Playlist Plugins as Client

Playlist Plugins as Clients

With the conversion to xforms, playlist plugins are further seperated from xmms2's plugin architecture as a whole. As it stands they are currently not working, and it seems non-trivial to fix them. This is a good time to reconsider whether playlist file handling really should be a part of the daemon at all. This XMMS2 Enhancement Proposal is to remove playlist plugins from xmms2d and move them into a client tool that will handle playlists.

Library

The client should be a library that parses playlist files and then adds the files to either a saved playlist or the active playlist. This library would hopefully have bindings for all of the languages xmms2 has bindings for so that there would not be code replication with regards to playlist handling.

tru felt that the library option was not a good one, but that it would be better to communicate to the client via the daemon somehow. Two problems exist with the playlist as client model, a) consistent way for any client to add to the playlist, and b) implmenting transport protocols for getting the playlist file. The advantage of using the xform framework for playlists is that transport plugins can be used for getting the playlist file, if playlists are fully clientized this would have to be implemented in the playlist client as well, leading to a lot of senseless code replication.

So, the issue becomes finding a clean way to get playlist file data to the playlist client.

N.B. Whether to do it as a library is very much up in the air and other suggestions are welcome.

Parsers

Support for pluggable parsers is required. It may even be a good idea to use the same api as the current playlist plugins so they can be roughly dropped in and used as is, requiring less code be developed as a whole.

Client

A basic playlist client should be included, this client should be able to import playlists to a saved playlist or the active playlist, and also export to any format for which we have a playlist plugin.