Yet another blog for JBKempf - Tag - Qt4

State of VideoLAN

Jean-Baptiste Kempf — Wed, 11 May 2011 12:42:00 +0200

It's been a long time

It's been a long time since the last time I wrote something long enough around here.
But the cool thing is that it is due to being working quite a lot on VLC and different projects...

So, how well is VideoLAN? How well is VLC?

In this post, I will come back on a few points that happened in our last year.

1. VLC

VLC is doing quite well actually, but some things could be better...

1.1.0

VLC 1.1.0 was out last year, in June.

This release was a tremendous success, and probably the one where we've had the best success for launch.

The focus on GPU decoding and some HD codecs was very well welcomed by users, as was the improved Qt interface.

Of course, 1.1.0 had a lot of bugs, since people still refuse to test our betas and RC versions, and as usual, 1.1.1 was ready and out in less than a month.

1.1.x

The 1.1.x-bugfix branch is quite stable and feature-full.

We still have notorious issues with PulseAudio, DVD Unicode path and Font caching on Windows. But all of them have been fixed in the git master.

1.1.0 to 1.1.9 updates

We've done 9 minor additional releases in 11 months from 1.1.0 to 1.1.9. And 1.1.10 is imminent...

While, this is a bit annoying for the users, seeing the poor update mechanism in VLC, this is mostly due to numerous security issues found and fixed in VLC.

This shows that a very small team, like VLC's can care enough to support and have a strong security focus... Even when people are volunteers.

Numbers

Since the switch to SourceForge, for mirroring the downloads, VLC has been downloaded 237 millions of times, in 11 months.

The repartition per country, is the usual one as seen on my numbers post. And 57% of those downloads were done through the upgrade systems of VLC; the rest came from various websites, including the VideoLAN website.

VLC team and development

Unfortunately, the VLC core team is still very small, and I might say smaller than before. The Bus Factor of VLC is still too low.

However, the number of next-to-core VLC developers and the number of VLC contributors has increased quite a bit.

With this increase, the process for reviewing patches and the quality of code entering VLC has improved a lot. This is good for VLC's maturity.

On the same topic, a lot of code has been cleaned up and outdated modules have been removed.

VLC 1.2.x

I will speak of VLC 1.2.x in a later post. But, you should know that VLC 1.2.0 is in a good shape and development is still happening at a very fast pace.

2. VideoLAN

But VLC isn't the only thing happening in VideoLAN.

The VideoLAN association is in a good shape, having fixed all the assets issue we might have had in the past and allowing developers to work together.

Websites and machines

The main VideoLAN website was redesigned and simplified a lot to stop confusing our users. The users feedback was quite good, on this part.

The other services have been cleaned, removed and improved a lot (major software upgrades, spam fighting, uptime improvements).

The main external websites are now:

Software upgrades: libdvbpsi, libdvbcsa

libdvbpsi has seen one major upgrade and a change of license: it is now LGPLv2.1.

libdvbcsa has seen one major upgrade to increase speed.

Phonon-VLC has seen several upgrades in the last year and is now perfectly working on Linux/KDE, Mac and Windows. Most of the rough edges have been fixed now and it will gain maturity this summer, once again. The amazing work from KDE folks, like apachelogger, is to be noted.

libbluray and libaacs

We have welcomed 2 new libraries into VideoLAN: libaacs and libbluray.

Those 2 libraries are focused on Blu-Ray integration for video players, and are still in early development.

Events

On the communication and community work, VideoLAN schedule has been quite full too.

We've been to various events like FOSDEM, CeBIT and LinuxTag.

We've been part of GSoC 2010 and GSoC 2011, like every year since a few years, and we've been also to participating to the first Google Code-In.

And finally, we've celebrated our 10 years of open source in February.

Conclusion

VideoLAN and VLC are now quite mature projects and the last year has re-stated this matter of fact.

VLC 1.1 was quite an important success for the users, and VLC 1.2 is on the way.

However, the fact that the core team is still mainly composed by a handful of volunteers can be worrisome for the future.

We need your help and we are quite confident for the future!

Want to include vlc in your Qt application?

Jean-Baptiste Kempf — Sat, 23 May 2009 10:36:00 +0200

Qt and VLC

Well, we have a very easy howto for you: libVLC in Qt .

This will output the video inside the widget that you want using QWidget::winId() method.

This has been tested on Linux and Windows, using libVLC 0.9.9.

Need

If you can't build your application easily, remember to install libvlc-dev or to use the SDK for windows from the .zip files of the releases!

