2008.09.27: Note to all that reads this post, looking for the Kdenlive Builder Wizard. It lives at http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=85826 and you should get it from there, as it is the latest version. This topic was created when I needed feedback on a beta version of the Wizard.

Hi there

As you may be aware, I have tried to create a wizard to assist in building Kdenlive (inclusive ffmpeg, mlt, and mlt++) from SVN repo sources. (An older version of this wizards lives at http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.ph ... tent=85826).

The purpose of the wizard is to "lure" more non-hard-core-users to be able to enjoy the new stuff in Kdenlive, and possibly allow "would-be" developers to overcome the first obstacle of building Kdenlive. The wizard (in the new version) also installs a start script, that gives the option to run kdenlive in a gdb session and collect all output to a log.

I have upgraded the wizard from the current version (0.1.0) to a new version (0.3.1). The new version includes support for building for KDE4. But I need some feedback on wheter it works or not, before I want to "blow the horn" for it. (Obviously it works-for-me(tm)).

You could help me out (a lot!) by trying it out. Even though you may never want to use it "for real", getting some success/failure reports is important to me.

The wizard is available at http://www.dydensborg.dk/software/kbw/k ... izard.kmdr - its a 400 KB download, and running it from scratch should take about 5-10 minutes, depending on your internet and CPU. User interaction for about 30-60 seconds, in the beginning.

An important note: the wizard configures mlt with --disable-qimage because I simply could not figure out a way to reliably let the mlt configure system know where to find qimage.h.

For kubuntu users: Instructions for testing on Kubuntu 8.04:

1) install Kubuntu 8.04 (you may be past this :-)

2) apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade

3) follow instructions at http://www.kubuntu.org/news/kde-4.1 to get kde 4.1

installed

4) apt-get install kommander subversion g++ cmake pkg-config kdelibs5-dev

libsdl1.2-dev libxml2-dev

(This adds more than 100 packages to the system)

5) log out, log in using kde 4.1

6) run "kmdr-executor kdenlive_builder_wizard.kmdr", follow the instructions

on-screen. Press "Cancel" after succes, press "open folder",

click "kdenlive_start" and you are in bussiness.

Note, that this compiles mlt without the modules dv, frei0r, gtk2, jackrack, qimage, resample, sox, and vorbis. The logfile does contain instructions on getting support for these modules, but the above is a working baseline. Search for MLTDISABLED in the log file for more information. You basically just need to apt-get install some more packages to get support from the remaining modules.

Regards

Mads Bondo Dydensborg

Here's my impression so far:

1. Woah, slick! Nice to have a friendly looking GUI (with image and everything! ;-)

2. Automatically check for update?! Nice!

3. Given the instructions were for Kubuntu, "apt-get install" needs "sudo" infront of it.

4. Having kate-kde4 installed still causes it to ask for kate (kde3), so would be good to add kate to the apt-get install list

5. It complains if libsdl1.2-dev isn't installed so would be good to add that to the install list, too.

6. Asks for libmp3lame, which as far as I can see is actuall called liblame0 on Kubuntu repos.

7. Dang this is easy to use! I tried a bunch of the previous kdenlive installer scripts. All were much, much harder than this.

8. I love that this *tells* you when there's a missing library rather than just failing at compile time.

9. I love that the window keeps you updated what it's doing as it goes in human readable english eg: "Compiling Kdenlive - this may take some time."

10. Did I mention this "script" (the name doesn't do it justice) is slick?

11. IT WORKS FIRST TIME! Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet! LOVE it! :-)

Mads - you rock the big one! Four thumbs up!

Hey, thanks a bunch for the nice response - made my day :-)

Some further points/questions:

3) Yes, you are right - I even thought about it at some point, then forgot it again. My bad. I will change this at the kde-apps page.

4) Dang. All I really need, is some way to show a textfile. I will try to get rid of the kwrite/kate stuff.

5) Ah, yes - actually they (sdl and xml) are there, but it seems a linebreak slipped in - so if you did the copy/paste thing, it wouldn't work... Or are you talking about something else?

6) Oh. I use that name in the tooltip, and the package name in the "what's this". Hmm. What to do? I'll try to make another text in the tooltip. Bit hard, when it needs to be short. But needed, I see that now. Thanks.

