Syncplay development

How to get involved

Syncplay is developed using Python. You could help by reporting bugs, working on the code, or providing translations to other languages. The project is hosted at https://github.com/Syncplay/syncplay/. You can also e-mail us via dev@syncplay.pl.

Core developers & active none-core leads

  • Et0h – GUI/Player/NSIS/message lead
  • Uriziel – Syncplay architecture/protocol/Twisted/networking/threading lead
  • albertosottile – macOS Lead (also works on Qt.py, Italian translation, etc)

Other contributors

Thanks should also go to:

  • The media player developers, especially those who directly supported Syncplay (e.g. vBm from MPC-HC and jb from VLC)
  • Those who posted bug reports which made us aware of various issues (including those people thanked in the Syncplay Changelog and relevant commit messages)
  • Those who developed the libraries and platforms which Syncplay relies on (e.g. Python, Twisted, py2exe, PySide and NSIS)
  • Those who developed the tools we use to develop and promote Syncplay (e.g. PyCharm, Eclipse and WordPress)
  • Everyone who has donated, spread the word, or given us feedback on the project
  • The users – Thank you for flying with Syncplay!

Getting a Python set-up for Windows Syncplay development

1)  Install Python 3.6 from https://www.python.org/downloads/
2) Install the  Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable Package (Download the 32-bit version, i.e. ‘vc_redist.x86.exe’).
3) Get NSIS to create the installer, installing it to ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\NSIS\’ (probably the default directory). You don’t need this just to run Syncplay, only if you want to build your own installers.
4) Download and install PyCharm Community Edition and Git
5) In PyCharm create a virtual environment for Python 3.6 then after this has processed close PyCharm. Don’t forget to note where you create the virtual environment, as you’ll need to find the activate.bat file in its \venv\Scripts folder for Step 6!
5) Copy over python3.dll from Python 3.6 \DLLs\ folder the into the \venv\Scripts folder if it doesn’t already exist (this bit might no longer be necessary, I’m not sure)
6) In the Command Prompt activate that virtual environment (by running the relevant activate.bat file in the \venv\Scripts folder) and enter the following:

pip3 install -U setuptools wheel pip
pip3 install -r requirements.txt
pip3 install -r requirements_gui.txt
pip3 install py2exe



7) You can fork the https://github.com/Syncplay/syncplay GitHub repository to your own repository and use PyCharm to make change to the Syncplay code. Push changes to your own GitHub branch, then make a Pull Request (PR) to propose that this be incorporated into the Syncplay code.


History


Syncplay started out as a fork of SyncPlay, which emerged from #anime&manga on irc.rizon.net as a tool to facilitate watching videos with friends and commenting on them (the videos, not the friends) ‘live’ on IRC or Mumble. Uriziel came up with the idea as a replacement to having to shout “3..2..1.. Play! …No wait, pause!”, but the initial code for SyncPlay was mostly written by Tomasz “Fluxid” Kowalczyk. Fluxid’s work on SyncPlay started in January 2012 and ended in February 2012.