gstreamer/docs/design/draft-klass.txt

Element Klass definition
------------------------

Purpose
~~~~~~~

Applications should be able to retrieve elements from the registry of existing
elements based on specific capabilities or features of the element.

A playback application might want to retrieve all the elements that can be
used for visualisation, for example, or a video editor might want to select
all video effect filters.

The topic of defining the klass of elements should be based on use cases.

A list of classes that are used in a installation can be generated using:
gst-inspect-1.0 -a | grep -ho Class:.* | cut -c8- | sed "s/\//\\n/g" | sort | uniq

Proposal
~~~~~~~~

The GstElementDetails contains a field named klass that is a pointer to a
string describing the element type.

In this document we describe the format and contents of the string. Elements
should adhere to this specification although that is not enforced to allow
for wild (application specific) customisation.

1) string format

    <keyword>['/'<keyword]*

  The string consists of an _unordered_ list of keywords separated with a '/'
  character. While the / suggests a hierarchy, this is _not_ the case.

2) keyword categories

 - functional

   Categories are base on _intended usage_ of the element. Some elements
   might have other side-effects (especially for filers/effects). The purpose
   is to list enough keywords so that applications can do meaningful filtering,
   not to completely describe the functionality, that is expressed in caps etc..

   * Source        : produces data
   * Sink          : consumes data
   * Filter        : filters/transforms data, no modification on the data is
                     intended (although it might be unavoidable). The
                     filter can decide on input and output caps independently
                     of the stream contents (GstBaseTransform).
   * Effect        : applies an effect to some data, changes to data are
                     intended. Examples are colorbalance, volume. These
                     elements can also be implemented with GstBaseTransform.
   * Demuxer       : splits audio, video, ... from a stream
   * Muxer         : interleave audio, video, ... into one stream, this is
                     like mixing but without losing or degrading each separate
                     input stream. The reverse operation is possible with a
                     Demuxer that reproduces the exact same input streams.
   * Decoder       : decodes encoded data into a raw format, there is typically
                     no relation between input caps and output caps. The output
                     caps are defined in the stream data. This separates the
                     Decoder from the Filter and Effect.
   * Encoder       : encodes raw data into an encoded format.
   * Mixer         : combine audio, video, .. this is like muxing but with
                     applying some algorithm so that the individual streams
                     are not extractable anymore, there is therefore no
                     reverse operation to mixing. (audio mixer, video mixer, ...)
   * Converter     : convert audio into video, text to audio, ... The converter
                     typically works on raw types only. The source media type
                     is listed first.
   * Analyzer      : reports about the stream contents.
   * Control       : controls some aspect of a hardware device
   * Extracter     : extracts tags/headers from a stream
   * Formatter     : adds tags/headers to a stream
   * Connector     : allows for new connections in the pipeline. (tee, ...)
   * ...

 - Based on media type

   Purpose is to make a selection for elements operating on the different
   types of media. An audio application must be able to filter out the
   elements operating on audio, for example.

   * Audio         : operates on audio data
   * Video         : operates on video data
   * Image         : operates on image data. Usually this media type can also
                     be used to make a video stream in which case it is added
                     together with the Video media type.
   * Text          : operates on text data
   * Metadata      : operates on metadata
   * ...

 - Extra features

   The purpose is to further specialize the element, mostly for
   application specific needs.

   * Network       : element is used in networked situations
   * Protocol      : implements some protocol (RTSP, HTTP, ...)
   * Payloader     : encapsulate as payload (RTP, RDT,.. )
   * Depayloader   : strip a payload (RTP, RDT,.. )
   * RTP           : intended to be used in RTP applications
   * Device        : operates on some hardware device (disk, network,
                     audio card, video card, usb, ...)
   * Visualisation : intended to be used for audio visualisation
   * Debug         : intended usage is more for debugging purposes.

 - Categories found, but not yet in one of the above lists

   * Bin           : playbin, decodebin, bin, pipeline
   * Codec         : lots of decoders, encoder, demuxers
                     should be removed?
   * Generic       : should be removed?
   * File          : like network, should go to Extra?
   * Editor        : gnonlin, textoverlays
   * DVD, GDP, LADSPA, Parser, Player, Subtitle, Testing, ...

3) suggested order:

   <functional>[/<media type>]*[/<extra...>]*

4) examples:

   apedemux         : Extracter/Metadata
   audiotestsrc     : Source/Audio
   autoaudiosink    : Sink/Audio/Device
   cairotimeoverlay : Mixer/Video/Text
   dvdec            : Decoder/Video
   dvdemux          : Demuxer
   goom             : Converter/Audio/Video
   id3demux         : Extracter/Metadata
   udpsrc           : Source/Network/Protocol/Device
   videomixer       : Mixer/Video
   videoconvert     : Filter/Video             (intended use to convert video with as little
                                                visible change as possible)
   vertigotv        : Effect/Video             (intended use is to change the video)
   volume           : Effect/Audio             (intended use is to change the audio data)
   vorbisdec        : Decoder/Audio
   vorbisenc        : Encoder/Audio
   oggmux           : Muxer
   adder            : Mixer/Audio
   videobox         : Effect/Video
   alsamixer        : Control/Audio/Device
   audioconvert     : Filter/Audio
   audioresample    : Filter/Audio
   xvimagesink      : Sink/Video/Device
   navseek          : Filter/Debug
   decodebin        : Decoder/Demuxer
   level            : Filter/Analyzer/Audio
   tee              : Connector/Debug

 5) open issues:

   - how to differentiate physical devices from logical ones?
     autoaudiosink    : Sink/Audio/Device
     alsasink         : Sink/Audio/Device

Use cases
~~~~~~~~~

- get a list of all elements implementing a video effect (pitivi):

   klass.contains (Effect & Video)

- get list of muxers (pitivi):

   klass.contains (Muxer)

- get list of video encoders (pitivi):

   klass.contains (Encoder & video)

- Get a list of all audio/video visualisations (totem):

   klass.contains (Visualisation)

- Get a list of all decoders/demuxer/metadata parsers/vis (playbin):

   klass.contains (Visualisation | Demuxer | Decoder | (Extractor & Metadata))

- Get a list of elements that can capture from an audio device (gst-properties):

   klass.contains (Source & Audio & Device)

    * filters out audiotestsrc, since it is not a device