8) Thanks, but it is a two-edged sword: The moment one of the projects changes a dependency, it may break, and leave the user confused. Which is one of the reasons for the "check for update" buttons :-) Also - it does not really check for the _optional_ ffmpeg stuff, only the _required_ mlt stuff. Checking for these libs are unfortunately way more complicated than checking for sdl and libxml, so I leave it up to ffmpeg. Its configure step will fail, if they are not present, and it is the first project that gets compiled. On the other hand, mlt will _not_ fail, but not actually _work_ if sdl and libxml is not present - so, I really need to check for those, and it is even checked during compilation that mlt actually appears to work with them.

Thanks for all your feedback - I will make sure to change these things in the next version.

Mads

Thanks.

What exactly did happen, when you missed the PATH variable? I reckon kdenlive compilation failed? Did you retain the log?

I am a bit surprised the wizard could find kde4-config, but it failed at the compilation stage?

Mads

Ah, ok, that makes sense: You did not actually log in, using KDE 4.1 :-). So, some paths need to be fixed.

I am not sure your PATH fix is optimal then; perhaps the kde4 bins should go in front? I am not really sure how Kdenlive/cmake figures out how to use KDE4 if you have KDE3's in the path. (Litteraly; I know next to nothing about it - but, of course, if it works, then it works).

Would be good to figure out a minimal KDE4 set. This can actually be a bit hard, when you use kde3 as your work environment (I only have KDE4 running on a test pc - for various reasons I can not upgrade my "real" pc until mid september - so I am actually using the KDE3 kdenlive version. :-( )

Great, thanks! Only thing - perhaps you could make it point at

http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php/Kdenlive+Builder+Wizard?content=85826

because that is where it will be living from this point on - the dydensborg.dk is just for stuff like this - getting people to test new versions. I have updated the kde-apps.org version.

Thank you for taking time to test it out, and putting it on the Ubuntu wiki :-)

Regards

Mads

One thing that would be totally awesome (unless I missed it) would be an option that just updated already downloaded source to the latest revision and recompiled. I'd love to be able to get the latest revision of everything without having to download everything from scratch. What would it do if I ran the wizard a second time using the same folders?

It would do exactly what you request :-)

Now, when you point it out, this is not at all clear from the Wizard. I just checked, and I seem to exclusively use the word "Get", which doesn't really convey that it will also "Update" existing sources. I would very much appreciate your suggestions as how to make this clear to users? Should I try to explain it in the wizard? Or just write about it on the kde-apps page?

Here is some more info on how it works: Every time you press the Go button on the last page, the wizard writes the current selections to $HOME/.kdenliveBuilderWizard.rc[*]. When you run it again, it reads in the settings, and you can simply click forward a couple of times, then Go. For "get" into existing source dirs, it will actually update[**]. I recommend checking the "auto append date to install dir" option though - this way, you do not override old installs, and can keep it, until you are confident the new install works (sometimes newer versions crash more than older. My currently most reliable is 20080811. Also, sometimes the svn sources simply does not build; I was unable to build ffmpeg yesterday, I have not checked today).

Another thing, but I am still pondering if I should make this clear in the interface: The wizard actually works by writing a script to /tmp, which it then runs. This script can be run from a konsole, with or without X, providing feedback to either the wizard, a kdialog progressbar, or just on the konsole. One can actually use this script to e.g. run from cron, or similar. In reality, the wizard is actually a configuration and feedback gui for this script. But I reckon this is for later :-)

Regards

Mads

[*] I do not like polluting your home directory without asking, but I could not figure out an easy alternative - at least the file is named something understandable, instead of e.g. kbw.rc or similar.

[**] If the dirs does not exist, it will create and get. If they do exist, you will get info on their versions from the Wizard interface. It will even try to switch repo paths for Kdenlive, if you choose to build kde3 one day, kde4 another day, thereby minimizing download even in that situation. This should work, but I have not tested it extensively.

To me the clearest method would be just calling it "Download / Update Source Files". That communicates that it will do just one of those two actions and sounds simple enough to a layman like me. ;)

There is a new version of the Wizard up at http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=85826 - fixes all known issues, and tries to go even more easy on ffmpeg (--disable-network --disable-ffserver) and Mlt (--disable-sox unless you explictly check it in the GUI - Mlt and newer versions of sox are not on speaking terms at the moment)

If you like it, feel free to click on "good" to increase its rating :-)

I'll probably be offline for about 10 days coming Thursday, but hopefully the new version does not break too much.

