User:Pdherbemont

(Pdherbemont is Pierre d'Herbemont)

VLC.app proposition

The problem

The problem with current implementation of VLC.app and gui/macosx is that it relays on the src/vlc.c common file that set up the interface. This permit to use vlc command line and do cool vlc thing with it. However there are many troubles with gui/macosx:

• It can't be detached, nor can be embedded on the fly. Thus we can't really say that this is a vlc interface module.
• There is a conflict between the fact that the gui/macosx main thread needs to be the first thread ([NSApp run] has to be run on the main thread), and the fact that vlc first sets up on the main thread, and cleanly ends only if gui/macosx Run() ends. But [NSApp run] might not ends properly.

Where we would expect to do:

 Run()
 {
     [NSApp run]; /* May not exit */
 }

We do:

 Run()
 {
     if(setjmp(jmpbuff) == 0)
         [NSApp run]; /* May not exit */
     /* Will exit when longjmp(jmpbuff, 1) is called */
 }

Which is kind of ugly.

Proposed solution

gui/macosx shouldn't be a module interface but instead an application that makes uses of libvlc (named here VLCOSX). However src/vlc.c would be still be build (named here vlc), and we'll have in the VLC.app bundle the two binary VLCOSX and vlc. VLCOSX would start the Cocoa application whereas vlc would be the real vlc that we can use with command line. VLCOSX could still be hacked to forward vlc option to libvlc, but this is really not is goal.