[vlc-devel] stringreview wxwindows result.

[R. Bernstein]

Derk-Jan Hartman writes:
 > modules/gui/wxwindows/open.cpp:
 > - I know i'm gonna hit a nerve here, and i think atm it's not even 
 > advisable, but in a clean userfriendly interface the MRL field should 
 > not be necessary for an end user.

Do we have a clean user-frendly interface? 

I'm not exactly sure what you mean here. Hide the MRL text entry and
always force user to use check boxes, dropdowns buttons and menus? 

If this is what you mean, I see a some downsides. First you have to
make sure you can do everything from the selections. For VCDs, one
thing I think that's lacking is the ability to specify the audio and
subtitle track in the menus.  (Can one add this in the MRL text box?)
It would be great if someone would add this on the VCD disc selection
page/tab.

A second problem is keeping the interface and the plugin in synch. If
the capabilities of an input plugin change, they will probably get
reflected in the MRL parser since an input plugin (at the moment)
*has* to define and field that. In the future it would be nice to have
a common MRL parser for common things like device/media location,
"title" and "chapter" selection. But even then an input plugin has to
define what entities exist and what they mean and that has to be
coordinated.

Last, it is useful to show the correspondence between the MRL form and
the button/dropdown box form. Here it is possible to get rid of the
entry box and an additional box that pops up something which shows
what the result MRL is. Or to some extent one can compare with the MRL
that appears down at the bottom when playing - but this is more
cumbersome.  And there will always be those who find it just easier to
type the MRL than to go through the button/MRL selection.

 > - "PBC LID" rocky? what is that for label? it's completely useless, who 
 > knows what PBC LID means?

PBC stands for Playback Control. If you think changing "PBC" to
"Playback Control" is clearer by all means change it. As for what LID
means, this is from the section "Concepts used by this Plugin" form
doc/intf-vcd.txt:

  A "playback list item" (also called a "list id or LID) combines
  "entries" and "segments" and "tracks" together with some navigation
  logic. "Playback Control" is simply starting playback at a particular
  playback list item, and unless otherwise specified you'd start with
  the first playback item which we call P1.

You only get that selection if you have the check box "Use playback
control?" selected under access/vcdx. Otherwise the label says either
"Entry" or "Track"

As for begin completely useless, I'm not sure how you came to this
judgement. So how did you? 

I'll however admit that playback control in vlc as it currently stands
is severely crippled because switching between still frames (for menu
selections) and motion videos seems broken. Right now I tend to thing
of the brokenness lying more in the MPEG decoder and a lack of a nice
way of telling the engine that the stream characteristics have changed
so to you reset your parameters.

Although I've spent quite a lot of time trying to figure out how to
address this, I haven't been successful. (And despite pleas for help
or information, none has been forthcoming.) 

But to the extent that VCD is authored to use playback control and
*doesn't* use still frames, things work okay, I think.


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