Regards

Mads

Done and done. :) Pity it only raised it's rating by 1% though. :(

Off I go to announce this on the Ubuntu forums. That should do it... :D

PS If you're getting people to download the .bz2 from kde-apps, I'd suggest adding "bzip2 -d 85826-kdenlive_builder_wizard.kmdr.bz2" to the instructions. Due to a bug in Ark on KDE4, unzipping non tar'ed bzip2 files seems to need to be done by command line.

Thank you very much for the installer!

I tried to use the installer with openSUSE 11.0, but it wouldn't work.

It complained about the missing kdesudo package, but there is no kdesudo package for openSUSE, only a kdesu as far as I know.

After ignoring the missing packet and trying a non root install nothing happend after pressing "GO". No progress and no output on the log screen. A log file, kbw-*, was not created. Running the whole script as root didn't change anything. Is there anything else I can try?

Dang.

Ok, the kdesu thing should be easy to fix, but something else must be wrong. Could you look and see if you have a file called $HOME/.kdenliveBuilderWizard.rc ?

If you do, could you please paste it here, and also try to run the file I have attached to this post? Please do something like this:

bunzip2 kbw-action.sh.bz2

chmod 755 kbw-action.sh

./kbw-action-in.sh &> kbw.log

Then mail me the resulting file (kbw.log). Of course, you can also have a look at it, see if there is something obvious.

Thanks in advance.

ACTION_COMPILE_INSTALL 0

ACTION_GET_COMPILE_INSTALL 1

ACTION_GET_ONLY 0

AUTO_APPEND_DATE 0

CREATE_STARTUP_SCRIPT 1

FFMPEG_HEAD 1

FFMPEG_REVISION 14695

FFMPEG_SUPPORT_ACC 1

FFMPEG_SUPPORT_MP3 1

FFMPEG_SUPPORT_THEORA 1

INSTALL_AS_ROOT 0

INSTALL_DIR /home/fabian/build/kdenlive

KDENLIVE_HEAD 1

KDENLIVE_REVISION 2375

MLTPP_HEAD 1

MLTPP_REVISION 1177

MLT_DISABLE_QIMAGE 1

MLT_DISABLE_SOX 1

MLT_HEAD 1

MLT_REVISION 1177

SOURCE_DIR /home/fabian/src

USE_KDE4 1

VERSION 0.4.0

It seems my QT and KDE 4 version are too "new" :)

kbw.log says:

KBWERROR: Building kdenlive for KDE4 was selected, but sufficiently new versions of KDE4 and Qt4 was not found. Needed KDE version 4.1.0, found 4.1.1. Needed Qt version 4.4.0, found 4.5.0-snapshot-20080812

The whole error log:

KBWLOG: Wed Aug 20 15:45:09 CEST 2008

KBWLOG: ./kbw-action.sh starting

KBWLOG: Using none for feedback

KBWTRACE: Entering read_configuration @ =

KBWDEBUG: Reading configuration from /home/fabian/.kdenliveBuilderWizard.rc

KBWDEBUG: Setting ACTION_COMPILE_INSTALL=0

KBWDEBUG: Setting ACTION_GET_COMPILE_INSTALL=1

KBWDEBUG: Setting ACTION_GET_ONLY=0

KBWDEBUG: Setting AUTO_APPEND_DATE=0

KBWDEBUG: Setting CREATE_STARTUP_SCRIPT=1

KBWDEBUG: Setting FFMPEG_HEAD=1

KBWDEBUG: Setting FFMPEG_REVISION=14695

KBWDEBUG: Setting FFMPEG_SUPPORT_ACC=1

KBWDEBUG: Setting FFMPEG_SUPPORT_MP3=1

KBWDEBUG: Setting FFMPEG_SUPPORT_THEORA=1

KBWDEBUG: Setting INSTALL_AS_ROOT=0

KBWDEBUG: Setting INSTALL_DIR=/home/fabian/build/kdenlive

KBWDEBUG: Setting KDENLIVE_HEAD=1

KBWDEBUG: Setting KDENLIVE_REVISION=2375

KBWDEBUG: Setting MLTPP_HEAD=0

KBWDEBUG: Setting MLTPP_REVISION=1160

KBWDEBUG: Setting MLT_DISABLE_QIMAGE=1

KBWDEBUG: Setting MLT_DISABLE_SOX=1

KBWDEBUG: Setting MLT_HEAD=0

KBWDEBUG: Setting MLT_REVISION=1160

KBWDEBUG: Setting SOURCE_DIR=/home/fabian/src

KBWDEBUG: Setting USE_KDE4=1

KBWDEBUG: Setting VERSION=0.4.0

KBWTRACE: Entering set_globals @ =

KBWDEBUG: GET=1, COMPILE_INSTALL=1, NEED_SUDO=0

KBWDEBUG: Using install dir FINAL_INSTALL_DIR=/home/fabian/build/kdenlive

KBWDEBUG: Using make -j2 for compilation

KBWLOG: Checking for sudo requirement

KBWLOG: Done checking for sudo requirement

KBWTRACE: Entering prepare_feedback @ =

KBWDEBUG: Adding 8 steps for get

KBWDEBUG: Adding 12 steps for compile-install

KBWDEBUG: Adding 1 step for script creating

KBWLOG: Number of steps determined to 21

KBWTRACE: Entering feedback_init @ = 21

KBWTRACE: Entering feedback_result @ = ABORTED User requested abort

KBWLOG: Total number of steps needed to complete 21

KBWLOG: Press Ctrl+C to abort

KBWLOG: Process has finished. Reason: ABORTED User requested abort

KBWTRACE: Entering feedback_set_progress @ = 0

KBWTRACE: Entering kill_recursive @ = 32767

KBWLOG: Number of steps completed : 0

KBWTRACE: Entering perform_action @ =

KBWTRACE: Entering test_kde4_available @ =

KBWTRACE: Entering cmd @ = kde4-config -v

KBWLOG: About to run command: kde4-config -v

Qt: 4.5.0-snapshot-20080812

KDE: 4.1.1 (KDE 4.1.0 (4.1 >= 20080722)) "release 38.1"

kde4-config: 1.0

KBWDEBUG: Versions found: QT: 4.5.0-snapshot-20080812, KDE: 4.1.1

KBWTRACE: Entering is_newer_equal @ = 4.5.0-snapshot-20080812 4.4.0

KBWDEBUG: A = 4 5 0-snapshot-20080812, B = 4 4 0

./kbw-action.sh: line 559: test: 0-snapshot-20080812: integer expression expected

KBWERROR: Building kdenlive for KDE4 was selected, but sufficiently new versions of KDE4 and Qt4 was not found. Needed KDE version 4.1.0, found 4.1.1. Needed Qt version 4.4.0, found 4.5.0-snapshot-20080812

KBWTRACE: Entering feedback_result @ = FAILURE Some kind of error occured: Building kdenlive for KDE4 was selected, but sufficiently new versions of KDE4 and Qt4 was not found. Needed KDE version 4.1.0, found 4.1.1. Needed Qt version 4.4.0, found 4.5.0-snapshot-20080812

./kbw-action.sh: line 449: kill: (310) - No such process

KBWLOG: Process has finished. Reason: FAILURE Some kind of error occured: Building kdenlive for KDE4 was selected, but sufficiently new versions of KDE4 and Qt4 was not found. Needed KDE version 4.1.0, found 4.1.1. Needed Qt version 4.4.0, found 4.5.0-snapshot-20080812

Ack. Please try attached action-script, see if it helps

Also, I would like to figure out why you did not get any feedback from the Wizard gui. Could you please attach the log you posted a snippet from? (Perhaps compress it, if it is too large).

Also, could you try to run the script like this:

./kbw-action.sh -d kdialog

and see if you get a kdialog progressbar feedback thingy.

I'll go look at the kdesu/kdesudo mess.

Regards

Mads

The installation worked now (after fixing a missing stdlib.h file in mlt/src/modules/kino/filehandler.cc

), but the progress bar did not advance.

Unfortunatelly kdenlive crashs know on startup :)

I did file a bug report:

http://www.kdenlive.org/mantis/view.php?id=163