[MPlayer-users] Documentation bug re win32 codecs

[Mr Allwyn Fernandes]

Hi all, 

I just grabbed MPlayer 1.0pre5, and was trying to install it from source on 
linux. I stumbled across a minor documentation bug trying to install the 
Win32 codecs. (I've figured it out, so there's no need for help with it, but 
any feedback is welcome. I'm not subscribed though - please cc me on any 
replies.)

I've googled the mailing list archive, and not found any reference to it, so I 
thought I'd let you know about it.

This page (installation instructions) 
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/install.html#id2835163
tells me to
"install them to /usr/local/lib/codecs BEFORE compiling MPlayer", so I 
download the appropriate tar.bz2 and untar it in the appropriate place.


Then, when I run "configure --help", i get told only
"  --with-win32libdir=DIR   W*ndows DLL files in DIR"
and not told where the default directory is. I assume it's as stated above and 
leave the option out. 

When I then run "configure --prefix=/usr/mplayer/1.0pre5"
  Failed to find a Win32 codecs directory! (default: /usr/local/lib/codecs/)
  Create it and copy the DLL files there! You can download the codecs from our
  homepage at http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/

So I get to this stage and I am wondering what's going on... Somewhat 
surprisingly, "configure --prefix=/usr/mplayer/1.0pre5 
--with-win32libdir=/usr/local/lib/codecs" seems to work - win32 codecs are 
listed as enabled!

It turns out that the configure script, line 5003 looks for win32 codecs in  
"$_libdir/codecs" "$_libdir/win32" /usr/local/lib/win32 /usr/lib/win32, and 
not in /usr/local/lib/codecs as advertised. 

Suggested fixes: 
These would help everyone, starting immediately:
* Update documentation webpage to say default is /usr/local/lib/win32, or 
another appropriate value from the search path.
* Update documentation to list the search path, so people who prefer to keep 
the codecs in $PREFIX know where it needs to go.
These would help new users starting from the next release:
* Alter configure appending /usr/local/lib/codecs to the search path.
* Alter configure output on line 6958 to change the comment "default: 
/usr/local/lib/codecs" to one of the search path values.

I just downloaded the latest cvs snapshot, 20040901, and the line numbers have 
changed to 5075 and 7065 respectively.

Hope this helps...

Cheers,

Allwyn.

-- 
Allwyn Fernandes
Director
Stobor Pty Ltd

Mobile: + 61 414 470 392