xvmpeg version 0.1

xvmpeg v.0.1a
4-08-1995
Copyright (C) 1995 Alexandre Naaman
hoser@step.polymtl.ca

General Info

This file explains a few little things about xvmpeg. I created xvmpeg kinda of as a joke (actually, I did it to practice XView). I was inspired by xmpeg which is a tk based interface to mpeg_play.

I started writing this program a long time ago but never finished it because, well, I simply do not have any mpegs on my machine! Also, I now have Motif so I don't really need this program (the latest version of mpeg_play is Motif based). This program is only an interface -- it makes a system() call to mpeg_play.

I don't plan on making many (if any) additions to this program in the future. Now that I've started using Motif I've dropped XView. Also, I have a few other programs in the works which I would like to concentrate on (the most important being a CAD program using OSF/Motif -- really nice if I may say so myself :)

What's New?

For information on changes that occured from one release of xvmpeg to the next take a look at the file ChangeLog.

Requirements

In order to be able to compile and use xvmpeg you will need the following:

- mpeg_play
- XView 3.2
- ANSI-C compiler

The latest version of mpeg_play (2.0.1) is Motif based so unless you have Motif, do not use this version (I don't know if it can be compiled without support for Motif). If you do not have Motif, you should use version 2.0 of mpeg_play. They are available as:

If you do not have Motif:

mpeg_play-2.0.tar.gz

otherwise,

mpeg_play-2.0.1.tar.gz

As far as XView 3.2 is concerned, you're on your own! XView 3.0 will not do. I used some (OK, one) feature that is only available in XView 3.2. For those of you who are really curious, it's the "File Open" window which makes this program incopatible with version 3.0. If many people complain I could add a few defines and make the program work with version 3.0 but it definitely would not look as nice.

What can I say, use gcc!!!

Building

For those of you with imake:

     xmkmf
     make
     make install.all

should be all that's required. You might want to take a look at the Imakefile to set the installation directory.

Otherwise you can use the Makefile.noimake file which is included. You can modify the libs and their locations easily from in there.

Installing

For those of you out there who hate doing make installs (even with a -n), here's what you should do to install xvmpeg.

As root do:

    	install -s xvmpeg /usr/local/bin
    	install -m 0444 xvmpeg.info /usr/openwin/lib/help/
    	install -m 0444 xvmpeg.man /usr/openwin/man/man1/xvmpeg.1x

simple enough :) Note that I don't put my binaries in /usr/openwin/bin because I like to know what I compiled.

Once this is done, you should take a look at the man page to figure out how to finish setting up this app (obviously, this info is in the SETUP section of the man page).

Usage

Again, really simple. Syntax is:

    	xvmpeg [filename]

No other options for the meanwhile. Check out the man page for more details.

Binary

The binary included in this distribution was built on Linux 1.2.8 , X11R6, gcc 2.6.3 and is in the a.out format. If you manage to build this application (toy?) on another platform PLEASE tell me about it. Send me the patches if you had to make some modifications to the sources. Unfortunately, the other platforms I have access to do not have XView installed so I cannot do the porting myself.

Todo

Not much, maybye add a tty window so that the output of mpeg_play can be visualized elsewhere than in /dev/console. BTW, if you want to see any error messages that mpeg_play spits out, you should have xconsole running.

What's most important, would be to modify my program so that you can have the program display the animation in a "neverending" loop (until you hit a button to stop the loop).

A few other goodies that I may add some day are:

- Make Drag'n'drop work;
- Multi-language support;
- Allow use of Xresources.

Legal Stuff

        This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
        it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
        the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
        (at your option) any later version.

        This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
        but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
        MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
        GNU General Public License for more details.

        You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
        along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
        Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

Bugs

The only thing you might consider a 'bug' is the way I handle recurring keystrokes (for keyboard accelerators) -- current "implementation" is not perfect. Also... when trying to use online help by hitting F1 key in window managers other than ol(v)wm the application will die! This is a rather bad bug because my favorite window manager is fvwm!

Comments and Other Questions

If you have any questions, comments (flames politely ignored), ideas, bug reports, or you just want to tell me that you like using this program, please get in touch with me at hoser@step.polymtl.ca.

Ciao & happy viewing,

Alex. (hoser@step.polymtl.ca)