Participate

Don't hesitate to complete this!

VLC and IDE

Jean-Baptiste Kempf — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 08:19:00 +0200

I receive many questions about using an IDE to build VLC.

Usually, the answer is VIM. But I will try to introduce something else today.

Needs

Yeah, VIM is TEH awesome, but sometimes we would like more. But usually, more is slow, incomplete and boring...

Would you want an editor with:

VIM syntax and command,
Completion that is faster than the one from Eclipse
Git inclusion
Doesn't eat all your RAM
Debuggueur and step-by-step+breakpoints integration like MSVC?

I guess so!

Believe it or not, there is a solution: QtCreator from Nokia/QtSoftware that I have tested to work with VLC.

Even if you don't think this will be useful for you, at least read in diagonale the following post.

Installation

Take QtCreator 1.1 (don't take older versions, they won't fit for VLC, or the VIM part will suck...)

   `apt-get install qtcreator` in Debian/Sid

Take Qt4.5.1 (I mean it, Qt 4.5.0 is buggy!)

Setup

General Setup

Run QtCreator and launch Tools->options
- Activate FakeVim and set ShiftWidth to 4
- Text Editor->Behaviour, set Tab size at 4
- Text Editor->Display, enable Text Wrapping and display right margin, and if you like Alexis' vim, Visualize whitespace
- Text Editor, change the colour schemes to match you old editor

Save options.

VLC Setup

For the example, I assume that you build your vlc in a "build" subdir of the source (as xtophe usually gives advice)

 * File->New
   Select 'Import of Makefile-based Project'
   -
   Project Name 'VLC'
   Location '/home/you/vlc' and Choose, Next
   -
   Let it process... It should take around 1minute
   Finish.

EXIT QtCreator... I MEAN it.

Setup Indexation

QtCreator will have done VLC.includes VLC.creator, VLC.files and a VLC.config in your vlc/ folder.

Overwrite the VLC.includes and the VLC.files with the one you can find:

Doing this will gain you some time. Those could be auto-generated one day, I guess...

Setup Build

Relaunch QtCreator

Select Projects (on the left) and select VLC on the list
Build Settings,
- Change Build directory to /home/you/vlc/build, using browse
Run Settings,
- Add a custom Executable with the blue '+'
- Name it VLC, browse to /home/you/vlc/build/vlc for Executable
- Put -Iqt in Arguments
Click on Edit on the left. You should see VLC with most useful files.

Build VLC and launch it.

In the Menu, Build and Build All, you should see the Compilation output on the bottom (or by clicking on the left build progressbar)
In the same menu, Build and Run it, and VLC will launch directly, outputting everything in the Application output.

Cool. But that was just a minimum...

Using it like VIM: Good!

Open modules/codec/avcodec/audio.c from the file browser and see... You are using VIM commands to control. You have Visual, Edit and all usual VIM modes!

Completion is triggered with Ctrl+Space and will give you a list. If there is no ambiguition, it is filled.
. and -> triggers the list of the members of the struct or the class by default.
After function completions, it will give the type of the arguments.

F2 will give you access to the function definition where your mouse is.

Debugging it: awesome!

You can put breakpoints in the margins near the line numbers. (Like in modules/gui/qt4/main_interface.cpp:100 and 108)

Now re run it using debug running.

It will stop at your breakpoint and you will have the function call lists (and line numbers) but also pointers values (like p_intf, and this in main_interface.cpp)

You can, of course Step In, Step Into and Step Out, resume or stop the code

More coolness:

Locate

Use the locate search box to find quick declarations: 'm vlc_object_act' will help you to go quickly to the method declaration, etc...

Git

Use the Git menu to checkout from within QtCreator.

Nota Bene

The indexing shouldn't be too long, but could be a bit longer the first time you launch the project!

Have fun!

Evaluation of Google Summer of Code 2008 for VideoLAN

Jean-Baptiste Kempf — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 05:17:00 -0800

This is a post to summarize and evaluate the work that we did this year, compared to last year too.

This was our second year of the Google Summer of Code project.

Google Summer of Code 2008

For the second time, VideoLAN was an association mentor for the Google Summer of Code project.

The 2008 edition of GSoC had a few improvements and change in the way Google and we handled it. Let's detail ours:

VideoLAN, VLC && x264

This year, we decided that VideoLAN would be a mentoring association for BOTH VLC and x264, instead of doing the same confusion as usual between VLC and VideoLAN.

This meant that we had to work with the x264 team to find ideas, mentors and define common rules. This was an extra amount of time, but for a good reason!

