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mcewanw
Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 1526 Location: New Zealand
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Posted: Sat 15 Jun 2013, 19:26 Post subject:
xhippo GUI mini audio and video player with button icons Subject description: Very flexible and user-extendible; many features, and lowest in resource usage |
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xhippo is a very resource-efficient versatile and extensible media player both in terms of its tiny download size and RAM usage.
Rather than just trying the program, you might like to read some documentation. I recently stumbled across the following:
http://www.hep.by/gnu/xhippo/xhippo_toc.html#SEC_Contents
Alternatively, if you have a directory (or directories) with audio and/or video media files in it, just drag it onto the main xhippo window and all the contained media files will all play in order (or random shuffled if so selected). If you have albums of media files stored in subdirectories, they will indeed be included one after the other (or in the random track shuffle)! You can also right-click on the main xhippo window and select Properties if you want to change startup defaults... 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). Right-clicking in the xhippo GUI also provides another method for quickly adding songs or directories.
If you want to make xhippo your default audio player just edit /usr/local/bin/defaultaudio player and replace word "pmusic" with "xhippo". Alternatively just run the following script...
| Code: |
#!/bin/sh
sed -i -e 's_exec pmusic_#exec pmusic_' /usr/local/bin/defaultaudioplayer
echo 'exec xhippo "$@"' >> /usr/local/bin/defaultaudioplayer
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With goingnuts kind permission, I have uploaded his patches (most parts of which continue to be used - with additions of my own - in my latest compilation) here:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=86772
I originally compiled a version of xhippo a year ago using patches provided to me by goingnuts that added icons to the GUI buttons and fixed the issue with spaces in directory names not being allowed. All credit should therefore go to goingnuts for these additions. I have since modified the code further (to make toggled Pause/Play button icons work correctly etc) and once I have testing that further I will upload the extra patch to above url.
Once bugfixed the patches for any improvements will be sent to xhippo author (Adam Sampson) in case he wants to incorporate any of them into official version. Otherwise a renamed fork could be released I suppose.
KNOWN ISSUES:
None that I know of.
I modified the default xhippo.conf so that xhippo only needs lame and aplay to play mp3 music. These are found on most current Puppies by default. I also modified xhippo.conf so that xhippo will also act as a GUI video player, which only needs mplayer, which is also provided by default in most Puppies.
If you wish mplayer to always start fullscreen you can add the mplayer option -fs to the relevant extension stanza in /usr/local/etc/xhippo.config, as described in the additional HowTo about this which I have provided here: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=86741. Mplayer can also be controlled via the keyboard. For example, use keyboard key F to toggle in and out of fullscreen mode), P to Pause, and the Left and Right cursor keys to jump back and forwards in increments through a video. Please refer to mplayer man page for other options and keyboard control keys: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/man/en/mplayer.1.html#INTERACTIVE%20CONTROL
Note that goingnuts provided a gtk+ 1 static build version of this here:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=621559#621559 That build also doesn't include my lame|aplay and mplayer for video files additions to xhippo.config.
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| Description |
xhippo improved GUI audio/video player with button icons and rightclick ROX mediafile
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Download |
| Filename |
xhippo-3.5mod005-gtk2-i486.pet |
| Filesize |
31.34 KB |
| Downloaded |
3 Time(s) |
| Description |
xhippo screenshot showing right-click dropdown control menu |
| Filesize |
70.28 KB |
| Viewed |
97 Time(s) |

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Last edited by mcewanw on Today, at 02:35; edited 30 times in total
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greengeek
Joined: 20 Jul 2010 Posts: 1217 Location: New Zealand
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Posted: Sun 16 Jun 2013, 04:04 Post subject:
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Yes, that looks good - the problem with filename spaces is gone now. I did try playing an flv but it said "could not guess type" or similar. Is it easy to add types?
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mcewanw
Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 1526 Location: New Zealand
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Posted: Sun 16 Jun 2013, 06:09 Post subject:
re-uploaded the xhippo dotpet but no change to main program Subject description: Just added few new media types to xhippo.config |
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| greengeek wrote: | | Yes, that looks good - the problem with filename spaces is gone now. I did try playing an flv but it said "could not guess type" or similar. Is it easy to add types? |
Yes, just look at the howto on editing /etc/local/xhippo.config. However, for this case I have just reuploaded the dotpet with flv type included. I don't have any flv files to test it with but if mplayer can handle it then should work fine.
If you don't want to redownload and reinstall the dotpet you can just add the extra ones manually by editing xhippo.config. I added a few others; again depends on mplayer if they have any effect, but won't cause harm having them included:
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type:flv:mplayer -really-quiet
type:f4v:mplayer -really-quiet
type:rm:mplayer -really-quiet
type:aac:mplayer -really-quiet -vo null
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Note that the xhippo author warns that you have to be careful not to add any extra spaces at the end of any entered lines into xhippo.conf as it uses a very simple parser to read entries.
