[mgp-users 01403] mplayer + magicpoint

[Ethan <telmnstr@757.org>]

Hello..

I found that by using the -g option while a window manager is running
mplayer will indeed prompt to overlay the video (tvwm makes you click to
place the window).

However, without the window manager, it still does not seem to place the
window as desired.

So I created a wierd work around:

Step 1 - a script that constantly monitors for a dropfile. When the
dropfile is seen, it reads the contents of the drop file and passes them
as a command line argument to mplayer. This script sets the DISPLAY
environment varible, and removes the dropfile after playback.

Step 2 - I tried using %system to do echo blabla > /tmp/bla however it
just seems to echo the entire line back to stdout. I couldn't seem to
escape the "'s. I tried the 1>&2 and vice versa as a friend suggested, but
as expected still no go. So I created a 2nd shell script that takes the
arguments passed and creates the drop file used by the script mentioned in
step 1.

Not terribly pretty, but it works!!

I'm talking to a local friend to see if he would be interested in coding
in the functionality for a %sleep command, so presentations can be
scripted. If he is willing then these changes will be donated back to the
project. If he is unwilling or doesn't have time, perhaps I might try to
hack on it a bit. I'm not very good at C coding.

I suspect the mplayer issue has something to do with child processes.
Perhaps X gives the parent higher screen priority, I'm not sure.

I still like magicpoint over other programs, and forsee myself using it
for it's indended use as a presentation tool in the future :-)

Much thanks to all that have contributed!