Windows development

From Official Kodi Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Current event

Currently, a few developers on Team-XBMC are working on an official port XBMC to Windows XP and Vista operating-system (based on the XBMC for Linux port project which uses SDL toolkit and OpenGL rendering). The goal for this XBMC for Windows port project is this to become a full and stable port of XBMC with all the features and functions that are available in XBMC for Xbox (with the exception of Xbox exclusive functionality such as Trainers, launching Xbox Games, etc.).

This is porting project is a huge task, which is why have made a public request, seeking C/C++ programmers to volunteer in assisting us with this Windows porting development project. Whether you have contributed to The XBMC Project in the past or not, please consider doing so now. Those of you who are completely unfamiliar with XBMC can get a good overview of what XBMC offers for its end-users by reading through the XBMC article on wikipedia.org

Note to XBMC end-users! You can help too by downloading XBMC for Windows, testing it, and reporting bugs and issues. Also, spread the word about XBMC for Windows to your friends and family, we are sure they will enjoy it too.


Why port XBMC to Windows (Win32)?

XBMC (formerly called "XBox Media Center", not to be confused with Microsoft's Windows Media Center Extender for the Xbox) is an award-winning free and open source media center and audio/video player, originally designed to run on the Xbox game-console. The GPL licensed source code basically consist of a GUI framework that has been written from scratch by Team-XBMC, this GUI acts as a front-end control interface for several audio/video players designed for specific purposes (and those are loaded when needed as DLLs), the GUI is also the user interface to all of XBMC multimedia handling functions such as databases and sorting, etc.. The XBMC Project, (who's members maintain XBMC source code), is a non-profit open source hobby project that is developed by volunteers in their spare-time without any monetary gain. The team of developers working on XBMC have always encouraged anyone to submit your own source code patches for new features or functions, improve on existing ones, or fix bugs.

The difference this time is that we are not (yet) asking for new features/functions, what we are asking for right now is for the existing code to be fully ported so it will run perfectly stable as a native application under the Microsoft's Windows XP and Vista operating-system (with all of the same features/functions that are already available on the Xbox version of XBMC). The main reasons for porting XBMC to Windows are really non-technical, (so it is not that the Xbox hardware is getting too slow or to old for the XBMC GUI or its existing features/functions), no the real reasons are that Team-XBMC want XBMC to get a larger end-user and developer-base, because the more people who enjoy XBMC and help maintain the code (and skins) the better the project and community will grow and stay alive. Also, from the end-user point of view the main reason to port XBMC to more platforms is that Xbox hardware can not playback native high-definition video (at 720p and 1080i/1080p), especially not if the video is encoded with a H.264 or VC-1 codec. Nevertheless, Xbox users should not fear that we are abandoning the old Xbox hardware, we will still keep the original Xbox as the reference platform for standard-definition resolution video for qute some time (possibly a few more years, as long as there are plenty of Xbox users of XBMC out there), which means that the same GUI (and skins) that runs smooth under Windows on a relatively new computer should also always run just as smooth on the old Xbox hardware (or a old computer that closely matches the Xbox hardware, at 733Mhz Intel Pentium III CPU and only 64MB shared memory with supported 3D accelerator).

Where to start helping out?

End-users (non-programmers)

You can help too by downloading XBMC for Windows, testing it, and reporting bugs and issues. Also, spread the word about XBMC for Windows to your friends and family, we are sure they will enjoy it too.

Developers (programmers)

You should be proficient in C/C++ programming language, and allthough not really required knowledge of OpenGL or multimedia programming is a plus, as well as prior cross-platform or porting development experience. You will not need to have access to an Xbox game-console or any costly special softwares in order to take part. XBMC development of this port is well underway for Windows XP (32-bit for x86 Intel-processors).