VideoLAN rules

After the last year Google Summer of Code summit, we learned quite a few things, and I decided to be a bit more strict during the summer of code. This is Google money, what about using it correctly? Here we go for the major changes:

More publicity,
Qualification tasks. I cannot emphasize more on the goods this brought to us,
Better reviewing from developers, with common rules to follow on how to give points,
More involvements of students in the community (presentation mail on mailing list, mandatory public wiki page),
Mandatory commit and status mail every week to mentor+admin,
A more active special mailing list!

Results

Those changes were great...

Selection

We received many candidacies, with higher quality and we had the possibility to chose 14 students!

One of them stopped before even beginning, because he had found a new job. So we started with 13 students:

9 for VLC media player
4 for x264

Detailed results on VLC:

Just going to review every students and whether their code was merged or not.

Please keep in mind that coding on VLC is not as easy as it might seem. And the code is evolving quite fast, so sometimes, it is difficult to keep stuffs up-to-date.

Lukas Durfina

Lukas was my student and was working on the Fullscreen Controller and Phonon work. The Qt fullscreen controller was in VLC release 0.9.0 and the Phonon work is almost merged in 1.0.

Geoffroy Couprie

Geoffroy had the difficult task to rework on the WinCE/Windows Mobile port of VLC. Most of the work has been merged in the upcoming VLC 1.0.

Antoine Lejeune

Antoine was working on the Maemo port of VLC. The code has been merged in VLC 1.0.

Kaarlo Henrik Räihä

Kaarlo is a very very active member of our community and was working on very difficult aspects of Vista integration, namely DXVA. The project was very difficult and successful for the most part, but it isn't merged yet in VLC.

Fabio Ritrovato

Fabio was working on MTP device integration. The code is good and the project is successful and the merge is pending (hopefully for 1.0)

Mirsal Ennaime

Mirsal is a long time coder in the community and was rewritting the UPnp client and hopefully the server for DLNA. The project was also successful, but the merge is pending because of some services discovery changes in our code. It should happen for 1.0

Dylan Yudaken

Dylan was working on PVR improvements and on timeshifting. The project was also very successful and Dylan was a delight working with. Some things have been merged, some are going to.

Eric Dudiak

Eric reworked our very bad MacOS X interface This was very difficult but the outcome was quite good. The mergins is still pending too.

Vladimir Belousov

This project was a failure.

Google Summer of Code Summit

This summer of code summit was great, because it was 2 days and we had way more time to discuss with other people.

I, however, have found it not enough focused on the GSoC, but maybe this was because I didn't choose the right discussions.

Conclusion

This Google Summer of Code was a HUGE success for VideoLAN and we had some very very good output, some of which you already have on your Computer!

Thank you Leslie!

VLC 0.9-1.0 with native GTK Open File Dialog.

Jean-Baptiste Kempf — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 06:21:00 -0800

Since the latest discussions and comments on this very blog: VLC media player and GTK, here is some work to make VLC use native GTK File Open:

Profit.

VLC media player and GTK

Jean-Baptiste Kempf — Wed, 21 May 2008 18:48:00 -0700

Switch to Qt4

As many of you know now, VLC main interface will switch to Qt4 for many reasons that we have already detailed.

GTK issues

Many GNOME users are not pleased because of the differences between the look of Qt applications and native looks of GNOME/GTK application.

Solution

Trolltech has made a new QGtkStyle that uses GTK to design the widgets. Then you can have a VLC using Qt that seems exactly like any Gtk application.

Screenshots

KDE4

Jean-Baptiste Kempf — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:13:00 +0100

Après 2 ans et demi de développement, le nouvel environnement de bureau pour Linux et Unix, KDE4, a été présenté officiellement, lors d’une rencontre de la communauté KDE, dans les locaux de Google, à Mountain View (CA), du 17 au 19 janvier. Lors de cette rencontre, à laquelle a participé le service scientifique de San Francisco, de nombreuses présentations, annonces, réunions et conférences ont posés les bases pour le futur de la plateforme KDE.

KDE4 est un changement radical dans la suite KDE. Redéveloppé complètement en se basant sur la version 4 de la plateforme Qt, KDE4 introduit un bureau intégralement redessiné, une utilisation de la composition dans le gestionnaire de fenêtres, une intégration de widgets dans le bureau et a développé de nombreuses abstractions afin de simplifier l’écriture des applications basée sur cette plateforme.

