Playing and controlling mp3 files in Python? - python

First things first, I am a Python beginner, with a typical C++/Java background for object oriented stuff.
I was convinced to try Python for this current endeavor I am working on, and so far I like it. One issue I am having though is finding a good mp3 module.
I have tried TkSnack, which installed and ran fine with no errors(as long as my audio device wasn't busy) but it could never actually produce a sound, it just did nothing... I went online for help, and was disappointed with the amount of documentation.
So I decided to switch. I tried PyMad because it is in the standard repositories for Ubuntu as well. There was even less documentation on this, but I could make it play a sound. The only problem is that it requires a loop to constantly write/play the audio buffer. This makes it particularly hairy to handle playback control(in my opinion) cause I would have to run this in a separate thread or process, and somehow control the seek position for pause and such. This is a little too low level for why I am using Python. I liked the simplicity of TkSnack for its easy commands like "mysound.play()" or "mysound.pause()" rather than controlling a loop.
I also looked at pyMedia, which looks like it is the most up to date with documentation, but I can't get it to install on my machine. I get a "gcc exited with value 1" error or something like that when running the "python setup.py build" command.
So I am looking for any suggestions or help on one of these modules, or a completely different one, that is high level and easy to use for mp3s(and preferably other formats too) I am trying to have basic playback control(pause, stop, skip, seek) and I may also be streaming files too eventually(if I ever get there).
EDIT: I like the python bindings for Gstreamer, but is this a cross-platform solution?? I forgot to mention that as a requirement. But I always just associated GStreamer with Linux, would this work on other OSs?
EDIT: Wikipedia says yes.

Sorry I can't help you with PyMad or pyMedia, but I have other suggestions.
Existing music players written in Python:
Exaile
FUPlayer
Listen
All of the above use the Python bindings for the GStreamer multimedia framework. Docs for the bindings are scarce, but check here, here, here, and examples from the source distribution here.

I just had to deal with this, and from my research I think your best bets are pyglet and pygame. They're interface packages with built-in a/v support.

Related

How to capture screen on Wayland(Gnome) in Python code?

I'm trying to capture my screen using Python because I'll use it on OpenCV, but I couldn't find a way to make it work on Gnome, since Gnome uses Wayland and all libraries that I've found only work with X11.
For now I'm not considering change my interface. I'm searching a solution to this problem.
Does someone know a solution?
To be more specific, I'll use the images to train an AI and so I need they continuously.
EDIT:
I've found this but how can I pass frames to OpenCV in Python instead of save a video file?
The proper way to do screencasting these days is by using the Screencast portal, which is part of XDG desktop portals and is already supported by GNOME, KDE, wlroots (and more). As an added advantage, this will also work in containerized formats like Flatpaks.
You can find an example on how to do screencasting in Pyhon using this snippet, created by one of the Mutter maintainers. If you look for parse_launch(), you will see a GStreamer pipeline which you can modify to include the GStreamer OpenCV elements that can do the processing for you.
Note: in your edit, you link to a predecessor of that portal, which is GNOME-specifc, internal API, so I wouldn't rely on it ;-)

How to distribute a python game to OS X users?

I recently finished up a small game I wrote in python, using pygame, at the request of some of my friends. Currently, I have the .pyw game file, and an assets folder containing all files used in the program. I used py2exe to distribute the game, which worked fine, although it still does not seem very user friendly to people downloading the game. One of my friends requested a mac version of it, and although I know about py2app, I am unsure of how to use it, and whether or not it is the best way to package my game.
Basically, I want a single file that I can send to any mac user, so they can easily use the program I have made, while preferably not seeing the source code.
I have googled around for a simple solution, but have not found one. If anyone could give a very simple explanation of how to easily do this, that would be great. Please keep in mind I am fairly new to programming, and may not understand all the programming lingo, so if you could keep it simple, I would appreciate it.
Thanks in advance.
The answer to How can I distribute python programs? suggests Pyinstaller which looks promising, although I have not tried it myself.
See this tutorial by Irwin Kwan to see how Pyinstaller can actually be used with Pygame. He describes a procedure for preparing a Windows executable as well as one for OS X.

Working OpenSceneGraph bindings for Python?