The Win32 development platform is Microsoft Windows XP (32-bit for x86 Intel-processors). There is a Visual Studio .NET 2003 project file available in our SVN (Subversion revision control system). After you've done a SVN checkout, follow the install guide in the SVN (README.win32) to setup the required packages and so on. Team-XBMC developers think that the best thing to start with is just to take a look through the source code and try to understand how it all fits together. Test things out, find what works and what does not, then try and track down why.

Hardware requirements

XBMC for Windows port project FAQ for developers

Can non-Windows developers also help?

XBMC can also be compiled for Linux and Mac OS X operating-systems.

Why is OpenGL 2.0 recommended for XBMC?

OpenGL 2.0 is not the current minimum requirement to run XBMC for Windows, as XBMC will today run with only OpenGL 1.4 + GLSL support (everything else has fall-backs to be runned in software on the CPU, slower than GPU hardware though), however if the future XBMC might be able to take futher advantage of OpenGL 2.0 to speed up video decoding and such.

Currently OpenGL 2.0 hardware is only needed for:
  • Any deinterlacing that is not linear blending (which FFmpeg does in software)
  • Video video post-processing filtering (bicubic upscaling, etc.)
  • Non-power of two textures for the GUI (using NPOT saves a lot of texture memory)
  • Hardware accelerated YUV 2 RGB conversion (actually GLSL is needed for this, and a few GPU hardware implementations as low as OpenGL 1.4 does provide GLSL as an extension. OpenGL 2.0 guarantees availability of GLSL).
In the future OpenGL 2.0 might also be needed for:

Technical summary of XBMC

The basics

The XBMC code structure uses a fairly modular design (with libraries and DLLs), and we think that there are enough modules/libraries to keep a wide skill-level range of developers busy for a while in the porting of them all. So please, take a look at the source code, then with the help of our To-Do list (see further down in this article) assess where the porting stage is today and think about where and how you can try to help out. Note that we are not planning on completely abandoning the Xbox hardware any time soon - XBMC will be a cross-platform software application, using the same code on multiple hardware platforms, (the 'old' Xbox still have a good amount of years to live we hope).

Detailed technical information

For more details please visit the Development Notes section of this manual.

The XBMC source code

The XBMC source code is in our SVN repository on sourceforge.net. Full instructions for compiling/builing XBMC under Mac is available here:


XBMC for Windows port plan

Disclaimer: This XBMC for Windows port of course excludes all Xbox exclusive functionality (like for example Trainers, launching Xbox Games, etc.):

  • Milestone 1 - Get all existing XBMC functionality (features/functions) working as they already work on the Xbox version of XBMC.
    • During this first phase XBMC will only need to be running under Windows as a third-party application.
  • Milestone 2 - Port of Python scripting support, add support for the official Apple Remote with all keymap to fully support XBMC control, AC3 and DTS downmix support, port all of XBMC Virtual File System features (SMB, FTP, UPnP, XBMSP, etc.).
  • Milestone 3 - Add Windows (Win32) specific items (hardware configuration, network settings, multiple input-device support, driver packaging, etc.)
    • XBMC package will need to have all the built-in settings for mouse, keyboard, joystick, etc. to act as a shell (without third-party dependencies).
  • Milestone 4 - Native 64-bit support, XBMC and all its libraries to be compiled on and for 64-bit.
  • Milestone ? - Yet to be decided.

What has already been done on the XBMC for Windows port

These are most of the major things that are already working in XBMC for Windows:

  • Code fully compiles on Microsoft Windows (32-bit 'Win32' x86).
  • Full GUI implementation using SDL (minus on-screen keyboard weirdness).
  • Full-screen support (XBMC with 1080p output support that just works!).
    • OpenGL/SDL - using the GPU, working but relies on an accelerated OpenGL version
  • Picture viewing working (including slideshow and it's effects).
  • Video playback using XBMC's own DVDPlayer core (including DVD-Video menus support).
    • Hardware accelerated pixel shader (RGB->YUV) with NVIDIA and AMD/ATI graphics.
    • Software conversion from RGB->YUV on other graphics cards due to lack of proper OpenGL support (tested on Intel).
  • AC3/DTS digital passthrough.
  • PAPlayer and its major audio decoder DLL codecs (MP3, OGG, AAC, FLAC, MPC). Some codecs have still not been ported. See To-Do list below.
  • Python interpreter (and python scripts/libraries, AMT not working atm).
  • Virtual File System support (SMB, UPnP, RTV, DAAP, TuxBox, XBMSP).
  • OpenGL visualization (Spectrum Analyzer, Waveform and Project M).
  • Playlists
  • Weather.
  • Networking (though some small issues still need to be sorted out).
  • Video thumbnail lookups; IMDb, TheTVDB, AllMusic, etc.

To-Do list for the Windows port

This is a To-Do list of things that still need to be done in XBMC for Windows, anyone is more than welcome to help out with any of these tasks:

Major To-Do tasks with high priority

  • [MAJOR - HIGH PRIORITY] DVDPlayer porting to Windows - work in progress. Open Issues:
    • Partial support for external subtitles (SRT and DVD-Video/VobSub subtitles are currently supported)
    • No good support for streaming video from the internet (HTTP/HTTPS/UDP/RTSP/RTP/RTCP/RDT/SDP/MMS)
    • Deinterlacing (software and hardware)
  • [MAJOR - HIGH PRIORITY] Proper A52/AC3 and DTS downmix support in software (for analog stereo output)
    • 5.1 (A52/AC3) surround-sound downmixing to 2.0 (stereo)
    • 5.1 (A52/AC3) surround-sound downmixing to mono (single channel)
    • 6.1 (DTS) surround-sound downmixing to 2.0 (stereo)
    • 6.1 (DTS) surround-sound downmixing to mono (single channel)
    • 7.1 (Dolby Digital Plus) surround-sound downmixing to 2.0 (stereo)
    • 7.1 (Dolby Digital Plus) surround-sound downmixing to mono (single channel)
  • [MAJOR - HIGH PRIORITY] Mono (single channel) and stereo (2.0) upmix support in software (output to all channels)
    • 2.0 (stereo) upmixing to 5.1 (surround-sound) PCM
    • Mono (single channel) upmixing to 5.1 (surround-sound) PCM
    • 2.0 (stereo) upmixing to 6.1 (surround-sound) PCM
    • Mono (single channel) upmixing to 6.1 (surround-sound) PCM
    • 2.0 (stereo) upmixing to 7.1 (surround-sound) PCM
    • Mono (single channel) upmixing to 7.1 (surround-sound) PCM
  • [MAJOR - HIGH PRIORITY] Network: Servers (FTP, Web, UPnP), Clients (FTP, UPnP, Time)
    • Also all network settings needed available to the end-user from the the XBMC GUI settings section.
  • [MAJOR - HIGH PRIORITY] Microsoft Windows Media Center Remote control native support using WinLIRC (LIRC for Windows).
  • [MAJOR - HIGH PRIORITY] Gamepad/joystick support (Xbox orginal wired gamepad, Xbox 360 wireless and wired gamepad).

Major To-Do tasks with medium priority

  • [MAJOR - MEDIUM PRIORITY] Development of a platform-independent wrapper interface to SDL / DirectX / OpenGL / graphic backend interfaces, particularly with respect to how this interface should be exported to visualisations (.vis) and screensavers (.xscr), etc.
  • [MAJOR - MEDIUM PRIORITY] NTSC and PAL-50/PAL-60 TV-out settings for composite, S-Video and standard-definition component.
  • [MAJOR - MEDIUM PRIORITY] Audio-output hardware settings (and if user got AC3 / DTS capable reciever or not)
    • Stereo, head-phones, 4.1, 5.1, 6.1, 7.1, SPDIF pass-through, etc.
  • [MAJOR - MEDIUM PRIORITY] Visualisations: Port all existing XBMC visualizations to also support OpenGL
  • [MAJOR - MEDIUM PRIORITY] Screensavers: Port all existing XBMC screensavers to also support OpenGL
    • Some kind of detection code and tags will have to be added so only supported .vis is listed under system platform
  • [MAJOR - MEDIUM PRIORITY] "My Programs" section for Windows (to launch other Win32 games/applications/emulators)
  • [MAJOR - MEDIUM PRIORITY] MPlayer porting to Windows (not sure if this will ever be done, or is wanted)

