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+.. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
+.. document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,
+.. Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software
+.. Foundation, with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts
+.. and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included at
+.. Documentation/userspace-api/media/fdl-appendix.rst.
+..
+.. TODO: replace it to GFDL-1.1-or-later WITH no-invariant-sections
+
+.. _common:
+
+###################
+Common API Elements
+###################
+Programming a V4L2 device consists of these steps:
+
+-  Opening the device
+
+-  Changing device properties, selecting a video and audio input, video
+   standard, picture brightness a. o.
+
+-  Negotiating a data format
+
+-  Negotiating an input/output method
+
+-  The actual input/output loop
+
+-  Closing the device
+
+In practice most steps are optional and can be executed out of order. It
+depends on the V4L2 device type, you can read about the details in
+:ref:`devices`. In this chapter we will discuss the basic concepts
+applicable to all devices.
+
+
+.. toctree::
+    :maxdepth: 1
+
+    open
+    querycap
+    app-pri
+    video
+    audio
+    tuner
+    standard
+    dv-timings
+    control
+    extended-controls
+    ext-ctrls-camera
+    ext-ctrls-flash
+    ext-ctrls-image-source
+    ext-ctrls-image-process
+    ext-ctrls-codec
+    ext-ctrls-jpeg
+    ext-ctrls-dv
+    ext-ctrls-rf-tuner
+    ext-ctrls-fm-tx
+    ext-ctrls-fm-rx
+    ext-ctrls-detect
+    fourcc
+    format
+    planar-apis
+    selection-api
+    crop
+    streaming-par