[vlc-devel] Cocoa/Objective-C interface for VLC?

[Andre-John Mas]

On 17-May-2009, at 10:45, Andre-John Mas wrote:

>
> On 17-May-2009, at 10:28, Felix Paul Kühne wrote:
>
>> Hello Andre-John,
>>
>> let me get a few things straight here:
>>
>> VLC's current OS X interface is entirely (except for the fades of  
>> the playlist and the preferences windows) created with Interface  
>> Builder and is completely driven by about 20 Obj-C files with  
>> various classes. This interface module directly interacts with  
>> VLC's internal C interface, which reduces overhead, enables all  
>> available features and information directly, but obviously requires  
>> a broader knowledge about VLC's C API.
>>
>> Additionally, there is something we call VLCKit: a Obj-C wrapper  
>> for libvlc's external interface. It includes basic classes for  
>> playlists, streaming and transcoding. However, this is only a  
>> limited set. Doing simple media players (comparable to MPlayer OS X  
>> or QuickTime Player) is as hard as doing a QuickTime-based one;  
>> thus, it is really easy. However, you'll lack most of the cool  
>> things such as running multiple interfaces within one instance  
>> (remember that hotkeys is an interface, too). Still, you get da  
>> überfeature: playing multiple streams within one instance of VLC  
>> side by side.
>>
>>
>> Anyway, my point is that reworking the current OS X interface is a  
>> lot easier than rewriting it from scratch just to provide another  
>> main window. The Dudiak-interface is a nice approach in the correct  
>> direction, but still subject of being merged. In case tonydelalande  
>> or another guy wants to start working on a nice OS X interface, s/ 
>> he would be absolutely welcome to do so. However, this isn't any  
>> easier by using VLCKit. VLC's C interface to interface modules is  
>> pretty easy to understand to anyone knowing C. So, if you're  
>> writing Obj-C, you'll understand it. and of course, we, the  
>> inactive OS X guys can always give tips here and there. Hooking up  
>> VLC's current cocoa classes is easy and exactly the way we already  
>> do.
>>
>>
>> In case that I got your message completely wrong, please says so.  
>> If not, I hope this helps a bit.
>
>
> Thanks for the information. I wasn't aware of this.
>
> I had made by comment based on not seeing any nibs for describing  
> the UI. Actually I saw one (MainMenu.nib),
> but could not open it with 'Interface Builder'. I suppose I made an  
> assumption without doing much research.
>
> Has anyone put any documentation together on VLCKit?

Not seeing anything in the Wiki (I did a search), I decided to create  
an entry, which is currently nothing more than a stub with an excerpt  
of Felix's e-mail. If anyone who knows about VLCKit can contribute it  
would be very much appreciated.

André-John