Job offer: python engineer UI orientated, backend or web developement.
Elisa is a free and open source media center working on Windows and Linux. The goal of the project is to provide software that lets the user enjoy their multimedia content in an easy and user-friendly way, on a television or on a computer monitor. It organizes the media collection and gives rapid access to watching videos, pictures, and listening to music while simultaneously interacting with contextual information and services. Elisa features a very animated, interactive user interface whose success depends on good usability and aesthetics.
On the technical side it relies on 3D hardware acceleration to provide inexpensive and fluid user experience. Although Elisa is written in Python it uses a handful of base libraries written in C, such as GStreamer for media playback, Pigment, its graphical engine, which in turn uses OpenGL to take advantage of the graphical hardware.
Elisa has been in development for over 2 years and is close to its first stable release. The company will enter a new growing phase, and we are looking for talented engineers to help us become a leader in media experience.
Motivation and a genuine will to create a usable and useful piece of software for everyone are the keys for a successful applicant. Severals positions are opened :
UI development:
Web development:
Core and plugins integration :
Our internal organization creates opportunity to change from a position to another during the development process.
The working language is English.
Please send your resume to: lionel@fluendo.com
Elisa 0.5.22, released yesterday, contained a critical bug, preventing Elisa from launching for first-time installations (upgrades from a previous version not affected). As this was impairing the user experience, we decided to release a bugfix version today.
Elisa 0.5.22.1 is out, check out the Windows installer.
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.22, code-named "Where Is My Mind?".
The main new feature is a set of generic RSS models and a controller that allow plugin developers to very easily integrate media RSS feeds in their plugins. Expect new cool plugins that make use of this very soon!
A complete list of the bugs fixed by this release is available at:
http://bugs.launchpad.net/elisa/+milestone/0.5.22
As Christmas approaches most of Elisa developers are taking some (well deserved) holidays and we will work with a reduced team over the next two weeks. No release of the core should be expected during this period of time. However work is not stalled and we hope to release new plugins, watch out for Santa and cool stuff in Elisa!
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.21, code-named "Plug In Baby".
New features include:
A complete list of the bugs fixed by this release is available at:
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.20, code-named "Paranoid Android".
The focus during this release cycle has been put on bug fixing. New features include:
A complete list of the bugs fixed by this release is available at:
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.19, code-named "Walk Of Life".
This release features, among other things, updated French translations and important bug fixes for the plugins system.
A complete list of the bugs fixed by this release is available at:
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.18, code-named "Just My Imagination".
The release cycle for this version was exceptionally two weeks instead of one to fit a lot of important changes (some of which are visible, some not but nonetheless important).
This release brings its usual lot of bug fixes and exciting new features. Here are the main highlights:
A complete list of the new features and bugs fixed by this release is available at:
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.17, code-named "Dazed And Confused".
This release brings its usual lot of bug fixes and important performance improvements.
A complete list of the new features and bugs fixed by this release is available at:
Elisa 0.5.16, released yesterday, contained two annoying bugs. As these were impairing the user experience, we decided to release a bugfix version today.
Elisa 0.5.16.1 is out, check out the Windows installer and the PPA packages for Ubuntu Hardy.
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.16, code-named "La Gallina Feliz".
This release brings its usual lot of bug fixes and introduces new features, some of which were long awaited. Here are the main highlights:
A complete list of the new features and bugs fixed by this release is available at:
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.15, code-named "Through Her Eyes".
The focus during this release cycle has been put on fixing bugs (16 closed, with an emphasis on reducing memory leaks and usability improvements), while a good part of the team was working on implementing new features with a mid-term target. These features will show up within the next releases of Elisa, stay tuned!
A complete list of the new features and bugs fixed by this release is available at:
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.14, code-named "El Bosc Vertical".
The focus during this release cycle has been put on Windows functionalities and bug fixing (a good dozen closed). Here are the main highlights:
A complete list of the new features and bugs fixed by this release is available at:
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.13, code-named "Sergeant Colon".
A few new features have been implemented during this cycle when the team was focused on fixing more than 20 bugs. Here are the main highlights:
A complete list of the new features and bugs fixed by this release is available at:
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.12, code-named "Hibo".
This release fixes a handful of bugs and enhances the current user experience with the following new features:
Unfortunately YouTube servers have changed the way they work and it is very likely, depending on the country you live in, that playing back videos from YouTube from within Elisa does not work anymore. Reference: https://bugs.launchpad.net/elisa/+bug/275976
A complete list of the new features and bugs fixed by this release is available at:
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.11, code-named "Corporal Nobbs".
This 11th release of the 0.5 series introduces the following new features:
On top of that few but hindering bugs have been resolved during this cycle.
A complete list of the new features and bugs fixed by this release is available at:
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.10 codenamed "Fallout".
