Older blog entries for tnt (starting at number 15)

1 Feb 2002 (updated 9 Feb 2002 at 04:52 UTC) »
GStreamer and the GIMP
Been talking to the GIMP people and GStreamer people (again) about getting GStreamer and GEGL to integrate. (In doing this) I found out that GEGL is only about 20%-30% done. And also found out that the most important part of GEGL is GIL/CodeGen part.

It seemed to me, that if that is the case, then maybe the GIMP people should make CodeGen produce GStreamer objects, and add whatever else they need to the GStreamer code-base.

So I went and talked to yosh about that. And after some discussion; and (later) after getting omega to come over and talk to him too... I think we've almost completely convinced yosh.

If it happens... it will be great! And give Linux a very strong Multimedia back-end. And likely make it the defacto standard Multimedia back-end for Linux. (It also makes happen some of the things we planned and designed for matterial... in particular, (parts of) matterialize.
30 Jan 2002 (updated 9 Feb 2002 at 18:14 UTC) »
matterial in Linux Jounal
matterial got some more publicity. This time it is mentioned in the February 2002 issue of Linux Journal; in the NLE Video Editors article, written by Robin Rowe. (I suspected that that was why he interviewed me, over e-mail, before.)
GStreamer, the GIMP, and GEGL... oh my
In other news... I've been trying to get GStreamer and GEGL (from the GIMP) to integrate. I've suggested it to the heads of GStreamer... and, now, omega (one of the GStreamer heads) has sent a e-mail over to yosh (one of the GIMP heads), to see if he is interested. Seeing these two things integrate is very desirable; and hopefully this will happen!

After talking to Wim Taymans, from GStreamer, I think I understand the (undocumented) GStreamer Event stuff enough to (hopefully) make my (GStreamer) Movie Plugins work. (These GStreamer Movie Plugins will be used for matterial Junior and other matterial subprojects.) Here's the converstion, from the GStreamer IRC channel:

<tnt> No... I'm just had a bit of trouble understanding the GstEvent stuff...
<tnt> ... but I've been pointed to the doc/random/wtay/event* stuff today...
<wtay> tnt: I can explaing it if you want..
<tnt> wtay: Sure... go ahead!
<wtay> tnt: what do you want to know?
<tnt> Are they "returned" just like a buffer?
<wtay> tnt: some do :)
* tnt hasn't worked on his Gstreamer plugins in over a month... so he's having to remember everything/
<wtay> tnt: events are used for interplugin communication, just like buffers but only to transfer metadata
<tnt> How do you send them between plugins?
<wtay> tnt: like EOS/FLUSH/DISCONTINUOUS
<wtay> tnt: gst_pad_push
<tnt> Are those the only events?
<wtay> tnt: for downstream events
<wtay> tnt: for ustream events, you use gst_pad_send_event
<wtay> tnt: they are handled differently (ie not done by the scheduler)
<tnt> What Upstream events are there?
<wtay> tnt: seek currently
<tnt> Are these specialized events "sub-classed" from GstEvent... or is a data member "set"... so you can tell the difference?
<wtay> tnt: it's all one big enum currently with the type field set to the event type
<tnt> So... I couldn't create my own event... in my application. (Unless I change the original GStreamer code.)
<wtay> tnt: nope, that was one of the design decisions
<tnt> wtay: Do you remember the "reasoning" for choosing that?
<wtay> tnt: although there are plans to add custom events in the future
<wtay> tnt: yes, abuse the system to transport data
<tnt> wtay: OK... I'll see if I can make my plugins work now... Thanks!

I also asked if it was OK that my Movie plugins were being written in GOB... and they seem to be OK with it... so my plugins will likely get into the offical GStreamer distribution. (So everyone will be able to use them.)

Anyways, better get back to writing the first draft of the Movie Preview and Thumbnail Format specification (as part of the matterial Project).

Along with rkarl and jmellen, I attended aRTs IRC meeting for adding Video to aRTs. I don't know if it is my lack of background (of what they've discussed before) but they seem to be just hacking something together, instead of designing something. And they don't seem to be making any facilities for synchronization (of Audio, Video, Text, etc). And that will give them huge problems in the future.

Because of this, the aRTs/Video thing seems unsuitable for matterial.

Also, as per my previous post, about want to hire someone, so I can stop having to work (on average) 12-hours-a-day... I have hired someone, and it seems to be working great. I've finally been getting a good night's sleep again :-)

One other thing rkarl and jmellen, you should add your Advodato Diary pages to the matterial Credits page (under Journal).

OK... I just got back in at about 1:30am again, because of work. I think I'll be hiring someone to work (for me). Probably part time... and full time if there's enough work.

Hopefully that will make it so I can have a somewhat normal work week -- no more 10- to 13-hour-work-days... and hopefully no more working on the weekend.. (And it will give me time to work on matterial again!)

I actually didn't expect to need to hire anyone for another 6 months... but 3 of my clients are giving me alot of work... and I can see that I need to hire someone now.

22 Jan 2002 (updated 22 Jan 2002 at 22:20 UTC) »

Had a VanLUG meeting today... but missed most of it. There was a presentation on ratpoison -- a mouse-less windows manager. But I only saw the last 10 minutes of it. (And missed the first hour-and-a-half or so.) Too bad... I would have liked to have seen the presentation.

I'm still really busy with work. (I worked over 13 hours on Sunday! And had 12-hour-days virtually all of last week.) So I haven't had time to do any work on matterial... except that I did a bit of work on the first draft of the Movie Preview and Thumbnail Format specification. Hopefully I'll get it done by the weekend... but we'll see.

Oh ya, I'm posting a HELP WANTED, for matterial....

The matterial Development Team is looking for someone with automake and autoconf knowledge and experience to join the team. If you have the will, desire, and skill to help, join the matterial Developer Mailing List and introduce yourself.
None of us, on the matterial Development Team, have enough knowledge or experience with automake and autoconf to use them properly (nor the free time to learn them), so having someone join the team, that knows how to use these tools, would be great! (Of course, as always, we accept new comers, to the project, to work on any area of the project (that they want to work on)!... but, right now, we're in need of someone to take care of the automake and autoconf stuff.)
19 Jan 2002 (updated 19 Jan 2002 at 09:29 UTC) »

sej (in reference to your diary entry) I brought up the Sketch format, as a possibile suggestion for something to use... or at least something to base things on. However, bernhard -- Bernhard Herzog -- the lead developer of Sketch, contested that that format would not be sufficent (as an e-book or PDF replacement.) (Which is what the original poster, of the thread, wanted... but I may have not been clear about this, with my previous diary post.)

The links you provided will be helpful, though. Already it seems that there is some momentum to better develop the Vector Graphics capabilities on Linux. Some people seem to agree with me, that we can find some kind of common ground, to create a standard Vector Graphics Library. Some disagree, with varing degrees. Either way, the links you provided will be helpful no matter what path is taken. Thanks.

18 Jan 2002 (updated 18 Jan 2002 at 09:47 UTC) »

A new version of mFlip -- the matterial Flip Book -- has been released. Version 0.3.0.

I wish I had more... ummm, I should say any time to work on matterial Junior. But, in the last 3 days, I've worked 12 hour days.

An interesting thread has been going on, on the gnome-devel-list mailing list. It started out by discussing an article that rms wrote, and talking about the need for a standard, script-less document format that free software, and open source software could use. But I kind of used it -- the thread -- as a soap-box to talk about the need of having a good vector graphics engine for free and open source software. Hopefully something will come out of it... like a common library we can all build upon. But we'll see.

Another win for Linux.... While getting acquainted with one of my new clients, I found out they had a signle Linux server running amoung all their other Windows computers. This client was impressed by the stability of Linux, and a conversation broke out about Linux. I told him about my experiences with Linux; both as a server and as a desktop.

He was very interested to hear about Linux being used as a desktop. (Something that he seemed to be unaware of.) And after hearing about all the applications your could use on Linux (as a desktop) he decided that he wanted all his computers (at all his locations) running Linux.

It seems that, in this case, the only thing (previously) holding-back the adoption of Linux, as a desktop, was ignorance. (Most normal people... that even know about Linux... seem to only know of it as a server.)

rasmus, I've been trying to fix the problem since Thursday (January 10, 2002). And (when I tried upgrading it) I did see the httpd.conf.rpmnew file; and used it (and then edited it). But the problem persisted, even after I tried various suggestions, that I got from my fellow VanLUG members.

If I were using the server for only my own personal stuff, I probably would have continued to try and fix it... until I finally got it working. (Let me say it again, I really like Red Hat Linux, and have been using it for a long time.)

The thing is that I have (commercial) projects to complete and deadlines to meet. And I need a system that works. (And Mandrake worked.)

One thing though. I really like the way Mandrake organizes its config files for Apache. I like it alot better than the way Red Hat does it.

(Advodato really needs a better way to talk to other members, and to reply to diary entries.)

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