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mcewanw
Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 1526 Location: New Zealand
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Posted: Sun 16 Jun 2013, 19:25 Post subject:
New version xhippo dotpet uploaded - provides ROX sendto Subject description: Provides rightclick most any media file in ROX and sendto xhippo |
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With this version if you right-click on most any media file you can immediately send the file to xhippo for playing (thanks shinobar). You can also ROX right-click on a directory containing mediafiles and sendto xhippo directly. Please uninstall any existing xhippo installation (including any xhippo config files (in /root/.xhippo, /etc, /usr/local/etc for example) before installing this new one below. You may wish to first back up any existing xhippo.config you already have.
If you want to make xhippo your default audio player just edit /usr/local/bin/defaultaudio player and replace word "pmusic" with "xhippo". Alternatively just run the following script...
| Code: |
#!/bin/sh
sed -i -e 's_exec pmusic_#exec pmusic_' /usr/local/bin/defaultaudioplayer
echo 'exec xhippo "$@"' >> /usr/local/bin/defaultaudioplayer
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mcewanw
Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 1526 Location: New Zealand
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Posted: Mon 17 Jun 2013, 20:19 Post subject:
refresh.png image missing from /usr/share/pixmaps in dotpet |
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Whilst quickly brushing up on gtk+ 2 programming I have discovered that the icon missing from the Restart Button is simply that the image refresh.png (size 16x16) is missing in /usr/share/pixmaps... I'll add that into the dotpet and reupload. There is still a coding fix required to make the pause button image to toggle from pause.png to play.png but that's not a big deal.
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Last edited by mcewanw on Mon 17 Jun 2013, 21:58; edited 1 time in total
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mcewanw
Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 1526 Location: New Zealand
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Posted: Mon 17 Jun 2013, 21:09 Post subject:
New upload - first button icon now displaying correctly |
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New version uploaded to first post in this thread with refresh icon now displaying correctly in first button.
I've added a screenshot to the first post.
KNOWN ISSUE REMAINING:
This xhippo compilation has one known problem: Pressing pause button should toggle icon between a play icon and a pause one. In practice this doesn't really matter (cosmetic only), but will try and fix that later.
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mcewanw
Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 1526 Location: New Zealand
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Posted: Yesterday, at 15:46 Post subject:
xhippo plays through whole series of loaded media folders Subject description: straight or random shuffle |
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Note that you can drop an many folders as you like onto xhippo (or load them from its dropdown menu) and xhippo will then play through them all one after the other or by random shuffle
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mcewanw
Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 1526 Location: New Zealand
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Posted: Yesterday, at 19:46 Post subject:
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I have now successfully hacked the C source code such that the Pause/Play button icon toggle between Pause and Play as desired. I'll upload a new dotpet with the changed gtk+ 2 code once I've tested further and maybe tidied up the code a little. I'll have to also test it with gtk+ 1 at some stage after which I'll also upload the patches.
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mcewanw
Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 1526 Location: New Zealand
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Posted: Yesterday, at 22:35 Post subject:
New gtk2 xhippo dotpet (modification 5) uploaded. Subject description: Includes toggling the icons on the Pause/Play button |
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New xhippo dotpet (modification 5) uploaded. This one includes toggling the icons on the Pause/Play button. I've also reverted the code to include the checkbox for Random/Shuffle, because I found the toggle button annoying because it didn't clearly indicate if Random mode was selected or not.
Note that xhippo includes the feature that when you Load (or drag and drop) a directory into its window ALL media files (audio and video) in that directory and subdirectories (recursively) will be added and played (either in order or randomly shuffled if selected)...
I've still to test the new additions and alterations I've made to the xhippo source code for gtk+ 1 version, before uploading source code patches, but tested ok so far for the gtk+ 2 version. Once I managed to get the pause/play button icons to toggle successfully I discovered more code was required for the handlers of the other buttons to avoid side-effects. The new dotpet posted now has all the additions and seems to work without error. Would appreciate further help with testing however.
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Tote

Joined: 19 Jan 2012 Posts: 164 Location: South Wales
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Posted: Today, at 03:45 Post subject:
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Hello there, I've been trying the mod 5 version in Dpup Wheezy, I used Preferences to select ' start with random off' and 'start playing automatically', but the selections don't appear to be saved when XHippo is closed and restarted.
Also, I've been trying to play .wav files I looked in Xhippo config, I 'think' it's included but I can't play them... it's quite likely I'm doing something wrong, most technical things go right over my head.
Thank you.
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mcewanw
Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 1526 Location: New Zealand
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Posted: Today, at 05:55 Post subject:
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| Tote wrote: | Hello there, I've been trying the mod 5 version in Dpup Wheezy, I used Preferences to select ' start with random off' and 'start playing automatically', but the selections don't appear to be saved when XHippo is closed and restarted.
Also, I've been trying to play .wav files :oops: I looked in Xhippo config, I 'think' it's included but I can't play them... it's quite likely I'm doing something wrong, most technical things go right over my head.
Thank you. |
You are correct on both counts.
The player currently in xhippo.config file for wav is "play", which is what was there by default - I didn't notice (I rarely use wavs) but should have changed it to "aplay" which is what most Puppies come with by default. The not saving preferences bit I'm not checked yet but will look into it tomorrow (late night here just now) - hopefully an easy fix!
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