[vlc-devel] [RFC/Patches] Extensions: scripted plugins for VLC

[Jean-Philippe André]

Hello people,


I would like to share with you the work I've done during my own GSoC
(unfortunately not as a student :p)

It's about scripted plugins for VLC. By plugin, I mean something easy to 
install, easy to develop (and maintain), and integrated to VLC. Something 
similar to Firefox. Something we want for #35 ;-)
Let me introduce you to Extensions!


Extensions allow us to find some data about the current movie, download
subtitles, find lyrics, etc...
They are dynamically activated or deactivated, no need to restart VLC to
install a new Extension.
Extensions use Lua as programming language, with some very simple APIs to:
 - Create menu entries (currently in View > Extensions),
 - Create dialogs (only 1 actually),
 - Add/remove widgets (buttons, labels, lists, ...),
 - Interact with these widgets (set/get text values, check boxes state, ...)
And obviously you have access to all VLC Lua functions already implemented.

Only the Qt interface has been implemented, but for Mac OS X it should be 
quite easy too.


As pictures have more value than long speeches, please have a look at:
http://jpeg.dinauz.org/VideoLAN/captures/kapture02.png
http://jpeg.dinauz.org/VideoLAN/captures/kapture03.png
http://jpeg.dinauz.org/VideoLAN/captures/kapture04.png


The patches are available on this mailing list and at:
http://jpeg.dinauz.org/VideoLAN/patches/extensions/
or as a zip: http://jpeg.dinauz.org/VideoLAN/patches/extensions.zip
3 example scripts are provided there, copy them to share/lua/extensions


I know you guys are already busy reviewing and merging other works, but I 
would highly appreciate some comments about this.


Best regards,

-- 
Jean-Philippe André (jpeg)