[gst-devel] autoplug ranking for a better spider

[Thomas Vander Stichele]

> Most plugins could just use a few predefined ranks, such as:
> GST_AUTOPLUG_RANK_NONE = 0
> GST_AUTOPLUG_RANK_PRIMARY = 256
> GST_AUTOPLUG_RANK_SECONDARY = 128
> GST_AUTOPLUG_RANK_MARGINAL = 64
> or whatever.  Tweaks could be made so that some PRIMARY ranks are a bit
> higher than others, so that they are tried first.
> 
> Then, the only change that is needed is in
> gst_autoplug_factories_filters_with_sink_caps which would:
> - ignore factories with GST_AUTOPLUG_RANK_NONE
> - return a list which is sorted descending on autoplug_rank
> 
> And that is all there is to it.  Another option is to add the autoplug_rank
> to the GstElementFactory struct, then only elements which want to
> participate in autoplugging need to call
> gst_element_factory_set_autoplug_rank.
> 
> Thoughts? Flames?

I think it is a good idea.  It is a hack, and I'm sure people will start 
discussing previous ideas again which all sounded great, but no one steps 
forward and does it.

So IMO this is a really good start anyway - he who writes the code has the 
right to have a go at it I say !

As a technical comment, I think it's a good start, but it would be even 
better IMO if plugins were to suggest this number themselves, but the rank 
would then be stored in the registry (preferably in a second subsection, 
so that it wouldn't get overwritten between re-registers), so that they 
could also be made user-adaptable.  Not that we will need it from the 
start, but when we learn more and more how it works it might be a good 
idea to have the possibility to do it and add api bits to even change this 
on the fly.  For example, we could have a simple app that tries to choose 
the best video and audio output plugin on your system and then puts these 
ranks into the registry.

Thomas

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