[mythtv] Plugin developing howto

[Isaac Richards]

On Thursday 04 May 2006 10:35 pm, Robert Johnston wrote:
> On 5/4/06, florin baiduc <florinbaiduc at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> > some time ago I saw on the mythtv's page a howto about how to develop
> > plugins. It explained the usage of the config, init, run functions,
> > and other things...
> > Can somebody show me the link to that article (I really searched it,
> > but I can't find it anymore)...
> > I was to change a plugin's interface for to allow proper
> > "multitasking" - meaning that I should be able to exit a plugin
> > (mythmusic for example) and still have it working and accessible in
> > the background. For ther moment I can have the mythmusic running in
> > the background and so something which doesn't require /dev/dsp access,
> > but not much more.
>
> Essentially, you have to seperate the Plugin and the actual code that
> does the work, then run the worker thread as a seperate process you
> can talk to from the plugin (Via. TCP/IP, for example). This is how
> MTD, MFD/MFE and (Now) MythArchive work. There is no way (That I am
> aware of) to spin off a seperate thread from a plugin, as the plugin
> is essentially loaded modally (That is, it blocks the Frontend 'til it
> quits).

Err, you could start a thread whenever.  A plugin doesn't block the frontend 
any differently than any other part of myth.

There's absolutely no need for a separate worker process.  It's just one way 
of doing things - when you'd want something to continue working if the entire 
frontend was exited, for instance.

Isaac