Major To-Do tasks with low priority

Minor To-Do Tasks with high priority

  • [MINOR - HIGH PRIORITY] Fix hacks which might not work on some platforms (improve cross-platform code)

Minor To-Do Tasks with medium priority

  • [MINOR - MEDIUM PRIORITY] Video adapter / graphic controller settings inside XBMC GUI settings:
    • VSYNC enabling/disabling setting
  • [MINOR - MEDIUM PRIORITY] Complete missing codecs for PAPlayer:
    • AC3
    • ADPlug
    • DTS (DCA)
    • SHN
    • Monkey Audio (APE)
    • NSF (Nintendo Sound File) via NoseFart
    • PCM and WAV
    • WavePack
    • WMA
  • [MINOR - MEDIUM PRIORITY] LIRC or alternative implementation for IR/IrDA (infrared) remote support under Win32
    • Though maybe not possible/best, it might be smart if "IR/IrDA" could be added to SDL via CMIL for platform-independence(?).
    • Add default configurations mappings to "Lircmap.xml" of the most popular HTPC-remotes (like Apple Remote, Microsoft RC6 MCE control-Done, Meedio X10 remote, ATI Remote Wonder, SnapStream Firefly).

Minor To-Do Tasks with low priority

  • [MINOR - LOW PRIORITY] make sure .AAC plays gapless with PAPlayer
  • [MINOR - LOW PRIORITY] Support better anti-aliased text (subpixel accuracy via vertex/pixel shaders) rendering. Basic idea is to cache the characters to an 8 bit texture at 3 times the horizontal resolution, and have that texture loaded into the 3 texture slots, and use a pixel shader/vertex shader to compute the texcoords for each component of the pixel (RGB) to get 1/3rd pixel positioning and antialiasing. This can probably be extended to even more precise location by increasing the size of the texture cache (eg 2x vertical, 6x horizontal)

Cleanup To-Do Tasks

  • [CLEANUP - ALWAYS AN ONGOING PROCESS] Document (doxygenize) all of the current/existing code (using doxygen)
  • [CLEANUP - ALWAYS AN ONGOING PROCESS] debugging (also back-port any fixes to the Xbox branch)

Post-trunk-merger To-Do Tasks

After this XBMC for Windows port (and the Linux, and Mac OS X ports) reached a maturity the "linuxport" branch in SVN may or may not be merged into the "main SVN trunk" and if so would require:

  • Merge dllLoader (DLL loader) and soLoader (SO loader), and rename to just "loader", (similar to MPlayer cross-platform loader library)
  • Merge "Lircmap.xml" into "Keymap.xml" (creating a sub-section in Keymap.xml for LIRC)


XBMC programming and code formatting convention guidelines

Note! More specifics to come based on ongoing discussions, see Proposed code formatting conventions for XBMC

