[mythtv] Making MythTV more OSX Friendly

Jeremiah Morris jm at whpress.com
Mon Jan 24 19:12:43 EST 2005


On 24 Jan 2005, at 5:20 PM, Patrick Tescher wrote:

> 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.

Mplayer, iTunes, and WeatherPop do these quite a bit better than Myth 
can now. Using Myth requires a second program and a MySQL server, to 
get an interface that doesn't even work with a mouse. You honestly 
think that Mac users will flock to it to check the weather?

The Myth plugins are a nice bonus when you already have a computer 
hooked up to the TV for the Tivo-style features, but I can't see an 
audience for what you describe. It's a very dubious benefit to the 
project, while it would require lots of work from Isaac and the rest of 
the crew to review and maintain the number of patches it would require.

> 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.

Perhaps you'd like to submit patches first for getting MythGallery and 
MythDVD working, or at least state what changes you made to get them to 
work? You say you want to share, go ahead.

> 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

You're missing the point. Nothing else besides Myth assumes that Qt is 
installed in /Library/Frameworks or /usr/local or anywhere in 
particular. So why would you require an installer and litter the user's 
disk for the sake of some abstract (and incorrect) point?

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

95% of the frontend is identical across platforms, documentation would 
benefit everyone in the project instead of just the dozen or so Mac 
users.

In harping on a Mac binary, you're putting the cart before the horse. 
Even by your own list, there's a lot of work to do before a Mac 
frontend is usable without other knowledge and programs. Before trying 
to get Myth into the hands of casual Mac users, instead focus on making 
it a program worth using.

- Jeremiah



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