Phonon (software)
Phonon is the multimedia API provided by KDE and is the standard abstraction for handling multimedia streams within KDE software and also used by several Qt applications.
An early screenshot of Phonon's setting manager | |
| Developer(s) | Matthias Kretz u.a. |
|---|---|
| Initial release | January 11, 2008 |
| Stable release | 4.11.1
/ September 26, 2019 |
| Repository | invent |
| Written in | C++ |
| Operating system | Linux, BSD, macOS, Solaris, Windows |
| Type | Multimedia framework |
| License | GNU Lesser General Public License 2.1 |
| Website | userbase |
Phonon was originally created to allow KDE and Qt software to be independent of any single multimedia framework such as GStreamer or xine and to provide a stable API for a major version's lifetime. It was done for various reasons: to create a simple KDE/Qt style multimedia API, to better support native multimedia frameworks on Windows and macOS, and to fix problems of frameworks becoming unmaintained or having API or ABI instability.
For example, a file can be played in four lines of C++ code, compared to 30 lines in the old audio framework for KDE (aRts)
Phonon::MediaObject* media = new Phonon::MediaObject(this);
createPath(media, new Phonon::AudioOutput(Phonon::MusicCategory, this));
media->setCurrentSource(QUrl("/tmp/example.wav"));
media->play();
Phonon is not designed to have every conceivable multimedia feature, but rather as a simple way to perform common functions of computer media players. Developers that require more control over a given media backend than Phonon can provide are recommended to use the native media API or the GStreamer API on systems for which it is available.