<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >Elements</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="GStreamer Application Development Manual" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="Basic Concepts" HREF="part-basic-concepts.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Basic Concepts" HREF="part-basic-concepts.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="Types of elements" HREF="section-elements-types.html"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="chapter" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" ><SPAN CLASS="application" >GStreamer</SPAN > Application Development Manual</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="part-basic-concepts.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="section-elements-types.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="chapter" ><H1 ><A NAME="chapter-elements" ></A >Chapter 4. Elements</H1 ><P > The most important object in <SPAN CLASS="application" >GStreamer</SPAN > for the application programmer is the <CODE CLASS="classname" >GstElement</CODE > object. </P ><DIV CLASS="sect1" ><H1 CLASS="sect1" ><A NAME="section-elements-design" >4.1. What is an element ?</A ></H1 ><P > An element is the basic building block for the media pipeline. All the different high-level components you are going to use are derived from <CODE CLASS="classname" >GstElement</CODE >. This means that a lot of functions you are going to use operate on objects of this class. </P ><P > Elements, from the perspective of GStreamer, are viewed as "black boxes" with a number of different aspects. One of these aspects is the presence of "pads" (see <A HREF="chapter-pads.html" >Chapter 5</A >), or link points. This terminology arises from soldering; pads are where wires can be attached. </P ></DIV ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="part-basic-concepts.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="section-elements-types.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Basic Concepts</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="part-basic-concepts.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >Types of elements</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >