April 2007 - Posts

• Stage 7: Showing the Current Selection, and a ModelItem introduction.

  There's still a few tricks we can do to make our Scroller work and look better - and one of them is going to also show us the art of binding . This topic is going to be a little hairy. Stick with me, because it will teach you some very important concepts. Read More... Posted 30 April 2007 18:38 by IgnoranceIsBliss | 0 Comments Filed under: Developer, MCML

• Stage 6: Cleaning Up & Scrolling our Choices

  We are making real progress now in doing things with our interface. But there are a couple of 'housework' items we need to do before we can say we are ready to move on to the next part of our program. The next question we need to ask ourselves is simple Read More... Posted 23 April 2007 00:33 by IgnoranceIsBliss | 1 Comments Filed under: Developer, MCML

• Stage 5: Loading your buttons from C#

  Now, a game with a fixed list of categories isn't exactly flexible. What we are going to need is the ability to create a list from our code , so we can load the category list when the program is running. This will let people add new categories of question Read More... Posted 18 April 2007 00:34 by IgnoranceIsBliss | 0 Comments Filed under: Developer, MCML

• Feel Free To Comment

  If anyone is reading these, feel free to leave some comments. With all the silence, I'm feeling all cold, alone and unappreciated :) Nah - I just want to make sure people are really READING these. If nobody is using them, it's kinda silly for me to bother Read More... Posted 14 April 2007 12:33 by IgnoranceIsBliss | 13 Comments Filed under: Developer, MCML, Plea for Attention

• Stage 4: Making the Button Do Stuff

  Now we have a nice responsive button - it's time to do something when the user clicks. For this, we are again going to use rules. The first thing we are going to need is a way to see if we have been clicked. If you check the SDK documentation, you'll Read More... Posted 14 April 2007 10:27 by IgnoranceIsBliss | 0 Comments Filed under: Developer, MCML

• Stage 3, Part 2 : Making a Button

  We've got some great little buttons - that do absolutely nothing . Allright, we have our mission - let's make these things move and respond to presses. First, let's make them visibly respond to having the mouse rolled over them. The first thing we have Read More... Posted 13 April 2007 18:17 by IgnoranceIsBliss | 1 Comments Filed under: Developer, MCML

• Stage 3, Part 1: Let's make a Button

  OK - we have a base to work with - an MCML file that describes a nice little layout for our application, and a C# file that is used to provide data to it. Now, how about we make this thing a little bit more interactive? In our game, we are going to need Read More... Posted 12 April 2007 23:51 by IgnoranceIsBliss | 0 Comments Filed under: Developer, MCML, Media Center, Buttons

• Stage 2: Linking to C#

  This stage isn't too hard once you understand the tricks behind it. Let's hook our new MCML file up to C#. Because of the Model-View seperation that is part of the basic design of Media Center Markup Language projects (see my post on Model-View Seperation Read More... Posted 11 April 2007 23:53 by IgnoranceIsBliss | 1 Comments Filed under: Developer, MCML, Walkthrough

• Stage 1: A Basic Layout

  Right, now let's begin playing with our application. Our first order of business is to show something a little bit more informative that 'hello' on the main screen. To do this, we are going to use one of the UI's that are included with MCMLookalike (and Read More... Posted 11 April 2007 18:26 by IgnoranceIsBliss | 0 Comments Filed under: Developer, MCML, Walkthrough

• A Worked Example

  Today I'm starting a series of blog posts - we are going to work together to build a Media Center application. The best way to learn a new technology is DOING something with it. So we are going to make a very simple trivia game in the Media Center Markup Read More... Posted 11 April 2007 08:13 by IgnoranceIsBliss | 0 Comments Filed under: Developer, MCML, Sample

• More With My Music - Stage 1

  Ian Dixon asked a question a while ago on his blog (the main blog that appears on this site). He was wondering what people wanted out of the music functionality in Media Center. I answered him, but I also thought that I'm probably one of the better candidates Read More... Posted 09 April 2007 22:22 by IgnoranceIsBliss | 0 Comments Filed under: 3rd Party Addins

• Laying Out Your Interface

  If you've played with Java, you've probably discovered Layout Managers. Basically, they are techniques that allow you to position your controls on the screen. Layout managers are used to deal with the fact that in some windows (and in Media Center screens) Read More... Posted 02 April 2007 00:02 by IgnoranceIsBliss | 0 Comments