view FAQ.bmp @ 1810:df23110701d0 trunk

[svn] - load skins before creating the UI

Beep Media Player FAQ

NOTE: This document is no longer maintained. Please check the FAQ on
the BMP website (http://beepmp.sf.net)

Contents
========

Compilation:

  c1: The CVS version won't compile, but the tarball does

Running:

  r1: Why do I keep getting "Gdk-ERROR **: an x io error occurred" when I try
      to use BMP?
  r2: My X server crashes when I try to change skin, what can I do?
  r3: When using GNOME / Enlightenment the playlist window got lost somewhere
      in my virtual desktops what should I do? I'm all out of breadcrumbs.
  r4: Why do I keep getting "Gdk-WARNING **: shmat failed!" in Solaris?
  r5: Why do BMP windows behave differently than my other windows?
  r6: Why does BMP have 5-6 running instances which each takes x% of my memory,
      isn't 5-6*x% memory A REAL WASTE?

General:

  g1: Is there a mailing list for BMP?
  g2: How do I unsubscribe from the mailing list?
  g3: Can I use XMMS plugins with BMP?


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Compilation
===========

  c1: The CVS version won't compile, but the tarball does

   This can happen for various reasons:

   1. You do not have a sufficiently new version of autoconf and/or automake
      installed. BMP requires at least autoconf 2.5 and automake 1.7 in order
      to compile directly from CVS.

   2. If your version of autoconf/automake is recent enough, you may have
      multiple copies of them installed. To check, you can run this command:
      
      autoconf --version ; automake --version

      Normally the commands "autoconf" and "automake" will run their latest
      versions. If they do not, you can specify the correct versions to use
      like this:

        AUTOCONF=autoconf-xx AUTOMAKE=automake-yy ACLOCAL=aclocal-yy ./autogen.sh

      (where xx, yy are the versions of autoconf/automake respectively)

      For Gentoo users, use this instead:

        WANT_AUTOCONF=xx WANT_AUTOMAKE=yy ./autogen.sh


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Running:

  r1: Why do I keep getting "Gdk-ERROR **: an x io error occurred" when I
      try to use BMP?

   This is because you're running an older system with libc5 and you don't
   have Thread Safe X libs. You might want to download these thread aware
   X libs and install them, just untar them into /usr/X11R6/lib (or appropriate
   path) NOTE: do NOT do this while X is running.
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  r2: My X server crashes when I try to change skin, what can I do?

   This is because of your window manager, if you browse the configure file
   for your window manager you'll find an option called SaveUnder somewhere.
   In Window Maker change "UseSaveUnders = YES;" to "UseSaveUnders = NO;"
   This will fix it for you.. (don't forget to restart your window manager)
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  r3: When using GNOME / Enlightenment the playlist window got lost somewhere
      in my virtual desktops what should I do? I'm all out of breadcrumbs.

   Edit the ~/.bmp/config file and change the playlist_x= and playlist_y=
   to sane values.
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  r4: Why do I keep getting "Gdk-WARNING **: shmat failed!" in Solaris?

   Solaris (2.5, 2.6, 2.7) has insufficient IPC settings by default for some
   products that use shared memory.
   You need to place this in /etc/system:
   set shmsys:shminfo_shmmax = 8388608
   set shmsys:shminfo_shmmni = 0x1000
   set shmsys:shminfo_shmseg = 0x100
   Thanks to Yuri Kulaghin and Jeff Johnson
______________________________________________________________________________

  r5: Why do BMP windows behave differently than my other windows?

   Since BMP disables the window managers title bars, the window manager is
   unable to raise/lower/move BMP as it's configured to do.
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  r6: Why does BMP have 5-6 running instances which each takes x% of my
      memory, isn't 5-6*x% memory A REAL WASTE?

   BMP is not using that memory for each instance, it shares the memory
   between the instances. If you have 6 entries in your process list, each
   claiming to take 5 MB, BMP is using 5 MB, and not 30 MB (5x6).
______________________________________________________________________________


General
=======

  g1: Is there a mailing list for BMP?

   Yes there is. In fact there are 3, namely: 

   a) beepmp-users
   b) beepmp-devel
   c) beepmp-cvs

   You can subscribe each of them at:
   http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=95272

   Please keep any messages sent to this list STRICTLY about BMP. Or we will
   have to moderate it.
______________________________________________________________________________

  g2: How do I unsubscribe from the mailing lists?

   You can use the page:
   http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=95272

______________________________________________________________________________

  g3: Can I use XMMS plugins with BMP?

  Generally no in their binary form i.e. '.so' files [1]. You can however
  attempt to compile them from source using GTK 2.4.

  GTK 1.2 programs are usually compiled with a 'gtk-config --xx'
  parameter passed to the compiler. You can try replacing that with   
  'pkg-config gtk+-2.0 -xx'. For example, if the compile command is:

    gcc -Wall -ansi -c `gtk-config --cflags --libs` plugin.c

  Modify it to:

    gcc -Wall -ansi -c `pkg-config gtk+-2.0 --cflags --libs` plugin.c

  If this fails, you will need to modify the source code to use GTK 2.4. Refer
  to the official guide on migrating the code:

    http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.2/gtk/migrating.html


  [1] Bear in mind that BMP uses GTK 2.4 while XMMS uses GTK 1.2. Consequently,
  XMMS plugins are compiled against 1.2 and will not work properly with BMP.

  The technical reason for this is that GTK 1.2 and GTK 2.4 share the same
  symbol names for the most part and there is no easy way to get the dynamic
  linker to resolve to the right one.



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