1 *************************** REQUIREMENTS **************************
3 Linux RealPlayer 8 (for any available platform).
5 Perl 5 (for the Snatch Robot) with File::Glob, Tk8 and a couple of
6 other modules that are standard in most Perl installs. File::Glob
7 didn't become included by default until Perl 5.6.0, so at least 5.6.0
10 A compiler, GCC heavily recommended.
12 *************************** COMPILATION ***************************
14 libsnatch has to be compiled. The conversion utilities that make
15 .snatch files useful have to be compiled. I supply a trivial,
16 hand-written makefile to do both. It assumes gcc, and that
17 installation should go in /usr/local.
23 ...will build and install Snatch. It's now ready to run.
25 ************************ MANUAL INSTALLATION **********************
27 The only two important bits to install are libsnatch.so and the Snatch
28 Robot. Installation consists of:
30 1) Put the Snatch Robot ('Snatch') wherever you want it. Somewhere in
31 the path is recommended. /usr/local/bin/ usually does nicely.
33 2) Stick libsnatch.so where Snatch Robot can find it. The places
34 Snatch Robot searches by default are:
36 /usr/local/lib/libsnatch.so
39 ~/.snatch/libsnatch.so
41 The Snatch Robot will need to find RealPlayer too. If it's not in the
42 path, you can deal with that after starting Snatch.
44 The conversion utils (snatch2yuv, snatch2yuv2, snatch2wav) are not
45 needed to run Snatch, but are useful to convert the output to
46 something useful. These need simply be compiled (see Makefile) and
47 placed wherever they're to be used.
49 ***************************** EXAMPLES ****************************
51 To install Snatch in your home directory (doesn't need root)
53 tar -xvzf snatch-20020225.tgz
55 gcc -O2 -shared libsnatch.c -o libsnatch.so
57 mv libsnatch.so ~/.snatch
60 run Snatch with ~/Snatch
62 To install Snatch for the whole system (as root)
64 tar -xvzf snatch-20020225.tgz
68 ******************** IMPORTANT WINDOWMANAGER TIP ******************
70 If RealPlayer crashes at some point (and we all know this Just Doesn't
71 Happen! :-), the Snatch robot will helpfully try to throw a new
72 RealPlayer process. This is especially useful during timed recording,
73 and Snatch will try to pick up time recording when the new RealPlayer
76 However, the windowmanager, by default, throws a monkeywrench into
77 this; it will generally ask the user to place the new RealPlayer
78 window. When unattended, this naturally screws recording from that
79 point on as it will wait forever for the user.
81 It's strongly recommended to either add an X resources entry (to
82 .Xresources) along the lines of:
84 RealPlayer*geometry: +0+0
86 ...or an explicit Windowmanager configuration directive (this depends
87 entirely on the WM in use) to force placement of the RealPlayer
88 window. This way, a crash during unattended recording will only
89 momentarily interrupt the recording process.