Browsers

Browsers are meant to assist in three things:

• Media Asset Management, here called Content Browsers,
• Operation Management, here called Operation Browsers,
• Device Management, here called Device Browsers

All Browsers produce/consume ObjectFactory in output/input . They are the main providers/consumers (along with Formatter) for ObjectFactory anywhere else in the Application.

New types of Browsers can be created through the plugin interface to:

• Offer access to a new type of MAM (for storing/retrieving/searching content)
• Offer discoverability of devices through a new system (HAL doesn't exist on windows !)
• ...

Browser types

Content Browsers

These Browsers can be listed individually for access to specific services.

They only return content of type SourceFactory

• Local content
  • file:// (standard system)
  • F-Spot catalog browsing
  • Tracker
  • ...
• Remote content
  • Tape catalog, or any other kind of professional MAM system
  • Flickr
  • Youtube
  • ...

These browsers MUST offer at least the following functionality:

• getFactory(uri) , returns the ObjectFactory for the given uri.

The browsers CAN also offer these functionality:

• storeFactory(factory,uri), stores the given ObjectFactory with the given uri. It returns an ObjectFactory which might be the same as the input, or a new one, or a a temporary new one.
• Searching/Browsing functionalities

Browsers should use the UI Bundle system to provide adequate UI interfaces if needed.

Operation Browser

They only return content of type OperationFactory.

The default implementation will just look for all available GstElement of a given type and return simple OperationFactory objects wrapping them.

Another implementation will be in charge of handling all the pitivi plugins providing different OperationFactory.

Device Browser

Only returns content of type DeviceFactoryInterface.

It MUST provide the following functionality:

• getDefaultSinks() , which should return the default usable SinkDeviceFactory.
• getDefaultSources(), which should return the default usable SourceDeviceFactory.