Welcome to my page!
I hope you enjoy your visit. If you have any question, comment or just want to say something mail me at:

gpmarotte@yahoo.com

Latest News:

07AUG2001 - aKtion! is still alive!
More than a year without news in this site, that's a lot. But plenty of things have happened since then! aKtion! was ported to KDE 2 / Qt 2, and it was released in the official KDE 2 Multimedia package. For those of you that don't want to download the full Multimedia tarball, I'm offering a reduced version with only aKtion! inside it (download and rename it to aktion.tar.bz2 geocities doesn't allows me to upload files with such extension).
To compile it, just run these commands:
make -f Makefile.cvs
./configure
make
make install

The rest of this page is dedicated to the last KDE 1.x version of aKtion.

I've also changed my e-mail address to gpmarotte@yahoo.com.

12MAR2000 - version 0.4.1 released
changes from 0.4.0:
-fixed a mimetype bug in aktion.kdelnk
-updated portuguese translation
-fixed a bug in trasnlations

20FEB2000 - version 0.4.0 released (after a long time! :)
changes from 0.3.6:
-new customizable button
-added time bar and time labels
-got rid of any .gif files: bye Unisys!
-new logotipe :)
-added Portuguese translation (thanks to Raul Gomes Fernandes )
-added Estonian translation (thanks to Alvar Kusma -translator- and Hasso Tepper -KDE Estonian Team coordinator-)

16JAN2000 - Kurt Granroth has made an excellent tutorial about KDE Embedded Components, and he used aKtion as the base application for it. There you'll also find a new version of aKtion!, ported to KDE 2 and adapted to support the BrowserView functionality in Konqueror (watch your videos inside it!).

27JUL99 -New section: Video Clips sites. Thanks to Benjamin Sher for the links.

Introduction:

aKtion! is a video player based on xanim. It (xanim) supports many different file formats: NOTE: You'll need to have xanim 2.70.7.0 or superior properly installed in your machine to run aKtion!. If you don't have it go to the Xanim Homepage.
You can also visit the David Sweet's XAnim page for pre compiled and full featured XAnim available for download in RPM format.

Download:

******** IMPORTANT NOTICE - PLEASE READ ********
If you want to have the new time bar feature enabled, you'll have to download this package with the two modified files for xanim: xanim.c and xanim.h. Uncompress it and copy the files into your xanim 2.80.1 sources directory and recompile xanim. These patches are ONLY for xanim 2.80.1. Read the xanim documentation if you need some help for the compilation.
Note that these modifications aren't mandatories, if you don't modify your xanim, aKtion! will still work, but you won't get the time bar functionality.
********************************************************

Download aKtion! 0.4.1 sources.
Download aKtion! 0.4.1 binary RPM for RedHat 6.x (note that maybe you'll have to replace the '_' in the filename with dots, that's because geocities don't allows me to upload files with more tha one '.')
Download aKtion! 0.4.1 sources RPM

Troy Engel and Ivan E. Moore II also made RPM packages for RedHat and Debian..

How to install:

  1. Uncompress the aktion.tgz file in the usual way (try Ark ;-)
  2. Go into the /aktion-0.4.1 directory.
  3. Type "./configure"
  4. Then "make"
  5. And finally (as root) "make install"
That's all. Now, if the compilation process was fine, you'll see the aKtion! icon in the Multimedia menu.

Using the player:

Here is a little screenshot:

To start aKtion!, go into the "Multimedia" menu, and choose the "aKtion!" entry. You can also call it from the command line like:
aktion [filename]
If xanim is not in your path, you can choose what file to use as the xanim executable. Go to the configuration dialog and change the option "xanim executable".
You can also drag 'n drop video files from kfm into an aKtion! window.

Available keys:
ESC : leave the player
SPACE : play/pause
ENTER : open file
F1 : help
, (comma) : backward
. (dot) : forward
2 : volume down
3 : volume up

(see also Full Screen Mode)

Capturing frames:

During a video playback, you can press the 'c' key to capture the current frame being played. You don't need to pause the video, just press the 'c' key. The frames will be saved in the "Output directory" (see the configuration dialog in the "Capture" tab), with the specified format. They will have the name of the current file followed by a number which indicates the capture order (e.g. "myVideo1.bmp myVideo2.bmp ...").

Video Clips sites:

Here's a list of pages that contains video files for your viewing pleasure. If you know an address that might be included, don't hesitate and send it to me. Thanks to:
Benjamin Sher
sher07@bellsouth.net
Sher's Russian Web
http://www.websher.net

Frequently Asked Questions:

What does that "Unsupported video codec" error message means?
This means that the player can't recognize the video format, or, most likely, that you don't have a recent xanim version or a "full featured" version of xanim. In some Linux (and probably others O.S.) distributions (as RedHat), xanim doesn't comes with all the video codecs in it due to some legal issues. How to fix this?. Read the next question.

How do I get the "full featured" xanim version?
Go to the xanim homepage and follow the instructions on how to get the "cinepak", "indeo" and "creative" video codecs. Probably you'll need to recompile xanim.
You can also visit the David Sweet's XAnim page for pre compiled and full featured XAnim available for download in RPM format.

Why sometimes (not always) aKtion! doesn't play the video sound?
Sometimes xanim "fights" with KDE in order to get the sound control. This specially happens if you have lots of system sounds activated. If KDE is playing the, let's say, "new window" sound when aKtion! starts, and aKtion! tries to automatically start playing the video, then xanim will see that the sound card is busy, and will refuse to play the video sound.
Solution: deactivate some system sounds. You can also deactivate aktion' "autoplay" feature. Or, when the sound is gone, you can press the stop button and then play again.

Why the time bar doesn't works? Why the time labels always show "0:00:00"?
That's because you don't have the patched version of xanim. Go to the Download section in the aKtion! homepage and read the notice.

Copyright:

aKtion! is distributed under GPL (see the LICENSE file included in the distribution)

XAnim Copyright (C) 1990-1997 by Mark Podlipec.
All rights reserved.

This software may be freely copied, modified and redistributed without
fee for non-commerical purposes provided that this copyright notice is
preserved intact on all copies and modified copies.

There is no warranty or other guarantee of fitness of this software.
It is provided solely "as is". The author(s) disclaim(s) all
responsibility and liability with respect to this software's usage
or its effect upon hardware or computer systems.

KXAnim

Introduction:

The kxanim widget is a xanim wrapper to allow video playing on your apps.

Where is it?

You'll find the two files for the KXAnim widget into the /aktion/src directory in the distribution (no lib yet!). The files are: The docs are in /aktion/src/doc (or just click the help button in the aKtion! player). Or just click here.

Using the widget:

KXAnim works like any other QT/KDE widget. In order to use it, you need to include two files in your project: You must generate the kxanim.moc file using the MOC compiler (see the Qt documentation for more info).
Now you will need to declare the widget like:

KXAnim *myVideoWidget;

myVideoWidget = new KXAnim( this, "the name");
myVideoWidget->move(x,y);

Then you just need to connect some signals to the widget slots. You can also call those slots manually like:

myVideoWidget->play();

But before this don't forget to set the file to play:

myVideoWidget->setFile("videoFileName.avi");

Take a look at the full class documentation.

KXAnim class documentation:

Class documentation.


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Guillermo P. Marotte
Santa Fe - Argentina
gpmarotte@yahoo.com 1