[gst-devel] Proposal for XML Description File for Plugins

[David Schleef]

On Tue, Feb 08, 2005 at 02:11:25PM -0600, Jeff Mitchell wrote:
> Currently there is a GstElementDetails struct in each plugin that
> contains a very small amount of information about the plugin.  The
> mime types are located elsewhere.  This means we already have bits of
> info (and maybe more I'm not currently aware of) located in two
> different places in the code, neither of which are complete.

Information is currently in various locations because it needs to
be.  The information that is currently compiled into plugins is
very basic and is pretty much necessary for functionality.  Note
that plugin information is not, in general, extractable from the
source code.  Don't even try, it's pointless.  Some plugins don't
know what elements they can create until runtime.

All this information is available from the binary, which is how it
should be extracted.

> I propose a new file, written in XML, that is included with each
> plugin.

Having lots of new files scattered around the source tree is simply
annoying.  Put it all in one file (or a few files).  Bonus points
for having the script update the file with new element information
from the information extracted from plugins.

Honestly, I don't care if we completely drop the Long Description
from the plugin information.  It's not useful in its current form.



dave...