On May 4, 2005, at 9:51 PM, Erik Osheim wrote: > I've been developing a curses-based music player in python for the > last couple of years (http://www.bearhome.net/mpy3) and it is getting > pretty good these days. I have added keybindings to control volume in > linux using the ossaudiodev module found in python. > > I wanted to do the same thing under OS X which I am now trying to > fully support. After some digging, it looked to me like Carbon.Snd was > the ticket. However, I can't find any documentation on this module; I > did some digging in Apple provided docs, and was able to get a > semi-working, semi-broken version of volume control going (mutes one > ear, controls the volume of the other), but I am not sure this will do > it. > > My questions are: > > 1. Does anyone have a good idea how to go about doing this best on OS > X? I am not going to be able to support OS 9 (too many unix > dependencies) so if there is a cleaner way to do it than Carbon I > would be interested.
The best way to do it on OS X is to use CoreAudio, but none of that is wrapped in Python. You can, however, find an Objective-C framework that wraps what you need (MTCoreAudio should be able to do it, but there might be something easier) and just call into that with PyObjC. There are a couple other ways, but they're all really, really old and deprecated and they often behave pretty strangely. > 2. Is there anywhere to get better docs on things like ae*, Carbon.*, > etc? It seems like python for mac is incredibly powerful but arcane, > and between no documentation and no doc strings I have a hard time > figuring out what I can do with it. The first thing you should do is look for another way to do it, with PyObjC or some POSIX API (but probably PyObjC). There's a very straightforward translation between Objective-C and Python, so you use Apple's Cocoa docs when developing with PyObjC. If there is no way to do what you need with just PyObjC, you should consider just writing a little Objective-C wrapper that does what you need to do (calling into Carbon, CoreFoundation etc.), and call into that from PyObjC. Use the Apple documentation. Unfortunately this does require knowing C, but the ONLY documentation and the ONLY supported APIs are for C and Objective-C. Most of the time, in my experience, it's just quicker to write and debug the code (i.e. QuickTime related stuff) in Objective-C and call into it from PyObjC. If you still feel the need to try and do it with "pure Python", then read the Apple documentation for the relevant function(s) in C, and then guess at how it would be done from Python. Everything in Carbon.* is automatically generated, but there are a bunch of special cases and the rules are a bit strange. These modules would sooner go away than become documented. Don't be surprised if there's a bug in the wrapper or some function call sequence is impossible because the wrapper won't let you pass NULL somewhere, etc. Writing code using undocumented modules that may be broken is no fun. -bob _______________________________________________ Pythonmac-SIG maillist - Pythonmac-SIG@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pythonmac-sig
