Analog VU meter plugin
If you like this plugin, then please send me feedback, comments, patches, etc. Also what I need is artwork or skins, so mail me if you would like to help with that.
Idea for this plugin came from similar plugin for winamp called
'Homeboy analog VU meter', and ideas how to write plugin to xmms
from MSA plugin.
At first I only wanted to make something, that would look like
the real thing, but as time passed, I have tried to make it also
behave like it actually did something useful.
So what you are actually seeing is dBFS value for sound, which means
RMS value of soundlevel compared to reference ((2^16-1)/2). Values
range from 0 dBFS (highest) to -91 dBFS (lowest).
------------------------------------------+ Solving xmms problems after crash | ------------------------------------------+
If you have problems starting xmms after installing, and enabling
this plugin, then please try to run xmms from terminal window, and
it should give some kind of debug information (most likely you forgot
to install skin directories).
And if xmms still keeps crashing, and you can not disable plugin,
then edit file: ~/.xmms/config, and remove libvumeter.so from line
starting with: enabled_vplugins=
------------------------------------------+ Installing from sources | ------------------------------------------+
Global installation (root privileges required):
./configure
make
make install
mkdir /usr/share/xmms/VU_Meter_skins/
cp -R skins/* /usr/share/xmms/VU_Meter_skins/
Local installation:
./configure
make
mkdir -p ~/.xmms/VU_Meter_skins
cp -R skins/* ~/.xmms/VU_Meter_skins/
cp src/.libs/libvumeter.so ~/.xmms/Plugins/Visualization/
- Note: if you have default skins from version 0.9.1 or earlier, please remove them, and use new skins from this package.
- Note: Old skins might not behave like they used to, because calculation routine has changed quite a lot
------------------------------------------+ Requirements | ------------------------------------------+
- Xmms (>= 1.2.9)
- Gdk & Gtk (>= 1.2.10)
- Gdk-pixbuf (>= 0.21)
------------------------------------------+ Known bugs/problems | ------------------------------------------+
- Plugin tries to dock to iconified xmms windows (problem with external docklist functions (?))
- Compatibility with old skins got somewhat broken due to new calculation routine (which hopefully should be final)
------------------------------------------+ TODO | ------------------------------------------+
- Skin editor / possibility to change skin options
- Alpha transparency for overlay image (?)
- Plugin seems to process sound faster than some soundeffect plugins (fix = delay option to processing routine (?) )
- More skins and options for skin routine
- Beat indicator (?)
- Error handling needs improvements:
- include default skin within program itself, so that skin directory is not mandatory
- Improved autotools scripts
- Installation to user specified directory
- Automatic installation of skins
--
Pekka Harjamäki
analogvu@mcfish.org