Crackheaded programmers

[Shadow Skill]

If its one thing I have noticed on Windows and Linux is that there are some really stupid coders out there as well as even more idiotic bussinesmen who run them..Case in point Internet explorer and active X what the hell is the point of even having it if so many of the 484548538535838485438546856^2 exploits are possible because of it? Why not just do away with it for the sake of a more secure OS, since it is clear they are too lazy to redesign the OS for stability. (Using what already freaking works...yep you guessed it a *nix core..) What makes them hold on to such a horrible piece of technology that leads to so many more easily compromized systems? (This is probably why the M$ security chief uses Firefox mind you.)

Another [AFAIK] Windows specific bad programming example is the ability to turn off all processes (including one's needed to boot the OS..) using msconfig. Why should anyone be allowed to disable a process needed for booting the OS? It's not like you would be able to do much of anything if that program or programs ever broke anyway so the only way to repair it would be to use the xp repair feature or at the worst a reformat. Can anyone here understand that? I do not.

Now for some Linux issues I have noticed (these are not nessecarily exscuse to Fedora.)

(This particular issue is more lke a bug than stupidity on the part of the various coders.)
Certain gui configuration frontends do not edit the config file or files they are SUPPOSED to modify...now I am not the most experienced coder but I have actually done some simple programs involving text files and I know that the programs designed to write to them can behave quite strangely, but why is it that the only reliable way for me to handle certain configurations is through using a text editor to edit the given text file directly (this is still indirect since you are not actually opening the code for the text file, so there is not a real reason why so many of these are broken across distros.)

What is the point of installing laptop related processes onto a desktop by default? Both Suse and Fedora do this...I fail to see why its like this either, hopefully fc3 will put an end to it...

Why would someone make a program that is virtually crippled unless it is used from the command line, yet include a gui frontend... do any of you feel like typing

mplayer -alang jap -slang eng /dir/dir/dir/dir/dir/file

I didn't think so...I cannot understand why the stream flags are totally unusable from the GUI...it's such a basic thing to include that I can scarcely believe it is missing...

[Bob K]

I will agree with you on the .CONF, .CONFIG, .RC, and a couple that I don't know about. I'm fairly new to the desktop *nix's and just going through the /etc directory there have to be over 100 configuration files, most contain the same information. I spend more time trying to figure out what file to modify than the time it takes to code and test the change.

[jcstille]

Bugs are not flaws they are features, hehe

See most of these bugs/flaws/whatever are just not planned when it comes to exploits, etc...

[crackers]

This is the beauty of FOSS - if you don't like it, change it yourself or build a new one.

You have done that, right?

[Shadow Skill]

I don't want to have to (relearn everything I have forgotten about c++, as well as all new stuff.) just to fix things that should not even be problems in the first place. I do agree with you that it is a wonderful option though, to be able to freely edit a program so it does what you want.

[ghaefb]

I don't agree with you on mplayer. Why are you saying that GUI is "virtually crippled" ?
You can do all the important functions from GUI...
MPlayer is a masterpiece, It's the best video player on the planet IMHO.

Read MPlayer features, how many video formats it supports, the wide range of supported output drivers, how you can play partially downloaded or corrupted video/audio files,...

I know there are some GUI features that needs to be improved...
(or like loading subtitles on the fly)

[Varkk]

I never use mplayer from the CLI, I always use the gui and it does everything I need, how is it crippled?

[Shadow Skill]

Ghaefb VLC supports almost everything Mplayer does (save vsfilter subs of which appparently only Mplayer is capable at the moment, although ALLEGEDLY Totem supports vsfilter subs through its use of Xine-lib [as far as I can tell either Totem's support is broken, or Xine-lib's Vsfilter support is broken or non-existent entirely.] according to the developer. As well as the lack of tv tuner support (only usable through the CLI as far as I know as well.) ) save that VLC's coders actually had enough sense in thier heads to make full use of a right click context menu to change both audio and subtitle tracks at will without restarting the whole video to do so.

Mplayer totally lacks a convienient way to change audio and subtitle streams at will (ogm files seem to have an audio track context menu on right click while mkv does not magically.....) period every other player worth its salt that I have ever used or even glanced at has a way to open subtitles for ogm/mkv files (Vsfilter only seems to work 100% of the time on windows, and with Mplayer on *nix) files or any other supported video format that could concievable have internal subtitles that the given program decided to support with some sort of menu. (All have been right click save for Totem, I hope he adds a more convienient way to turn them on and off than what he has right now...that player is pretty damned close to perfect in terms of UI.)

With the other *nix players available that handle some of the more exotic file types I am not forced to edit or create a config file just to force subtitle stream loading so that I can either turn it off as the video starts or leave it on and switch audio tracks as needed....I don't understand why Mplayer is still the exception to this (I have had this issue since at least .93.) when it should be more than obvious to the coders that this is something to be fixed. (This is after all a damned bug, not a feature request but a bug fix request.)

