xhippo AV player, Internet radio player, and audio recorder

[mcewanw]

Latest system as used in DebianDog now uploaded as a dotpet for use in most any Puppy. Download it from the first post of this thread.

xhippo is a very resource-efficient versatile and extensible media player both in terms of its tiny download size and RAM usage. xhippo, in its original form, was first introduced to Puppy forum many years ago by forum member tempestuous, as far as I know. In its current form, the main binary was compiled on an early Puppy Slacko and the included backends and recording frontend created on DebianDog, where the overall system is used as a core media player/recording application.

In practice, xhippo uses less system resources than any gtkdialog-based media player, so works nicely on low-powered systems, but is nice to have on any system in my opinion. Some reasons are provided below.

The attached xhippo dotpet contains a modified version of xhippo, a generic playlist manager program/process control program (source in C).

xhippo (with the included backends: xhplay, and xhrecord) can play all sorts of audio and video media (the playlist can contain a mix of audio and video types) and also record audio (mp3, wav, ogg, aac, and flac) via the included xhrecord (with xrecord gui frontend) assuming the appropriate commandline encoders are available. It can also save and load playlists, and play streaming media such as Internet radio streams.

The easiest way to try xhippo is simply to drag and drop a folder containing media tracks onto its open window.

Alternatively, right-click on xhippo's open window and select "Load playlist". By default, a streaming media (radio) playlist is provided called 0.default.d.xplist; just select that and Open it by double-clicking it or pressing OK button and you can then play any of the radio stations provided. You can easily create your own playlists.

You can also add directories or individual media tracks to the active playlist by using that right-click on xhippo open window method (using 'Add directory' or 'Add song'). And you can clear the active playlist, at any time, from the same right-click dropdown menu. Note well, however, that the right-click menu option 'Preferences' only applies to the current active session. Any preferences you temporarily set are not saved in the current version of xhippo.

You can also right-click on any folder or media file in Rox filemanager and immediately send it to play in xhippo (thanks to shinobar's examples of how to arrange that in Rox configs).

Hovering the mouse over the xhippo buttons provides a summary of their function.

[RSH]

Works in Precise 571

[mcewanw]

Sorry, accidental post. I uploaded a dotpet of xhippo media player system (as used in DebianDog) yesterday. Plays and records audio, and plays video and streaming media such as Internet radio. I'll leave this space for some extra info I'll post sometime soon. The dotpet was developed and tested by me on Slacko but should work on most Puppies. You can find it in first post of this thread along with details about its use, what is in the dotpet, and what it all can do.

Thanks for the info RSH. Glad it works in Puppy Precise too.

[mcewanw]

I don't normally use Pmusic but was curious what radio playlist format it used so fired it up and under its Music sources -> Radio stations -> Setup..., I downloaded its radio station index, which I discovered was downloaded as /root/.pmusic/index_radio. Anyway, I was looking to see if it listed any Philippines radio stations, which searching in Geany revealed it did. So I copied these into a blank file and ran that through make-xhippo-playlist but that failed to convert the Pmusic format into xhippo playlist format. However, only required a tiny alteration to make-xhippo-playlist to fix the problem, which I have now made.

I have therefore, re-uploaded xhippo dotpet to the first post of this thread (I haven't changed version number to the dotpet). The only change being that to make-xhippo-playlist such that it can now convert playlists from Pmusic to xhippo format as well as those from Simple GTK radio and so on.

As I commented previously, xhippo isn't intended for use with huge streaming radio playlists (which would take up too much storage space) but make-xhippo-playlist makes it easy to take cutdown versions of large radio playlists, such as that from Pmusic, and convert the result for xhippo use. For normal music or video files, however, xhippo provides a very low resource using, simplem no frills, but excellent playlist manager. It is certainly my own favourite, which is why I've put some time into developing its previous, already very flexible, usage capabilities.

[RSH]

Hi.

Would it be possible to compile this with icons enabled/existing in an extra xhippo directory (maybe in /usr/share/xhippo) - at least for those small 16 pixel icons. Just keeping the xhippo icon (xhippo.xpm) in /usr/share/pixmaps.

