[mythtv] Making MythTV more OSX Friendly

Patrick Tescher pat2man at gmail.com
Mon Jan 24 19:51:45 EST 2005


On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 19:12:43 -0500, Jeremiah Morris <jm at whpress.com> wrote:
> On 24 Jan 2005, at 5:20 PM, Patrick Tescher wrote:

> 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.

I don't think it would require much work at all. RIght now I just
removed various features that require a backend and I am accessing a
blank mysql database. I can play my movies, view my pictures, check my
weather all without running into menu items that wont work.

> 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.
> 

Ah, no real patches needed. MythGallery is already working as well as
the DVD player part of MythDVD. If you want to give it a try just run
qmake then edit the makefile to included -flat_namespace and
-undefined suppress in the LFLAGS like so:

LFLAGS   = -headerpad_max_install_names -flat_namespace -undefined
suppress -bundle


> 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?
> 

QT applications look for environmental variables to know where QT is
installed.  The default configuration is putting qt in /Developer and
then adding these variables:

QTDIR=/Developer/qt
PATH=$QTDIR/bin:$PATH
MANPATH=$QTDIR/doc/man:$MANPATH
DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=$QTDIR/lib:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH

Now if someone installs QT the way it is meant to be installed and
then they install MythTV they in fact have 2 copies of QT installed on
their machine. Now instead we could put QT somewhere else, add the
environmental variables and now if someone else compiles a different
QT app it will pick up where we installed QT and they don't have to
install all over again.

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

Sounds like I could get starter then. The question is, how will this
help be bundled/displayed? HTML? PDF? TXT?

> 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.

Honestly there are quite a few people out there who love trying out
new Mac beta software. As long as they don't have to touch a command
line. Basically the existing binary plus MythVideo and MythGallery
would give people a nice glimpse of tihngs to come. And I know its not
a top priority, but it might be nice at some point.


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