[Openal-devel] More ALUT formats

[Chris Robinson]

Hi all.

So the previous ALUT streaming stuff wasn't working out that great. The Ogg 
Vorbis stuff also seemed to be going the wrong way, so I'm trying to 
re-assess how to handle loading more formats with ALUT.

Using decoder libs directly is too much work (at least right off the bat). 
I've looked into using FFmpeg, but upon closer inspection it doesn't seem to 
be too good.. it's difficult to set up on Windows, and I've gotten a few FLAC 
files it won't decode because it apparently has its own implementation of 
decoders instead of using the existing reference ones. It looks like 
libvorbisfile and libsndfile may be the best way to handle a good number of 
formats.

The internal organization of the ALUT loading functions is rather bad, though 
(eg. functions that do work on, and then delete, input data so the 
higher-level code can just return on the function call). I fear it's going to 
need a bit of sweeping all-at-once changes though, or else things could get 
even messier and just plain not work until its done.

I'm curious about what other people may think is the best way to do it, 
though. And if need be, would sweeping changes to reorganize and clean up the 
internal code be acceptable/a good idea.

Thanks for any input. :)

- Chris