.com> wrote:
> 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?
> 

I assume you meant mac frontend, basically most mac users are not
going to have a linux box and are not going to be able to record TV
anyway, but with some good plugins they could watch movies, listen to
music, check the weather, etc. until a mac backend is written.

> > 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.
> 

MythVideo works as well as MythGallery and some of MythDVD as long as
you update the LFLAGS, but I would still like to add some mac specific
features like iTunes support.

> > 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.
> 

I agree that everything related to MythTV should be in the .app bundle
but QT is a framework and it should probably either go in
/Library/Frameworks/QT.framework or in /usr/local/qt/ just like all
the other frameworks

> >  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).
> 

I can get some basic documentation done quickly but it wont be of much
use until we get a good mac binary going.

> 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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