A very important and long awaited improvement of this release is the rewrite from scratch of the video, audio and slideshow players user interface. The team is proud to present a brand new look with a strong focus on aesthetics and extensibility; it is fully pluggable and new controls can easily be added via plugins.
A fair number of bugs were also fixed during this cycle (14 bugs).
On top of these bug fixes, this release also introduces the following new features:
A complete list of the new features and bugs fixed by this release is available at:
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.9 codenamed "Confrontation".
This release introduces a number of important new features, among which:
A complete list of the new features and bugs fixed by this release is available at:
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.8 codenamed "Purgatory".
This week the focus was on the support of more remote controls on Windows and on performance improvements. As usual, numerous bug were also fixed. Here are the important changes that were introduced:
A complete list of the new features and bugs fixed by this release is available at:
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.7, code-named "The Tipping Point". It works under Windows Vista and XP, as well as the main Linux distributions.
This release fixes a handful of bugs and enhances the current user experience with the following new features:
A complete list of the new features and bugs fixed by this release is available at:
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.6, code-named "Perks". It works under Windows Vista and XP, as well as the main Linux distributions.
A very important and long awaited improvement of this release is the introduction of DVD playback including DVD menus support. It is elegantly integrated in the user interface making it easy and natural to use. A well deserved big thanks goes to the GStreamer hackers who made that possible.
A considerable number of bugs were also fixed during this cycle (25 bugs) mainly related to device hotplugging and to the media scanner.
On top of these bug fixes, this release also introduces the following new features:
There is still a known issue in this release and we are working on solving it as fast as possible: audio CDs are not detected.
A complete list of the new features and bugs fixed by this release is available at:
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.5, code-named "Submission". It works under Windows Vista and XP, as well as the main Linux distributions.
We have introduced new features and re-introduced some that were in the 0.3.x series and had not been ported to the new architecture yet. This includes:
Port of the avahi plugin from the 0.3.x series, which discovers hosts and services on your local network.
Port of the DAAP plugin from the 0.3.x series, which allows browsing DAAP music shares (iTunes, Rhythmbox, Banshee, Amarok, Exaile, ...) on your local network.
The media scanner now handles pictures which are indexed in the database and accessible from the Photo Library.
An accent has also been put on stability during this release cycle which resulted in 18 bugs fixed.
There are still some known issues in this release and we are working on solving them as fast as possible:
A complete list of the new features and bugs fixed by this release is available at:
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.4, code-named "Attraction". It works under Windows Vista and XP, as well as the main Linux distributions.
An accent has been put on stability during this release cycle which resulted in 24 bug fixes completed but no new feature introduced.
There are still some known issues in this release and we are working on solving them as fast as possible:
A complete list of the bugs fixed by this release is available at:
The Elisa team is happy to announce the release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.3, code-named "Attraction". It works under Windows Vista and XP, as well as the main Linux distributions.
Features added since 0.5.2:
There are still some known issues in this release and we are working on solving them as fast as possible:
A complete list of the bugs fixed by this release is available at:
The Elisa team is happy to announce the second official release of the 0.5 series of the Elisa Media Center, Elisa 0.5.2 Good news everyone.... It works under Windows Vista and XP, as well as the main Linux distributions.
Various bugs have also been fixed since the release of Elisa 0.5.1, the complete list can be found at https://bugs.launchpad.net/elisa/+milestone/0.5.2
The Elisa team is hereby announcing a first official release of Elisa Media Center 0.5.1, code-named Como se pasa. It works under Windows Vista and XP, as well as the main Linux distributions.
This is the first public release of the new software architecture, which significantly improves and ease development of new plugins, skins and GUI.
As of new features, you can now add directories where you store your media to more successfully access all your media content. A "fast-scrolling bar" has been added to the interface, allowing you to quickly move across large numbers of songs or movies to find the one you're looking for. YouTube should now play higher quality clips, if such are available from the online service. Feedback has been added when media codecs are not supported, folders are empty, new versions are available etc.
With Elisa, a new version of Pigment has also been released, code-named Niko Bellic version 0.3.6. It contains a long list of new features, including rotations in 3D, OpenGL-ES support, touchscreen support, etc. Find the Pigment release at https://code.fluendo.com/pigment/trac/wiki.
We have set up a daily build process for the 0.5.1 alpha version of Elisa for win32.
For those who are interested in following the latest developments and change logs, and trying out the latest windows installer, check out our daily builds page.
The Elisa Media Center’s long-term goal is to provide end-users with a truly universal, interoperable, cross-platform media center. When we talk about ‘universal’ it is in regard to media (support all media types, local or online), universal with regard to devices (support & autodiscover all hardware: external disks, USB, MP3 players, remote controls), and universal with regard to device-to-device interoperability (UPnP, SMB, daap, etc). As a step towards those goals, the Elisa Media Center is releasing a first alpha version for Windows. Updated versions will follow, with a stable Windows version planned for June.
