feature request: ability to auto-choose output plugin on startup

Hi,

I speak as the packager of XMMS for Mandrake: we have some
trouble with people wanting to use XMMS under KDE and Gnome, when
arts or esd sits on the dsp.

Of course, XMMS supports output plugin, and plugins do exist for
arts and esd output; but here we're talking about non computer
litterates, some of them have trouble with something like
selecting the right plugin for their soundserver (they probably
don't know what's a soundserver anyway).

And suddenly I've realized that XMMS' plugin architecture
supports "auto-choose" of input plugin (when you open a given
file, selecting input plugin for mp3/ogg/whatever is automatic)
but not of output plugin. Of course, that sounds logical for most
people, but for newbies that might bring problems, as exposed
upper.

So I'd like to submit a feature request: it would be possible to
add another capability to the output plugins, something similar
to how XMMS asks input plugins if this is "their" file; with that
capability, XMMS would be capable of selecting the first "usable"
output plugin (of course, configuration dialog could provide a
checkbox forcing the use of a given output plugin). It seems that
it's how SDL and libao act when opening audio.

See you,

-- 
Guillaume Cottenceau - http://people.mandrakesoft.com/~gc/