kmedia - the KDE Multimedia player

This documentation has been updated to match Version 0.40.

Introduction

kmedia is a program that can play various types of multimedia objects, such as audio files (*.wav), midi music (*.mid), MPEG videos (*.mpg, *.mpeg) and Soundtracker modules (*.mod, mod.*).

This is an alpha release of kmedia. Wave audio, Midi tunes and Soundtracker modules are currently supported.

Usage
The media players
TODO
BUGS
Changelog

Usage:

Just start kmedia from kpanel or by double-clicking a desktop icon.
Drag one Wav from kfm into the kmedia window. The Wav should play now.
Press "Stop" or "Pause" to control playback.
You can drag another Wav to the same window, if you like.

The media players

The media players are programs, that can play certain media types. There is one program available for playing wave audio. Soon there will be one for midi playing, Mod playing and so on. Please note the documentation below.

The player programs below are all copyrighted by their authors. Please contact them only, if you have problems with the players. Before contacting them, please try the original program, as these versions are patched by me.

Contact me, if you have problems with kmedia, maudio and the mediatool library. You should contact me too, when you have no trouble with the original player program, but with the patched one.

Audio player maudio
Midi player mplaymidi
MOD-Player mtracker

TODO:

Reimplement support for sidplay, tracker and playmidi.
Support timidity, sidplay, MPEG and more media types.
Allow "OSS bugflags" to be set. As the OSS driver seems to be pretty buggy with many cards, I have activated the bugflags by default. (Change is only possible in maudio.cpp currently).

BUGS:

kmedia and maudio eat up CPU time even when being "idle". This problem and it solution is known already.
Multiple window support does not work 100%. Closing the application when multiple windows were open can leave "maudio" processes running, which you have to kill explicitely.

Changelog:

V0.1 Initial revision. Only one mediatool capable player included: tracker, a Soundtracker module (*.mod) player.

V0.2 Reworked UI completely: New Layout, smaller window, new icons. Has a scrollbar as position indicator. Easier compilation procedure.

V0.3 Mediatool capable midi (*.mid) player included. Much more KDE "awareness". Technically speaking, kmedia is now a KDE core application, which fulfills all creteria given in the RFCs: Has a menubar, has standard keybindings, ...

V0.4 Mediatool capable audio (*.wav) player included. Supports DnD. Uses Statusbar. Can open multiple windows. Multiple windows support actually works (see BUGS section though). SHM segments are freed automatically when unused, ...

V0.45 Updated to new FSSTND and shortcut standard. Uses KIconLoader. Fixed lockups. This is the version being sent out with Beta1.

(esken@kde.org)