Windows: Use cytpes.load_library to look for DLL

2 files changed, 17 insertions, 9 deletions

diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index e46da2b..5f6ac01 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -19,16 +19,21 @@ Installation
 Requirements
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
-libmpv (no kidding!)
-....................
+libmpv
+......
 ``libmpv.so`` either locally (in your current working directory) or somewhere in your system library search path. This
 module is somewhat lenient as far as ``libmpv`` versions are concerned but since ``libmpv`` is changing quite frequently
 you'll only get all the newest features when using an up-to-date version of this module. The unit tests for this module
 do some basic automatic version compatibility checks. If you discover anything missing here, please open an `issue`_ or
 submit a `pull request`_ on github.
 
-Python 2.7, 3.5 or 3.6 (officially)
-...................................
+On Windows you can place libmpv anywhere in your ``%PATH%`` (e.g. next to ``python.exe``) or next to this module's
+``mpv.py``.  Before falling back to looking in the mpv module's directory, python-mpv uses the DLL search order built
+into ctypes, which is different to the one Windows uses internally. Consult `this stackoverflow post
+<https://stackoverflow.com/a/23805306>`__ for details.
+
+Python >= 3.5 (officially)
+..........................
 The ``master`` branch officially only supports recent python releases (3.5 onwards), but there is the somewhat outdated
 but functional `py2compat branch`_ providing Python 2 compatibility.
 
diff --git a/mpv.py b/mpv.py
index fd77a35..cd8c8ee 100644
--- a/mpv.py
+++ b/mpv.py
@@ -28,10 +28,13 @@ import re
 import traceback
 
 if os.name == 'nt':
-    try:
-        backend = CDLL('mpv-1.dll')
-    except FileNotFoundError:
-        backend = CDLL(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)), 'mpv-1.dll'))
+    dll = ctypes.util.find_library('mpv-1.dll')
+    if dll is None:
+        raise OSError('Cannot find mpv-1.dll in your system %PATH%. One way to deal with this is to ship mpv-1.dll '
+                      'with your script and put the directory your script is in into %PATH% before "import mpv": '
+                      'os.environ["PATH"] = os.path.dirname(__file__) + os.pathsep + os.environ["PATH"] '
+                      'If mpv-1.dll is located elsewhere, you can add that path to os.environ["PATH"].')
+    backend = CDLL(dll)
     fs_enc = 'utf-8'
 else:
     import locale
@@ -43,7 +46,7 @@ else:
     sofile = ctypes.util.find_library('mpv')
     if sofile is None:
         raise OSError("Cannot find libmpv in the usual places. Depending on your distro, you may try installing an "
-                "mpv-devel or mpv-libs package. If you have libmpv around but this script can't find it, maybe consult "
+                "mpv-devel or mpv-libs package. If you have libmpv around but this script can't find it, consult "
                 "the documentation for ctypes.util.find_library which this script uses to look up the library "
                 "filename.")
     backend = CDLL(sofile)