Re: [Totem] Browser plugin gstreamer

["Felipe Contreras" <felipe contreras gmail com>]

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 6:38 PM, Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net> wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-08-19 at 16:46 +0300, Felipe Contreras wrote:
> <snip>
>> >> Is playlist support a must-have feature? If so, probably should be
>> >> handled by a GStreamer element. Fullscreen support should not be that
>> >> difficult, but I leave that to somebody else.
>> >
>> > Yes, it's a must-have.
>>
>> If you are trying to emulate other plugins then yes, I see how that
>> could be required.
>
> Even a plugin that doesn't try to support the APIs of those foreign
> plugins will certainly need playlist support to be competitive...

Competitive against what? I don't recall ever seeing a site embedding
a playlist. Again, if it was really important I guess GStreamer should
handle it.

>> > FWIW, you can probably have a complete web browser plugin in not much
>> > space by packaging it properly in a sub-package.
>> >
>> > $(libdir)/mozilla/plugins/*
>> > $(libexecdir)/totem-plugin-viewer
>>
>> This is one of the things I didn't like when I analyzed the totem
>> plugin: why require an external process?
>
> Because video decoders are rubbish, and you don't want to do video
> decoding in the same space as the web browser. A crafted video playing
> inside the web browser could make it send your whole password wallet to
> some website. With a separate program, it will just crash :)

Hmm, true. It seems to be a remote possibility to me, so I'm not sure
if it's worth the trouble.

If all the code is contained in the plugin then packaging becomes very
easy: one file. Which I guess helps for plugin autoinstallation.

>> > $(libdir)/libbaconvideowidget.so.0.0.0 (shared with Totem itself)
>> > $(pkgdatadir)/mozilla-viewer.ui
>> > $(pkgdatadir)/fullscreen.ui (shared with Totem itself)
>> >
>> > That comes in under a meg stripped...
>>
>> I guess it depends on what is required.
>
> Can certainly be smaller if you remove some of the compatibility
> plugins.

I meant, if you are interested in simple playback (not emulating other
plugins) then ideally the plugin can be contained in one file.

Personally I would like to be able to install a plugin in my
"~/.mozilla/plugins" directory, and not require anything else. Adding
an application in the same directory to be run as a separate process
seems reasonable too, but adding those .ui files doesn't appeal me.

All this discussion makes me wonder about some ideas:

a) Is it possible to pack all the "compatibility plugins" into a single plugin?
b) Would it make sense to have a configuration to choose an
application other than "totem-plugin-viewer"?

Best regards.

-- 
Felipe Contreras