About this Guide

The MediaFS Developer's Guide presents how the media filesystem (MediaFS) module expects device drivers to describe media devices and mediastores, and the devctl() messages that these drivers need to support.

This Guide is intended for:

For more information about the MME, see Introduction to the MME and the other books in the MME documentation set.

The table below may help you find what you need in this book:

For information about: See:
The MediaFS standardized interface MediaFS Overview
The structure of MediaFS, and required POSIX function support MediaFS Structure
MediaFS entities, including files, directories and symbolic links MediaFS Entities
Media changer presentation to MediaFS Media Changers
How to present playback states and controls to MediaFS Managing Playback
Device management messages supported by MediaFS Device Management Messages
Playback and status update supported by MediaFS Playback Messages
Metadata retrieval messages supported by MediaFS Metadata Messages
Playback structures and constants used by MediaFS Playback Structures and Constants
How to retrieve album art Getting Album Art
MediaFS events and their structures MediaFS Events
Examples of code used to work with MediaFS Appendix A: Examples

Other MME documentation available to application developers includes:

Book Description
Introduction to the MME MME Architecture, Quickstart Guide, and FAQs.
MME Developer's Guide How to use the MME to program client applications.
MME API Library Reference MME API functions, data structures, enumerated types, and events.
MME Technotes MME technical notes.
MME Utilities Utilities used by the MME.
MME Configuration Guide How to configure the MME.
QDB Developer's Guide QDB database engine programming guide and API library reference.

Note that the MME is a component of the QNX Aviage multimedia core package, which is available in the QNX Aviage multimedia suite of products. The MME is the main component of this core package. It is used for configuration and control of your multimedia applications.

Typographical conventions

Throughout this manual, we use certain typographical conventions to distinguish technical terms. In general, the conventions we use conform to those found in IEEE POSIX publications. The following table summarizes our conventions:

Reference Example
Code examples if( stream == NULL )
Command options -lR
Commands make
Environment variables PATH
File and pathnames /dev/null
Function names exit()
Keyboard chords Ctrl-Alt-Delete
Keyboard input something you type
Keyboard keys Enter
Program output login:
Programming constants NULL
Programming data types unsigned short
Programming literals 0xFF, "message string"
Variable names stdin
User-interface components Cancel

We use an arrow (→) in directions for accessing menu items, like this:

You'll find the Other... menu item under Perspective-->Show View.

We use notes, cautions, and warnings to highlight important messages:


Note: Notes point out something important or useful.


Caution: Cautions tell you about commands or procedures that may have unwanted or undesirable side effects.


WARNING: Warnings tell you about commands or procedures that could be dangerous to your files, your hardware, or even yourself.

Note to Windows users

In our documentation, we use a forward slash (/) as a delimiter in all pathnames, including those pointing to Windows files.

We also generally follow POSIX/UNIX filesystem conventions.

Navigation buttons

At the top and bottom of our HTML docs, you'll see some or all of these buttons:

Use this button: To move:
Previous To the previous part of the document.
Contents “Up” in the document:
  • In a prose book, this typically takes you to About This Guide.
  • In a reference book, it takes you to the listing of items that start with a given letter. For example, if you're looking at the docs for abs(), this button takes you to the listing of the functions that start with A.
Keyword index To the keyword index.
Next To the next part of the document.

Technical support options

To obtain technical support for any QNX product, visit the Support + Services area on our website (www.qnx.com). You'll find a wide range of support options, including community forums.

Copyright © 2008–2009, QNX Software Systems GmbH & Co. KG. All rights reserved.