When installing they overwrite some of my 48 pixel icons in /usr/share/pixmaps and when using from SFS, the GUI comes up with some of the small 16 pixel icons and some of my 48 pixel icons.

[mcewanw]

Hi RSH,

Yes, it will be possible to modify the source code to look elsewhere and probably, following your comments, worth doing to avoid the slight bloat caused by the alternative method I outline below.

Unfortunately, I'm short of time because I have family guests arriving for two weeks and also want to get latest precord finished before new Slacko comes out of beta status. But I'll look into modifying the source code patch after that.

I'm thinking /usr/share/pixmaps/xhippo would be a good location.

In the meantime, however, if you install the locate package, you can move the icons to /usr/share/pixmaps/xhippo and they will be found by xhippo. By default it first looks in /usr/share/pixmaps but tries 'locate' if the icons weren't found in that default location.

I installed slocate from Puppy Package manager into Slacko 5.7, ran updatedb to setup the locate database, and then xhippo found the icons, which I had moved into /usr/share/pixmaps/xhippo. Note that locate was automatically created as a symlink to slocate during installation.

William

[mcewanw]

DoMyFile GUI for make-xhippo-playlist commandline utility (actually designed to be a general purpose GUI for commandline utilities, tailored for file processing commandlines) is now uploaded here:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=790246

William

[mcewanw]

xhippo AV player, Internet radio player, and audio recorder

New dotpet uploaded to first post in this thread.

Changes: xhippo now also looks in /usr/share/pixmaps/xhippo for its button icons (which is where the dotpet now stores them).

This avoids any conflicts with existing pixmaps, which was an issue pointed out by RSH.

As per before, you can load in an Internet radio playlist by right clicking on the xhippo window and choosing Load playlist (and select the default one provided: 0.default.d.xplist). You can optionally use DoMyFile GUI (http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=790246) to convert playlists from Pmusic or Simple GTK Radio format, or those found on the Internet, into xhippo compatible format.

More generally you can drag and drop any mixture of audio and video media files or directories onto xhippo window and play them. More details in first post of this thread.

Cheers, William

[gcmartin]

Can this PET address this problem?

[mcewanw]

Can this PET address this problem?

Hi gcmartin,

Below quote is from:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 165#793357

@ drblock2

One very easy and convenient way of getting your capture settings right is to use pRecord. Start pRecord from the menu, click the config button which expands the GUI, then near the bottom right there is a button which brings up both retrovol and a vu audio meter. Experiment with your capture settings and look at the vu meter as you speak into the microphone. Easy to see when you have got it right and much better than having to repeatedly use the Skype test call.

The above is the method I use. A shortcut from either the small or config GUI of Precord is to simply click on the Record Stop button when a recording is NOT in process. That also brings up the mixer and simple VU meter display.

Note that Precord config GUI also includes a facility to select your soundcard if it is not the common default hw:0,0 (card 0, device 0). In area marked "select soundcard" you can click the checkbox "card" to select soundcard number 1 (rather than the common default number 0) and similarly you can click the checkbox "device" if you also need sound device 1 (rather than the common default 0). Basically, soundcards are recogised by your system as either hardware device hw:0,0 or hw:0,1 or hw:1,0 or hw:1,1. Depends on your computer, but for most people unchecked (meaning hw:0,0) is the correct choice.

William

EDIT: Note, however, that Precord doesn't as yet have facility to directly choose soundcard if at say hw:2 or above and there is no auto-soundcard detection code included. I'll look into some of that (at least manual choice) for future versions. I have however created a hijack module addon capability to allow a program-savy user to quickly create a small addon module (just a simple one-line text file actually) with the appropriate hw device for their machine. I'll explain how to create that little text module addon in a later post here. In the meantime, for more info regarding soundcard devices you may find the following link useful:

http://superuser.com/questions/53957/wh ... ich-to-use

also maybe useful (albeit somewhat Ubuntu specific):

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ubunt ... dioDevices

Note further, that in Precord, I actually use plughw: rather than plain hw:. The basic difference between the two is explained quickly here:

http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermai ... 24335.html

or in more detail, here:

http://alsa.opensrc.org/DigitalOut

http://alsa.opensrc.org/MultipleCards

[Pelo]

xhippo tested ! yes nice
Translation : traduction in progress (FR) here, ici
Xrecord records my voice too. what else ?