General guidelines

  • Code documentation (DocBook, rst, or doxygen for the code documentation steps, preferably the latter, doxygen)
  • Self-containment - XBMC should be as little dependent as possible on operating-system and third-party services/deamons/libraries
    • XBMC should for example contain all file-system and network-client (like samba) support built-into the XBMC package
  • Modular design - independent modules made up by localized/isolated code libraries without dependencies
    • XBMC should still compile and run if a non-essencial module/library is disabled or removed
  • Aim for the GUI/interface to run smoothly on a low spec computer (less than 1Ghz)
    • 3D graphic controller (GPU) will always be required hardware for XBMC so try to utilize the GPU as much as possible
  • Avoid harddisk trashing (excess read/write/erase cycles), so no harddrive paging, (utilize RAM memory intead).
    • End-users will be running XBMC and the operating-system on Solid-State memory as a Live CD (LiveDistro) of a USB-key
  • Fast load and boot times for end-user perception (other thing can still run/start in the background without the user knowledge)
    • 15-seconds or less from when the end user press the power-button on the computer till he/she can browse the GUI --pike 06:00, 14 June 2007 (CEST)unrealistic goal for Linux, isn't it?

User-friendliness is next to godlyness

One of Team-XBMC major ongoing goal have always been to make XBMC and its user interface even more intuitive and user-friendly for its end-users, based on the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) philosophy. We think that usability is very important for media players like XBMC. Many user interface deciscions are being made by developers who often have little experience in user interface design, in order to improve this, we try to listen to XBMC's end-users for how XBMC is actually being used and how we can improve the user experience. We also aim to do regular overhauls, improving existing features/functions, and scrapping outdated code and features/functions (as "to much stuff" can also be a bad thing).

XBMC as a whole must...

  • Be easy to install, set up, and maintain, (so that the end-users do not get fed up with it and quit).
  • Have an user interface simple and intuitive enough so that less geek-savvy people are not intimidated by it.
  • Be able to play audio and video files that have been compressed using divx, xvid, etc. directly out-of-the-box
  • Be able to and organize audio and video files in an easy and user-friendly way.
  • Use standards and be consistant, (the music section can for example not use completely different controls from the video section)
  • Perform actions in the GUI with as few 'clicks' as possible
  • Require little to none non-GUI configuration (and all such non-GUI config should be via advancedsettings.xml)
    • There is still a little work to be done here, for example RSS-feeds settings need to moved to the GUI
  • Look nice.

Mentors

Mentors are developers from Team-XBMC and members of The XBMC Project that have volunteered to assist and mentor non-official XBMC developers in any non-trivial way they can, helping you by checking, commenting and committing your code patches to our SVN source code tree. These mentors have chosen an area they prefer to specialize in, usually this is an area in which they feel they have most interest, knowledge, and expertise in. Initial patches are welcome, and can and will be merged by the team. If you wish to join the team in an official capacity, please let us know.

Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X port mentors and developers

If you are a C/C++ programmer expert, porting specialist or guru and like to volunteer as a 'third-party' mentor and/or developer then please let us know.

Windows Mentors

  • WiSo: Everything Win32 (SDL, not DirectX)
  • Chadoe (a.k.a. Charly) - Everything Win32 (SDL, not DirectX)
  • JMarshall: Anything GUI related, Music Library, Video Library, PAPlayer, etc.

Linux Mentors (also lead developers)

  • Yuvalt: Everything Linux
  • Vulkanr: Everything Linux and Mac OS X
  • JMarshall: Anything GUI related, Music Library, Video Library, PAPlayer, etc.
  • D4rk: OpenGL, other Linux and Mac OS X stuff
  • Elupus: DllLoader, Mplayer and DVDPlayer
  • Spiff: Anything other than DllLoader/MPlayer/DVDPlayer internals.
  • monkeyman 67156: Everything Linux
  • Topfs2: Everything Linux
  • malloc: Everything Linux and Mac OS X

Mac OS X Mentors (also lead developers)

  • Davilla: Everything Mac OS X
  • D4rk: OpenGL, other Mac OS X and Linux stuff
  • malloc: Everything Mac OS X and Linux
  • Vulkanr: Everything Mac OS X and Linux


Contact methods

These are developers forums for XBMC development, (programmers/coders only!).
Respect, these are not for posting feature-requests or end-user support requests!

Retrieved from "https://kodi.wiki/index.php?title=Windows_development&oldid=22364"