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Windows Media Center development hints, tips, tutorials and information
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OK - I've put an incomplete version of the book online at the Push-A-Button website - http://push-a-button.com/products/books/index.php You are welcome to download it and have a read. If you like it or find it valuable, PLEASE consider donating, since Read More...
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OK - people seem a little interested in the idea of a book, and "Cheap PDF" seems to be popular. Personally, I'm thinking the same route because it allows be to embed hyperlinks into the document - and the book is best used when you have Visual Studio Read More...
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I'm working on a Media Center development book - would people be interested in buying a book on how to develop applications in Media Center? If so, what would be more appealing? A large bound volume, or an inexpensive PDF copy? I'm sitting on 130 pages Read More...
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Some people have had issues trying to make 'popup menus' in Media Center applications. Since I've been adding a similar function to EMUCenter to support some of the new features, I thought I'd cover how to do it. The answer is actually very straight-forward. Read More...
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Sorry, this isn't actually a development blog post - it's just me, geeking out at this - http://www.nikkoamerica.com/nhe/dvd_projector_video.html . My GOD, that's so damn geeky, and I want one BADLY. To bad they'll never reach Australia. Read More...
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Microsoft are of the opinion that users of Media Center applications do not want 3rd party apps to look like or work like Media Center itself. This is at odds with 99% of the feedback I've ever recieved as a Media Center developer, but I quote Charlie Read More...
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Ok - many people still have some trouble visualising their interfaces when it comes to writing their MCML. They don't know where to start, or what to do. I'm going to take a page from an MCML application and show you how to 'de-construct' it to figure Read More...
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There is a bit of confusion out there about which rule to use in which situation when writing rules in your MCML application. I'll just quickly cover the scenarios here... Default vs Binding Rules To be honest, you can actually use a Binding rule as a Read More...
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OK, although this isn't about GENERAL Media Center development and is more of a self-serving plug, I'm going to go ahead anyway and show you how to write a plugin for Yougle. I get a lot of requests for particular video, audio and (to a lesser extent) Read More...
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Here's an interesting little tidbit, thanks to Charlie Owen from Microsoft and the Media Center Sandbox. If you are using a Repeater, you have the option of allowing it to either Wrap or Repeat when you get to the end of it. This is great for long lists, Read More...
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To go with the last post topic, Cowboy2007 asked me a question about how to make sub-menu's in MCML. I've discussed the basics of this in the following post, for those who are interested. http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/forums/thread/3835.aspx Read More...
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Although this really isn't really very difficult from what's been explained before, some people have trouble with getting their controls to interact - to change one control based on another. So I thought I'd spend a little time covering the basics, so Read More...
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There are times when the response from a click is going to take a little while - fetching information from a web page, downloading a file, queuing a video...some of these things take time, and the user doesn't like to have their Media Center 'lock up' Read More...
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A new website has come to my attention for Windows Media Center addins (and useful tools for a Media Center) - http://htpcresource.com/ This site may have existed for a while without me noticing, so this may not be big news for you. But it's got a growing Read More...
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Thanks to whoever nominated this blog for the Media Center Show Awards this year. Make sure you nominate any Media Center applications you've been using or liked - and of course, don't forget to VOTE once the list is final! http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/blogs/ian/archive/2007/10/19/the-media-center-show-award-nominations-on-listas.asp Read More...
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Oh, I've finally released the new version of EMUCenter, which has a few new bells and whistles. If people are interested, you can download it from my new community site at http://community.push-a-button.com.au (please register before you can download Read More...
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This is a reasonably advanced topic, but since I've only just discovered the solution for it, I decided I may as well post it here so people who need the solution can use it. Large scrollers can sometimes be a problem when you need to do large 'jumps' Read More...
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Yes, it's been ages...and yes, it's still not another addition to the TriviaCenter application. I do promise I'll get back to it some day, but it's a case of "Too much to do, too little time to do it in!" Anyway, I just thought I'd throw up a couple of Read More...
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I've started a new Open Source project, in the hope that other people are interested in contributing to it. Installing Media Center addins is a bit of an annoyance. You've got this really pretty Media Center interface, but for people who are trying to Read More...
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If you're wondering what on earth I've been doing lately, I've been fiddling with some of my own projects lately. http://www.push-a-button.com.au/downloads/BlindTimerSetup.msi - a 32 bit version of a simple poker game timer. It tells you the current blinds Read More...
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Another sandbox-related discussion (a new user, Jeff, is having some trouble wrapping his head around the MCML concept, so I thought I'd post the assistance I'm giving him). This is about scope in MCML. I know I've covered this in the past, but this will Read More...
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Oh, another thing that came up in the forums that may work for you if you are playing with Media Center development. If you back track a bit to our main menu, or to the list of answers in TriviaCenter, you will find that we load our list by filling an Read More...
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I've been helping someone out on the Media Center Sandbox, and I thought one of his questions were fairly relevant to someone who is starting to play with MCML development and their own classes. He was basically asking 'should the properties I use in Read More...
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Sorry, no new stage of TriviaCenter development this week. I'm starting to think that my new place was built ontop of an Aboriginal burial ground...or at the very least a large magnetic plate. My development machine has been fairly badly crippled by a Read More...
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Ian Dixon has kindly donated the developer forum to let us all discuss the topics I'm covering on this blog. So if you have any questions, want to discuss possible features for TriviaCenter or even post code and suggestions, please feel free to jump in. Read More...
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OK, we can now answer trivia questions and keep a score...but you've got to keep watching that darn bottom corner to see if you got it right or not! So how about we add a little more feedback to the questions by having it obvious if you were right or Read More...
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Charlie from Microsoft has made a post commenting on my last blog entry - writing an installer with the standard Setup Project in Visual Studio on the sandbox blog ( http://blog.mediacentersandbox.com/UseTheRegistrationAPIWiX.aspx ) - oh, and thanks Aaron Read More...
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OK, now there are interesting problems when installing an application for Media Center, because there are two different ways of registering your application. To appear in Media Center, several entries need to be made to the Windows Registry. In the first Read More...
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Steve Jobs recently announced something about the Apple TV that REALLY irritated me "This is the first time users can easily browse, find and watch YouTube videos right from their living room couch..." Ahem. Really. I'm not going to rant about Apple vs Read More...
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The guys on http://www.thegreenbutton.com have been asking me for features in MAMECenter, so I spent a chunk of time recently (with my internet connection gone) writing some code to make it happen. Say hello to 'EMUCenter'. It lets you create your own Read More...
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Sorry it's been so long since my last post, but with moving house at the moment there isn't as much time as I'd normally have for posting. And once I got the time, my Media Center HDD died. I thought I'd finally take the opportunity to bring the little Read More...
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Allright - are you like me, and you've had enough of playing with this scroller? It's time to hang that up and start working on something REAL. Our first step is to go to a new MCML page. This first page is handy, but it's now done it's job - the user Read More...
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Now we go back to our scroller. We've made our list scroll, show the current selection, work with the keyboard and mouse...but it's still easy to get lost in our list of options. Unless it's clear that there are more options above or below those showing Read More...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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