.OGV how to do ?

Xrecord settings, You Tube

NDLR : French Slacko 5.3.3 XFCE by Jejy 69 before emigration to Puppy UK
(Puppy Collector USB Framasoft Ubuntu)

[Mayou]

xrecord does not work

[Pelo]

What about .OGV ? xrecord does the job.

[mcewanw]

x86-64bit (amd64) version of xhippo uploaded (dotpet and deb). Remove dummy tar first if installing deb version. The deb has been quickly tested on DebianDogJessie64. Note that the deb is simply the dotpet converted into a deb package using DebianDogJessie's inbuilt 'Convert pet to deb' utility; it thus installs xhippo binary into /usr/bin (rather than /opt/bin, which was location used in 32bit DebianDog's). The dotpet itself should work okay in most any 64bit Puppy but I haven't tried it there.

The package includes the xhippo and xrecord GUIs along with the commandline utilities xhplay, xhrecord and make-xhippo-playlist (use --help argument for usage help for these latter utilities: e.g. xhplay --help).

William

[wiak]

Thanks for this William - xhplay/xhippo combination is great!

Recently I've noted that some simple xhplay code additions for gif, jpeg, png or even pdf's, txt, doc or html files - whatever... allow your xhplay/xhippo combination to be used as a universal player/viewer. I just copy your xhplay code for AV files and simply modify these (identical code really) to start up the viewer/reader I want activated:

For example. Added following to your xhplay for image, pdf and html viewing via xhippo (just your code but using alternative file extensions/viewers):

Code: Select all

  ".gif"|".png"|".jpg"|".jpeg")
    if [ $(which gpicview 2>/dev/null) ];then
     exec gpicview "$filename"
    else
     echo "IMAGE VIEWER MISSING: For image viewing you need to install gpicview" >/dev/tty
    fi
   ;;
  ".pdf")
    if [ $(which epdfview 2>/dev/null) ];then
     exec epdfview "$filename"
    else
     echo "PDF VIEWER MISSING: For pdf viewing you need to install epdfview" >/dev/tty
    fi
   ;;
  ".html")
    if [ $(which firefox 2>/dev/null) ];then
     exec firefox "$filename"
    else
     echo "HTML VIEWER MISSING: For html viewing you need to install firefox" >/dev/tty
    fi
   ;;

(or modify for a different image viewer or pdf viewer or doc file reader - whatever...)

You can also use the above via xhippo if you add lines such as the following to your /usr/local/etc/xhippo.conf file:

Code: Select all

# images:

type:gif:xhplay
type:jpeg:xhplay
type:jpg:xhplay
type:png:xhplay
type:pdf:xhplay
type:html:xhplay

Sorry, I have never made a dotpet and don't have time anyway. As you know I'm no coder (!) so no guarantee above add-on code has no bugs - worked for me so far!

Let me know what you think or of any improvements I could add.

wiak

[Pelo]

dotpets no longer exist !
Xhippo in MintPup reads MP4, but not MPEG.. Don't Mind, Gnome-Mplayer available too in multimedia menu..
Xhippo is a launcher in fact. Mplayer2 is the player, without pause.
My goal was neither xhippo, nor Mintpup but test isobooter with different OS.
Nevertheless i feed back here. Puppy Linux dev try MPV in their Puppies Stretch, its a nice try, succesfull. Xhippo was also used a long time ago in french Puppy toutou 4.3.1, when dotpets were the rule.
Sure xhippo is useless if you have Gnome-mplayer, that is the reason why Puppy Linux versions stop to use it. One function, one app only, not to get Puppy fat.
Remove songs in the menu

feed back FR (en français)

[Pelo]

Using xhippo as an mp3 or wav media file RECORDER
Gnome-Mplayer is unable to record. Use Precord, or... Xhippo. Some information would be useful if you read the topic.