L’utilisation de la composition d’affichage (utilisation de la carte graphique pour créer le rendu du bureau) permet d’ajouter des effets en tant réel de transparences, d’éclairage, de modification de tailles et d’effets 3D, afin d’améliorer l’accessibilité, la productivité sans affecter les performances. Le gestionnaire de fenêtre, KWin4, utilise les librairies OpenGL, Xrender ou un mode intégralement logiciel, en fonction des capacités du matériel.

En parallèle du travail sur KWin, le projet Oxygen a regroupé des designers, des artistes et des spécialistes de l’ergonomie afin de changer le look complet de toutes les applications et de toutes les icônes. Ce projet, utilisant uniquement des graphismes vectoriels (SVG) permet d’avoir un bureau d’une grande qualité et indépendant de la résolution native du matériel.

Outre KWin et Oxygen, l’élément le plus visible pour les utilisateurs se présente sous la refonte du bureau et des widgets : Plasma. La véritable différentiation entre ces widgets et ceux de la concurrence réside dans le fait que la barre des tâches est composée de widgets et le fait que le bureau les intègre nativement. Ainsi, il est possible de ne plus avoir de barre de tâches, d’avoir un dashboard apparaissant au dessus des applications ou d’en intégrer dans le bureau. Bien sûr, Plasma est entièrement vectoriel, ce qui permet de redimensionner et de transformer à la volée les widgets.

KDE4, outre ces changements graphiques introduit de très nombreuses couches et abstractions pour sa plateforme et les applications dérivées. Phonon, Solid, Decibel, Kross, Akonadi, NepoMuk, Khalki, Sonnet et Strigi en sont les principaux. L’intérêt est de simplifier le développement et l’intégration des applications. Par exemple, Solid expose une abstraction de l’état du matériel et des périphériques, et en gère les évènements. Ainsi une application qui par exemple gère des baladeurs numériques n’a pas à se soucier des différents types de connexions. Phonon permet de développer des applications multimédias sans s’occuper des couches basses tels que les filtres, les codecs ou les sorties audio. Ces abstractions permettent, entre autres, de proposer une couche intermédiaire d’unification pour le scripting, la recherche de fichiers, les contacts et les mails, les communications instantanées ou la correction orthographique à l’intérieur de toutes les applications.

KDE4 a aussi repensé la plupart de ses applications « cœurs » ; Dolphin, le gestionnaire de fichiers a été simplifié et séparé du navigateur internet ; Konqueror, le navigateur internet se base sur le nouveau moteur de rendu WebKit, qui en fait une des applications respectant le mieux les standards du Web ; Okular, le visionneur de documents, supporte de nombreux nouveaux fomats et a été fortement accéléré. D’autres applications comme Kopete, Amarok ou Marble sont encore en développement. La suite KOffice prépare une version 2, basée sur KDE4 pour la fin de l’année. Nativement basée sur OpenDocument, et intégrant de nombreux modules, elle compte concurrencer les autres grandes suites déjà présentes sur le marché.

La dernière grande nouveauté de KDE4 se trouve dans la possibilité de faire fonctionner les applications KDE sous Windows et sous MacOS X, grâce à la portabilité de Qt, des abstractions de la plateforme KDE et de la modification du système de compilation, dorénavant basé sur CMake et non plus les classiques autotools.

KDE4 Release Event

Jean-Baptiste Kempf — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 11:23:00 +0100

Hey, I'll be at the KDE4 release event party in Moutain View, January 17 – 19, 2008.

I know, I don't use KDE as my primary desktop, but still, I am working on VLC-qt4 interface, and am going to work on the phonon engine, so I feel kind of concerned...

And maybe, if eean, sebr, and ferai are persuasive enough, I'll quit using my Xfce...

Qt4 screenshots

Jean-Baptiste Kempf — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:37:00 +0100

Hello, just two small screenshot of my work:

Qt4 Hackathon

Jean-Baptiste Kempf — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 20:12:00 +0200

This is an announce about the up-coming hackathon to work on vlc Qt4 bugs and features for the next version of VLC, since we are very late :D

Next week end, from friday night (7 september) to sunday night, we invite you to work with us on IRC ( #videolan, irc.freenode.net ) and on SVN.

If you have issues with the Qt4 interface, known bugs, and regressions;

if you have coding will, if you know how to write C++ or Qt;

if you can compile VLC and test for us live, please join us.

Fun and Free virtual beer for everyone !

Qt4 interface: screenshot

Jean-Baptiste Kempf — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 17:18:00 +0200

I know I haven't posted a lot of things lately on this very blog.

I know that the image will not fit correctly the screen, especially if you use an old browser (meaning IE6)

But still: