SoC 2008/GUI interfaces for the browsers plug-ins

This project is part of Google Summer of Code 2008. Student: Vladimir Belousov Mentor: Pavlov Konstantin

Thanks to everyone who pays attention to my project. I received several letters concerning the idea and I see that it excites many people. I am open to your suggestions.

About the project

The goal is to add GUI to the Firefox plug-in “in order to have, in the web pages embedded mode, buttons to control VLC media player as in WMP or Youtube player”. Next step is to develop similar plug-in for Internet Explore. Also “a replacement for all preconfigured media players embedded in web pages” should be provided. More detailed description (but a little bit outdated) can be found at the application information page http://code.google.com/soc/2008/videolan/appinfo.html?csaid=CD2BD85FF24811F4.

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Requirements:

• toolbar at the bottom of the video drawing area
• toolbar vissible by default
• toolbar should be possible to disable by webdesigner with JS API.
• toolbar should not be autohiding (think users won't understand)
• toolbar should have nicely designed buttons
• toolbar should work under Firefox windows
• toolbar should work under Firefox linux
• toolbar should work under Mozilla windows?
• toolbar should work under Safari MacOS X (pdherbemont)
• toolbar should have same JS API on all browsers (IE/Firefox)

The idea is that we need to use native code to design it:
On linux, there is already a code that uses libX11 to show a toolbar on top of the video.
On windows, GDI is the way to go (as the demo shows it).
On mac, well, :D
There are two things to show: a toolbar and a left-click menu.
Most of the code must be cross platform, except the drawing part, which means that controls should be common, and drawing may not be.
For designers that design explicitely a page for VLC, they must be able to deactivate menu and toolbar. The JS to control that has to be the same on ActiveX and Netscape/Mozilla.

Who I am

My name is Vladimir Belousov. I’m a third-year university student of Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (http://phystech.edu).

Progress

Current desight of the toolbar:

It has play/pause button, seek bar, volume control (it pops up a bar like system volume control does), about button.

I think that the toolbar should be extremely simple and have only a few controls like other players have, because it mustn't occupy much place on the screen and allow user to understand the functionality fast. But if someone wants extended functionality – this is where context menu comes to play.

There are three operating modes:

• Always Show - the toolbar is always shown
• Auto Hide - the toolbar gets hidden when user moves mouse pointer out of the window
• Hidden - the toolbar is always hidden

TODO

Here are my plans on near future:

• Port on Windows (approximately a few days)
• Extend GUI with hints/tips and context menu
• Extend JavaScript interface
• Fix bugs
• …

Bugs :-(

If you noticed the bug, please, add that to this list. I update my git repo from time to time, so you can test the project state.

• FF вызывает NPP_SetWindow не в соответствии с документацией

Timeline (planning)

May 26	Coding begins
May 26	Test of English (state exam)
May 30	Examination in Equations of Mathematical Physics (written form)
June 2	Week 2
June 5	Examination in Equations of Mathematical Physics
June 9	Week 3
June 10	Examination in theoretical physics
June 14	Examination in general physics
June 16	Week 4
June 23	Week 5
June 21-24	Sorry, unable to work (making a trip to home town)
June 30	Week 6
July 7	Week 7
July 7-14	Mid-term evaluation
July 14	Week 8
July 21	Week 9
July 28	Week 10
End of July - August	Some short trips are planned (exact dates are still unknown)
August 4	Week 11
August 11	Week 12
August 11-18	"Pencil down"
August 18	Week 13
August 25	Week 14
September 1	Week 15
August 18 - September 1	Final evaluation
September 3	Submitting required code samples to Google

Please, give me three days of free time before each exam to get prepared for it.