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97 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
97 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Application Development Manual
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short-description: Complete walkthrough for building an application using GStreamer
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...
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# Application Development Manual
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## Foreword
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GStreamer is an extremely powerful and versatile framework for creating
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streaming media applications. Many of the virtues of the GStreamer
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framework come from its modularity: GStreamer can seamlessly incorporate
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new plugin modules. But because modularity and power often come at a
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cost of greater complexity, writing new applications is not always easy.
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This guide is intended to help you understand the GStreamer framework
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so you can develop applications based on it. The first
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chapters will focus on development of a simple audio player, with much
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effort going into helping you understand GStreamer concepts. Later
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chapters will go into more advanced topics related to media playback and
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other forms of media processing (capture, editing, etc.).
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## Introduction
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### Who should read this manual?
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This book is about GStreamer from an application developer's point of
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view; it describes how to write a GStreamer application using the
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GStreamer libraries and tools. For an explanation about writing plugins,
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we suggest the [Plugin Writer's Guide](plugin-development/index.md).
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Also check out the other documentation available on the [GStreamer web
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site](http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/documentation/).
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### Preliminary reading
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In order to understand this manual, you need to have a basic
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understanding of the *C language*.
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Since GStreamer adheres to the GObject programming model, this guide
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also assumes that you understand the basics of
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[GObject](http://library.gnome.org/devel/gobject/stable/) and
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[glib](http://library.gnome.org/devel/glib/stable/) programming.
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Especially,
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- GObject instantiation
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- GObject properties (set/get)
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- GObject casting
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- GObject referencing/dereferencing
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- glib memory management
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- glib signals and callbacks
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- glib main loop
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### Structure of this manual
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To help you navigate through this guide, it is divided into several
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large parts. Each part addresses a particular broad topic concerning
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GStreamer appliction development. The parts of this guide are laid out
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in the following order:
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[About GStreamer][about] gives you an overview of GStreamer, its design
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principles and foundations.
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[Building an Application][app-building] covers the basics of GStreamer
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application programming. At the end of this part, you should be able to
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build your own audio player using GStreamer
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In [Advanced GStreamer concepts][advanced], we will move on to advanced
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subjects which make GStreamer stand out from its competitors. We will discuss
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application-pipeline interaction using dynamic parameters and interfaces, we
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will discuss threading and threaded pipelines, scheduling and clocks (and
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synchronization). Most of those topics are not just there to introduce you to
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their API, but primarily to give a deeper insight into solving application
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programming problems with GStreamer and understanding their concepts.
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Next, in [Higher-level interfaces for GStreamer applications][highlevel], we
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will go into higher-level programming APIs for GStreamer. You don't
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need to know all the details from the previous parts to understand this, but
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you will need to understand basic GStreamer concepts nevertheless. We will,
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amongst others, discuss playbin and autopluggers.
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Finally in [Appendices][appendix], you will find some random
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information on integrating with GNOME, KDE, OS X or Windows, some
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debugging help and general tips to improve and simplify GStreamer
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programming.
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[about]: application-development/introduction/index.md
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[app-building]: application-development/basics/index.md
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[advanced]: application-development/advanced/index.md
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[highlevel]: application-development/highlevel/index.md
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[appendix]: application-development/appendix/index.md
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