Hello
I’ve written a simple Xibo player for Ubuntu.
It’s here https://github.com/ajiwo/xiboside
I’m looking forward to getting any feedback.
Thanks for posting that up.
Does the framework it’s using support compositing things? ie can I overlay a transparent-background webpage on top of a video?
I haven’t investigated that, but will find out if I can bring that feature.
My deployed players are showing simple layout, at most they play 3 regions, without any overlapping or transparent views.
I think from what I understand of the code it works similarly to the Windows Player - so they’re just a browser or mplayer instance running at the right place on the screen - in which case I don’t think it’s possible to composite them.
Yes you’re correct, it’s just mplayer embedded in a Widget, and the browser is QtWebkit.
Is there any known, easy framework capable of doing such compositing?
That’s what we’re discussing here:
We used to use libavg but getting a stable web browser integration has been problematic. Every framework I’ve looked at so far is a non-starter for one reason or another.
Long discussion…I should have had read that before. Thanks for the information.
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libavg is a near to perfect framework for Xibo player, it has great coordinate system, game-like engine to bring neat visual effects.
Yes I agree that integrating decent, modern web browser is non starters job, need a Big Guy to start and keep it synced with upstream updates. Using alternative framework mentioned in the discussion is not cheap: in terms of learning curve and maintenance. But I’ll keep an eye to the discussion.
I have not found any digital signage solution either commercial or opensource, windows only, or cross platform, that fits end user requirement in one package: I had to provide workaround, mix and match, hack, or had myself/someone else write the player.
For Xibo I have players written in Java (Android), C+Asm, and C#. They are not a full blown of capable Xibo player, but just lines of crap not worth of sharing, that fit user specific requirement and environment.
xiboside won’t be the replacement of the discontinued Official Xibo player. It just a more-generic variant of my Xibo player collection.
It has it’s own direction, and it’s actually a user of XLF, XMDS, and XMR specs.
I still don’t have a plan to support these:
- Powerpoint, Flash, ActiveX, or other similar media type.
- Run embedded in web page/layout live preview
- Interactive content
Implementing XLF, XMDS, and XMR is my primary TODOs. That is, a spec level instead of presentation(how things should be displayed) level.
Some of the implementation might have a zero action: it knows what the CMS wants but just don’t do what’s requested.
It’s a Xibo-complatible-player with limited features, more or less.
We agree - its a massive shame that we’ve not be able to reliably integrate a browser and believe me we’ve tried!
We do have some ideas for another attempt at something cross platform, which we will be pursuing after 1.8 is released stable. It would be worthwhile to watch out for an update to the linked topic as once we have more “meat” to the idea we will share it there.
Quite a few people we know of have written Xibo players with a sub-set of features for specific purposes - it was one of the reason we enhanced the XMDS/XLF documentation. If you come across things that don’t make sense, do let us know.
ajiwo - just came across this thread and wanted to hattip your effort to further linux xibo client development - kudos
to you and keep up the good work!
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