[vlc-devel] commit: Qt4: remove proto combo from open net tab ( Rémi Denis -Courmont )

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

On Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:01:30 +0100, "Marian Ďurkovič" <md at bts.sk> wrote:
> It also seems to me that this commit tries to fix a non-existent
> (or master-only) bug.

WHAT? The confusing design has been virtually unchanged since version
0.7.0, possibly earlier, and carried over from Wx to Qt4. Only Qt4 used a
combo box instead of one field per protocol. This did not improve usability
all that much. On the one hand, users then knew only one field at to be
chosen. On the other hand, they needed to do two extra clicks to select the
protocol, and still had no clue what to put in the "address" bar.

And then, there's the added issue that the Media menu is waaaaaaay too
complicated. It is really sad to see so many people fighting against making
VLC more usable for normal people. It is really sad to see people whine at
changes that were agreed earlier (especially someone who did not even
bother to participate then, or did you?).

> With VLC-1.0.3, Open Network dialog is IMHO doing the right thing:
> 
> 1) it allows the user to enter only the IP address for e.g. RTP/UDP
inputs

Your network is freaking broken if it requires users to enter IP address by
hand ever. For the umpteenth time, we have playlists and SDP files (e.g.
over HTTP), we have SAP, and you can also use HTML if you have proper URL
scheme bindings.

Do yourself a favor and put your RTP resources in a M3U file... really.

> BTW, it seems only VLC requires the leading '@' before multicast
> addresses, other players don't.

You will note that the rtp URI scheme is not standardized, at least not to
my knowledge.

For historical reasons (predating my own involvement), VLC interprets
rtp://address:port as unicast _from_ address:port currently. There are in
fact a few special hacks in the core just for this.

I would agree to changing the syntax, just as I would agree to removing
"open network" from the media menu completely in favor of Paste location.
But changing the syntax will break backward compatibility. I don't know how
prevalent (probably very very very little) is the use of rtp:// without @
with VLC.

-- 
Rémi Denis-Courmont