[mythtv-users] Music player + gallery playback software bounty $100 for meeting requirments

[Robert Johnston]

On 4/28/05, Griffon -- <bushibot at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes it has been talked about a lot, probable suggesting that it's
> highly desired by a lot of folks :).
> 
> This is the one thing I miss most from MCE.
> 
> I'll go so far as to offer a $100 software bounty out of my pocket to
> anyone (payable via paypal please) who will write/add this feature to
> the Myth music player (maybe via the visualizer?), or a whole new
> module or gallery (I don't care that much as long as it works right).
> It's not much cash compared to the time but maybe it will tip the
> bucket and push somebody who has been thinking about doing it anyway
> into action.
> 
> This bounty will go to the first person to meet the requirements and
> release something stable and in good working order. This bounty will
> remain open for Two months from today.
> 
> Features required:
> On demand start playback of Gallery after starting music active que/play-list.
> Have UI elements to adjust what is the start gallery folder.
> Recursive lookup in gallery allowing pics in sub folders to play.
> Have UI elements for random or ordered photo play settable
> Allow GL transitions
> Allow music song skip/next/back without interrupting photo playback.
> Must be reasonable simple to install/add to current versions of Myth.
> Lets say .17 and .18. Particularly KnopMyth (it's my bounty dam it and
> I'm no rocket scientist with this stuff :) ).
> All the current standard music playback operations must be supported
> (random play, repeat/no repeat etc.)
> 
> Nice but not really required:
> MP3 overlay tags in a corner at start and end of song Song, album,
> artist (graphic). It's another MCE-ism but a nice touch.
> Mapping certain play lists to certain gallery folders (ie starting
> play list Will trigger a certain montage)
> 
> Feels like I'm missing something important but I'm drawing a blank.
> 
> This would IMHO take the music player to the next level.
> 
> I'm not on the dev alias, if somebody who is would like to cross post
> this there I would appreciate it.

Me, I'm not sure that a "Quick Fix" like this is really the kind of
thing we want to encourage. I know that there is a new idea for the UI
(MythUI within CVS) that uses OpenGL for drawing menus and the like. I
think, in with this should be a fundamental change to the way
"Plugins" work in MythTV. As it stands, when you switch to a plugin,
it takes over (virtually) everything, and when you leave a plugin all
execution from that plugin stops. I think what *should* happen is that
all plugins "run" in the background at startup. When a plugin is
selected it's "Primary" display is  shown on-screen. As part of that
display (Within the theme) are "areas" that can be used by other
running plugins, with their themes being placed over the current
plugin's theme.

So, say, the "Video" plugin's menu theme will have an area defined as
"PluginStatusMenu", that will accept any plugin's secondary display
that defines it's "View" as "Menu" (So that you can overlay the
currently playing MP3, or a live TV thumbnail, or whichever). This
also allows for "PluginStatusOSD", say, which will overlay a gallery
slideshow, or a playing video.

The "Status" section will be defined in an almost-HTML manner, so you
could have:

<table id="MusicPluginStatusMenu">
  <tr>
    <td id="VisThumbnail" height="100%" ratio="1:1" rowspan="2" />
    <td id="TrackName" width="*" height="50%" />
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td id="TimeElapsedRemaining" width="*" height="50%" />
  </tr>
</table>

So that the "Status" display can scale intelligently to fit any size
of themed area.

Bear in mind this is just an idea, but it might be a good starting point.

Of course, feel free to flame if it's already been covered, or if
anyone can think of a better way...
-- 
Robert "Anaerin" Johnston