I'm building a rendering engine in Python for fun. I need to load 3D scenes. Any standard modern format like DAE, 3DS, or MAX would work: I can convert my files easily between standard formats.
OpenSceneGraph seems to be the most comprehensive and well-maintained solution. It would be ideal to be able to use it in Python without much hassle. Are there working Python bindings for OSG that are easy to install, work on Mac OS X (I'm on 10.8), and are compatible with the latest versions of OSG?
I searched around and came across osgswig (http://code.google.com/p/osgswig/) and PyOSG (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pyosg/), but they don't seem to be actively maintained. I don't see any recent activity related to these packages, and it seems that people had trouble running osgswig on OSX. Ideally, I'd like to find something that "just works", without major compilation hassles. I'd like to just install a package and be able to import a module that will let me load COLLADA or 3DS files.
I also came across pycollada (https://github.com/pycollada/pycollada). It seems active, but fairly early-stage. Ideally, I'd like a reasonably comprehensive package that supports specular maps, normal maps, and other reasonably advanced features. Animation would be nice as well.
In summary, I need to load 3D scenes in Python. Bindings for OSG would probably be ideal, because OSG is so comprehensive. But I need something that works on OSX. I would also prefer something that can be installed reasonably easily. Does something like this exist?
Thanks!
Take a look at Open Asset Import Library (short name: Assimp). It is a portable Open Source library to import various well-known 3D model formats in a uniform manner. http://www.assimp.org/
You should loot at panda3D (http://www.panda3d.org/), it's a game engine with extensive python bindings. It has the features you want : http://www.panda3d.org/manual/index.php/Features
I used it for a few years and it was a solid tool.
I made my own fork of a mirror of a clone of the osgswig project for a similar purpose. I have it working with OpenSceneGraph version 3.2.1 on Windows and Mac; and it's likely I will eventually polish it for linux too. I'm already delivering one product to customers based on my version of osgswig, and I'm considering making others. Find my fork here:
https://github.com/cmbruns/osgswig
If others show enough interest, I might be coaxed into creating binary installers for my version of the osgswig module, to make installation easier.
If you just want the easiest OpenSceneGraph bindings for OSG 3.2.1, you can stop reading this answer here. Read on for more of my thoughts for the future.
Though I am maintaining a fork of osgswig (as stated above), I sort of hate SWIG, and I would prefer to use bindings based on Boost.Python, rather than on SWIG. For large, complex C++ APIs, like OpenSceneGraph, Boost.Python can be much more elegant than SWIG, both for the API consumer, and for the binding maintainer (me, and me). I found one project using Boost.Python to wrap OSG, at https://code.google.com/p/osgboostpython/, but the developer is lovingly wrapping each part of the interface by hand, and has thus only completed a tiny fraction of the large OpenSceneGraph API.
Taking that Boost.Python based project as inspiration, I created yet another OpenSceneGraph Python binding project, at https://github.com/JaneliaSciComp/osgpyplusplus. Eventually, I want to use this osgpyplusplus project for all my python osg needs. And I would appreciate help in making it ready. Right now, osgpyplusplus suffers from the following weaknesses, compared to osgswig:
osgpyplusplus is not yet used in any working product
The build environment is tricky to set up, requiring both Boost.Python and Pyplusplus
I haven't paid much attention to osgpyplusplus recently, so it might rust away if I continue to ignore it.
Though osgpyplusplus probably wraps most of the OpenSceneGraph API, there are probably some important missing pieces that won't be identified until someone tries to develop a significant project with it.
It would be a lot of work for me to create a binary module installer for osgpyplusplus at this point, so please don't ask me to.

deploying python applications

Is it possible to deploy python applications such that you don't release the source code and you don't have to be sure the customer has python installed?
I'm thinking maybe there is some installation process that can run a python app from just the .pyc files and a shared library containing the interpreter or something like that?
Basically I'm keen to get the development benefits of a language like Python - high productivity etc. but can't quite see how you could deploy it professionally to a customer where you don't know how there machine is set up and you definitely can't deliver the source.
How do professional software houses developing in python do it (or maybe the answer is that they don't) ?
You protect your source code legally, not technologically. Distributing py files really isn't a big deal. The only technological solution here is not to ship your program (which is really becoming more popular these days, as software is provided over the internet rather than fully installed locally more often.)
If you don't want the user to have to have Python installed but want to run Python programs, you'll have to bundle Python. Your resistance to doing so seems quite odd to me. Java programs have to either bundle or anticipate the JVM's presence. C programs have to either bundle or anticipate libc's presence (usually the latter), etc. There's nothing hacky about using what you need.
Professional Python desktop software bundles Python, either through something like py2exe/cx_Freeze/some in-house thing that does the same thing or through embedding Python (in which case Python comes along as a library rather than an executable). The former approach is usually a lot more powerful and robust.
Yes, it is possible to make installation packages. Look for py2exe, cx_freeze and others.
No, it is not possible to keep the source code completely safe. There are always ways to decompile.
Original source code can trivially be obtained from .pyc files if someone wants to do it. Code obfuscation would make it more difficult to do something with the code.
I am surprised no one mentioned this before now, but Cython seems like a viable solution to this problem. It will take your Python code and transpile it into CPython compatible C code. You also get a small speed boost (~25% last I checked) since it will be compiled to native machine code instead of just Python byte code. You still need to be sure the user has Python installed (either by making it a pre-requisite pushed off onto the user to deal with, or bundling it as part of the installer process). Also, you do need to have at least one small part of your application in pure Python: the hook into the main function.
So you would need something basic like this:
import cython_compiled_module
if __name__ == '__main__':
cython_compiled_module.main()
But this effectively leaks no implementation details. I think using Cython should meet the criteria in the question, but it also introduces the added complexity of compiling in C, which loses some of Python's easy cross-platform nature. Whether that is worth it or not is up to you.
As others stated, even the resulting compiled C code could be decompiled with a little effort, but it is likely much more close to the type of obfuscation you were initially hoping for.
Well, it depends what you want to do. If by "not releasing the source code" you mean "the customer should not be able to access the source code in any way", well, you're fighting a losing battle. Even programs written in C can be reverse engineered, after all. If you're afraid someone will steal from you, make them sign a contract and sue them if there's trouble.
But if you mean "the customer should not care about python files, and not be able to casually access them", you can use a solution like cx_Freeze to turn your Python application into an executable.
Build a web application in python. Then the world can use it via a browser with zero install.

Writing a lockscreen for Linux?

I've been looking around for a nice lockscreen to use with my XFCE system, but it seems like there are any slim lock screens around. I'm currently using slock, but it's just a blank screen with absolutely no interface whatsoever.
I'm looking to code a lockscreen in Python. I looked at the source code for slock, and it seems like I have to interface with Xorg somehow.
Does anybody know anything about writing lockscreens?
If you want to go low-level, you can use python xcb bindings.
If you want to use higher level bindings, you may find this tutorial on writing a screen saver with Qt useful. Porting it to PyQt should be quite straightforward. I'm pretty sure similar resources exist for GTK.

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