MAFW and Python: asking for developers feedback
 

MAFW is a new multimedia framework that will be used in Fremantle.

The PyMaemo team is currently working on writing bindings for Python
language for this library and at the moment we've released a 0.1
version of python-mafw that you can install directly from Scratchbox
repository.

Not all the methods are implemented (you can manage the Registry and
the Playlist, but nothing more), because even if we're using codegen
to generate bindings (and it's helping us a lot), we've seen that at
least 30-40 methods have to be overridden by hand so it's taking us
more time than we expected and we're trying to organize how to
continue this work.

We would like to get feedback from python application developers and
also from C application developers that are currently using MAFW so we
can work on a "roadmap" that reflects what developers want:

- What are the functionalities you're using in your application that
you think they cannot miss in the Python binding?

- Have you already started using MAFW or even better python-mafw to
develop something?

- What is the currently missing method/methods you would like to be
implemented first?

Come on developers! We're waiting for your feedback :)

Re: MAFW and Python: asking for developers feedback
 

For gPodder, I plan (although it's still not in reach yet and probably won't be for another month or so) to either create a "Podcasts" playlist (MafwPlaylist?) from my Python application to allow the media player to see podcasts downloaded by gPodder or to provide a "Source" that lists the downloaded podcasts (MafwSource?), also from Python. I'm not sure what I'll use, but having playlists and sources (the "provider" side of them, at least) ready for Python when I start would be very welcome :) Thanks.

Re: MAFW and Python: asking for developers feedback
 

Playlist support should be ready. The methods are implemented, the unittests run fine, we only have to let developers use it and get feedback about any existing bugs.

About MafwSource... if you mean you want to use a Mafw Source it should be doable in little time... if you mean writing your own Source (plugin) with Python, well.... that would be more complicated. We did think to leave it as one of the latest things, because we want to organize well how to implement plugins support. But if you and other developers think it should be a priority, we could change our roadmap (we're still defining it ;) ).

My sugestion is: start "playing" with python-mafw, and begin using at least the Playlist stuff.... then open bugs on bugs.maemo.org about any issue you may find. This will help us a lot about the work we can do on it.

Thank you for your feedback :)