The Windows alpha release contains only the very basic features (with limited functionality) of the Elisa Media Center at this moment:
- Videos
- Music
- Photos
- Flickr
- YouTube
- Shoutcast
- Samba shares
- iPod
- remote control support
If you are brave enough to test this release, you can download the installer from the website and/or you can find the source-code in the windows branch of bazaar on launchpad:
bzr branch https://code.launchpad.net/~elisa-developers/elisa/win32
Known issues
- codecs for DirectShow (ffdshow) have to be installed in order to play all media files
- sometimes colored lines appear in the UI
- YouTube video streaming doesn’t work
- audio cd’s are detected but playback doesn’t work
- playback of some media files can crash the application (H.264, some mpeg’s and mp4)
Two members of the Elisa team will attend the Ubuntu Developer Summit and FOSSCamp next week in Prague. Florian and Alessandro will do their best to advocate Elisa for inclusion in the next Ubuntu release by default. An Ubuntu blue-print has been created and will be discussed during the summit. Florian and Alessandro will also be very happy to discuss about the end-user experience in the multimedia desktop in general. Be sure to catch them up!
Elisa Media Center now brings the web to the desktop with its fully modular software architecture.
For years, it has been too difficult for people to develop and contribute to stand-alone, desktop and embedded applications. Why? Meanwhile, web-technologies have attracted more and more developers with its clear and simple, yet sustainable way of building applications and mashup-services.
The Elisa Media Center has reached a milestone in its development cycle. It has achieved its original goal of providing an easy to develop modular platform that uses the web as inspiration. Following up on its motto ‘everything is a plugin’, Elisa is now completely pluggable from top (user interaction, graphical interface, etc.), to bottom (data retrieval, hardware communication, etc.). It borrows an analogy from the way components speak with each other over ‘REST’ webservices. Using 4 simple commands (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) integration of any service is natural and painless.
A fully fledged plugin/functionality can be added to Elisa with just a few lines of code (see tutorials). Although still a work in progress, we encourage everyone to join our efforts in making the Elisa Media Center a true portal between the web; local networks; and your PC/TV.
The easiest way to start hacking Elisa is to create your own branch. This allows you to publish to it so other developers and users can review it and even experiment with it.
Elisa uses Bazaar to create new development branches for later review and merging. Creating your own branch is an easy Bazaar command:
bzr branch http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~elisa-developers/elisa/rest elisa
The above command will create a directory called ‘elisa’ containing the Elisa branch named ‘rest’. This branch is where the excitement begins and you will see what is happening development wise with Elisa nowadays. New developers are encouraged to review this and base their work from it. This branch of Elisa relies on the latest development version of Pigment with a little twist for pigment-python. Here is the step by step procedure to get it up and running:
mkdir pigment cd pigment svn co https://code.fluendo.com/pigment/svn/trunk/pigment pigment svn co https://code.fluendo.com/pigment/svn/branches/pigment-python-widgets pigment-python cd pigment ./autogen.sh && make ./misc/pgm-uninstalled cd ../pigment-python ./autogen.sh && make
Then launch Elisa:
cd [your elisa branch] python elisa-core/elisa.py elisa.conf
What you should have displayed is the user interface from the weather plugin. Nothing greatly impressive but the technical basis is there to go much further very soon. In the next weeks the Elisa user interface will be rebuilt using the new architecture.
Useful tutorials have been written to get you started easily:
And of course the automatically generated API reference will help a lot.
The development team is migrating to new tools for the code and bugs tracking. It’s been decided to switch to the Bazaar DVCS and Launchpad. The Elisa project is all about people making their own customised media center that fits their own particular needs. For this reason Elisa’s source code, which was previously versioned using Subversion, is from now on stored in Bazaar branches.
Florian explains more deeply the reasons for the move on our mailing list. All these changes and decisions will help make Elisa go forward by allowing everyone to collaborate as painlessly as possible.
One update about the main Bazaar Elisa branch. It is located at http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~elisa-developers/elisa/trunk and not elisa/main as Florian’s mail states. Moreover the plugins bundles policy has been updated. Be sure to read it.
Yesterday the Elisa team published the 0.3.5 release labelled “Papain”. It is a bugfix release of 0.3.4 fixing some critical problems, see the release announcement for more details. The new features we implemented since the 0.3.3 release are:
- Pictures slideshow rewritten with appealing fade in/fade out effect
- Drag&Drop support to easily add new media directories inside Elisa
- Startup splashscreen together with a slick introduction effect dramatically improving the first time user experience
- Elisa core and the various plugins bundles are now released separately which makes it easier to keep hot features up to date
- Missing codec detection and installation support
- Elisa detects poorly configured graphics driver and warns the user about it
- Freedesktop’s startup notification support
- Simplified playlist management with automatic playback of albums
- Player on screen display improved mouse support
Be sure to check this new release out on our download page, the new player feature especially improves the end-user experience!