It is almost insulting how this program continues to be packaged with this crippled GUI yet in the windows port they brag about how "powerful" the player is even though there is no GUI (I sure as HELL do not want to navigate the windows CLI, I'll take the *nix CLI anytime. But I don't hold the lack of a GUI for the windows version against them.) and the version for *nix is all but useless when it comes to ogm and mkv stream switching from the GUI. That is of couse unless I go in and make or edit the mplayer config file to get subs to work at least some times. (depending on the way the file was encoded you have to use different flags, so your config won't always work unless it essentially becomes a shell script addon to the player since you need a conditional statement to decide which flags to use.) Mplayer is far from a work of art, if anything it should be in text books as an example of "bad programming" along with Internet Explorer and a whole host of other Microsoft products namely the Operating System itself.

[ghaefb]

You sure know how to complicate things.
I see you know alot about this stuf.
Half of what you written I don't even know what you are talking about.
'vsfilter' 'ogm and mkv stream' I have no idea what is that.

I was thinking from a average user point of view, the one who uses video player for watching mpg, avi, mov, dvd and other common video formats.
I use it to watch some Divx/Xvid movies, DVDs, and some mpg or mov clips.
And mplayer is all I need. I have no problem when I load subtitles and the video restarts. Why would I need to change subtitles in the middle of the film anyway.

Mplayer is far from a work of art, if anything it should be in text books as an example of "bad programming" along with Internet Explorer and a whole host of other Microsoft products namely the Operating System itself.

We are so not on the same page here.
But that's just my huble opinion...

[Shadow Skill]

I see you are not into anime then...those encodes (the dual audio ones.) make heavy use of the OGM and more recently the MKV (Matroska) container formats. The majority of what I watch falls into the categories of OGM MKV and good ole AVI. I just don't see how you can support a file type which (you should damn well know, if you are the coder) has the features of OGM and MKV (Ssoft subtitles, multiple audio and even video tracks, and anamorphic video in the case of MKV. [It has something to do with the resizing of the video.] ) and not make sure that the interface whether it be CLI or otherwise takes advantage of the features the end user is probably going to want. (Load subtitles on the fly, switch audio tracks regardless of container type(the damned audio track context menu literally dissapears when you open and MKV [possible out right bug, even by thier screwed up standards...] ) The over all experience with the player is just plain unenjoyable especially when I have to deal with that exotic subtitle format which is gladly falling out of use with the better encoding groups out there.

I even asked lin the Mplayer irc channel about this issue long ago and I got some lame exscuses about the gui just being a frontend not being maintained by the Mplayer developers etc. [All the more reason to not even bother including it if you plan to leave it in its utterly worthless state.]

The scariest thing is how people who encounter these newer file formats as much or even more than I do..say they don't mind the idea of having to type out such a protracted command to get Mplayer to do what it should do from a menu...Or that simply because they do not utilize the other streams within the files that Mplayer is good. [That is like saying because Microsoft is constantly patching IE for all the 4565645345405045 exploits it has, that IE is good....]

Another really strange thing is how they remembered to include the stream switching dialouges in the GUI for dvd playback then totally negleted a file type it clearly has no technical problems supporting...

[DRE.ORGY.NET]

Shadow Skill (good anime btw) did you get any further on this ? I too have found it annoying having to resort to the CLI when wanting to watch OGM / MKV streams. I dont know if anyone else has had this problem but occasionally DVD's dont play correctly either if I play them from the GUI they play the DVD intro and then player seems to think the DVD has ended.

[Shadow Skill]

No the only thing I can suggest is using something like VLC; it doesn't always play nicely though, I've had it do wierd things on some H264 encodes I have. The caveat being that I run a 64bit system so my problems with VLC maybe unique to my architecture. The other suggestion I have for you is to use xine based players for everything that does not have dts audio streams or H264 video everything else should work as long as you are running 32bit xine. [64bit xine-lib seems to not like any form aac audio streams and you won't get any audio output from those streams.] any xine based player that has dvd support should work just fine. The problem you are having has to do with the way the player is enterpereting the files on the dvd, its not "linking" the files together for some reason. But as I said xine based players don't seem to do that.

On another note the anime that gives me my handle has been liscensed apparently!

[kona0197]

No comment on the subject as I like IE and never have had a security problem or other problem with IE or Active X...

[tejas]

I hate IE and I think that mplayer is fairly useless.

The core is fine and all, but the GUI seems to irritate me (OK, it is usable)

When I click playlist, I have to sit and navigate to my home folder. And I can't double click on a file to play it (maybe I do something wrong)

[kona0197]

That's the problem with all you Linux guys - you all HATE something. That's one of the reasons Linux will not be a desktop replacement for Windows. You're all to busy "hating" things to step back and help Linus progress....