better help for the user

[Chris Silverberg]

Hi Steve et all,

I'd like to try to improve my application's ability to report 
information about available and unavailable video devices.  My 
application is a typical video application using Sequence grabber calls 
only, opening using OpenDefaultComponent( SeqGrabComponentType, 0 ) and 
then opening a video channel.  Then if the user wants to change their 
video settings I present the standard QuickTime configuration window 
and let the user configure as desired.  This all works fine when a 
device is available, but if a device is not available, a novice user 
can become perplexed as to why the device is unavailable.  The reasons 
are almost always explainable... either the device is already in use by 
another application or the device isn't working properly (say, flimsy 
non-sheilded iSight cables).  However, these often require some 
hand-holding...  so I'd like to be able to give the user more 
information up front, so maybe we can avoid 50% of that hand-holding.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if I can even collect this information with 
what Sequence grabber gives me.  In an ideal world, I show the user a 
list of devices that the system recognizes, and their current status.  
For example, if the iSight is currently in use by an application, I'd 
really like to be able to tell the user what that application is.  But 
I'm not aware of any way to get this desired information.  Does anyone 
have any suggestions?

thanks,
Chris