rc-file syntax etc.

[Samuel Hocevar]

On Sun, Aug 20, 2000, Dag B wrote:
> [Note: I do understand that this project is pretty much a French
> project. However, as the webpage is in English and I have found nothing
> indicating that I am expected to write French on the mailinglist, I'll
> stick to English.]

   This is quite wise, most people subscribed to the list probably don't
speak French. We try to communicate mostly in English anyway.

> What is the syntax (format) for the vlcrc file?

   It is not well defined yet. For the moment you shouldn't need it
since it's related to the network side of the project, and the server
isn't released yet. A blank file will work pretty well for the moment,
but the format will be documented when it becomes needed.

> The mga output plugin is not being built, even if I do --enable-mga on
> the ./configure command line. Manually editing the Makefile works,
> though... :-)
> Sorry for not providing a patch. For all I know, mga.so isn't built on
> purpose, because....

   ...because it doesn't work at all :) I started mga.so a while ago to
see how well it could work wit vlc, but it wasn't my main priority and
noone else in the project had a Matrox card, so I didn't get very far.
Moreover, it's a plugin that would have provided video output functions
as well as YUV functions, and our current kludgy plugin loading method
wouldn't support it very well.

> It appears to me that the --vout option has no effect on vlc. Anyone?

   When you start vlc, it lists all plugins, with a score affected to
each one. When the output method needs to be launched, it checks all
plugins and uses the one with the highest score. If you're under X, the
X11 plugin will probably get a score of 0x200, and the GGI plugin a
score of 0x100. But if you specify "--vout ggi" the GGI plugin will be
awarded an extra 0x200, so it'll have 0x300 and thus will be selected
rather than X.

   What exact problems are you experiencing with --vout ? Can you give
an example where it doesn't behave as expected, and provide with the
plugin list output ?

> And what are the valid otions for <method name> in 
> 
> Video parameters:
>   vlc_vout=<method name>                display method

   These are exactly the same as the ones you could give using the
--vout long option. The following two give the same result :

   vlc --vout gnome

   export vlc_vout=gnome ; vlc

> 4.
> Something is very wrong about how the pixel depth is being deduced. At
> least on my desktop (16bpp) the client window has a normal size, but the
> image is stretched to the double width, and I can only see a distorted
> version of the left half.

   I suppose you are running XFree 4. This is a known problem, but noone
here has XFree 4 yet, so it hasn't been fixed. The problem stands in
plugins/x11/vout_x11.c around line 415 (you can see there's a FIXME tag
warning that the code doesn't work under XFree 4).

   I didn't write this code (I have very minimal knowledge in X11
programming) so I can't really help debug without first reading a bit
about X11, so if anyone has a clue about it, it could help.

Regards,
Sam.
-- 
Samuel Hocevar <sam at via.ecp.fr> - http://www.via.ecp.fr/~sam/
     Do not try and fight the Cabal. That's impossible.
  Instead only try to realize the truth. There is no Cabal.