[mythtv] getting player status during live tv

[Ed Wildgoose]

Michael Dellisanti wrote:

>I am writing a custom remote control interface for a
>new remote that I am creating and I am not sure what
>the best way is to go about getting the status of the
>player (play, pause, rew, ffw, etc).  My code is very
>similar to the lirc remote implementation - a separate
>process is spawned out of the MythMainWindow
>constructor.  I would like to know the state of the
>player so I can handle events from the remote
>differently.  If anyone could give me a pointer it
>would be appreciated.  Thanks.
>  
>


It's going to be messy, but if you are getting your hands dirty anyway 
heres what I would really like to see implemented:

- Abstracted status object with generic status fields like 
CurrentModule, Progress, State (playing, paused, etc).
- Module is subclassed with extra status fields depending on which 
module we are actually in and so classes with awareness of the module 
specific fields can delve more deeply to find out what the current 
status is.  For example the music might currently be "Status:playing" 
and "Progress: 15%", but an LCD panel would find it useful to know that 
the user was browsing the playlist editor and what the items on the 
screen were so that it could replicate them on the LCD panel

Does this make sense?  Otherwise we will need to write the same custom 
"status" code for each module, and probably repeat it for each kind of 
device (LCD panel, web remote control, etc).


I think there are probably more fields which would be useful in the top 
level status object, but I personally think that I could write a basic 
remote control app knowing just those basic fields, ie which module we 
were currently in, Status enum (like play, paused), and current 
progress.  Perhaps a "current play item" field would be useful as well? 

These seem to apply to nearly all modules although it's strained a 
little with some of them.  Consider the weather module which basically 
feels like a slideshow - we can use play/paused state here, and either 
the "progress" or "current play item" ends up telling the remote app 
which particular page we are on right now. 

I don't think such a change needs to be a big change, at least for phase 
one just to get a rough status object in place?  I hope some folks like 
Isaac might pour scorn on the concept before I or others waste some time 
building this...

Ed W