Getting started with new app, time?

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MrNorth

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Getting started with new app, time?

#1

Post by MrNorth » Thu Jan 02, 2014 10:14 am

Hi!

I have been thinking about creating a WMC 7 app for a local tv service. They have a rather nice REST api with program infomation, and a way to play the shows using a javascript player (html page). I have been fiddling with MCML and media center apps before, but havnt't really produced anything useful, the learning curve and time required hasbeen too much for a family man.

Now that a few years have past since my last attempt, I was wondering, are there any new resources around that makes life easier for anyone that just want to create MCML apps, without having to reverse engineer everything? I know I can "steal" stuff like the button from the ehres.dll, but what has proven too tricky for me is just to put everything together the right way. MCML is rather basic I think (been working lots with WPF and XAML), but there are so many details involved in getting it all to work properly, that as far as I can remember, I simply gave up.

What I am looking for to create is:

An MCML lookalike app that has a login screen (I can probably steal it from the Z app), and then a main screen with a 2 level pivot with show categories and sub categories (have no idea how to do that, have been looking at the pivot from mediabrowser github, and the pivot itself looked simple enough with a pivot and pivotitem, but how do I do with two? How to hook up the models?

Then I need in the center of the screen a basic list (like the native video browser) that show all shows in a category. The item should just be a thumb and a text, then when pressing it, I want that nice folding folding popup panel (what is it called and has anyone tried to reproduce it?) that opens when you press a rcorded tv show in WMC and the netflix app, with a pivot that show info, episodes etc. Then a picture button that says play, that launches a website, with some querystrings that launches the player. This is the hardest part t reproduce I think, has it been done already and is MCML code available for it?

There you have it guys, is this at all doable for someone with some skills in C# and WPF and have fiddled a bit with MCML in the past? Can I find all these UI elements somewhere? And how to think when doing the layout of everything (for me this is the relly hard part, what should be in separate I and panels etc)

I have looked at lots of xample code, but the examples in SDK are too simple, Z too complex and mediabrowser source just massive.

Regards
Henrik

MrNorth

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#2

Post by MrNorth » Tue Jan 07, 2014 9:25 am

Figured I should answer my own question...

Not much has happened since 2010 when I was last working on some MCML project. What has changed has been to the worse, where resources have disappeared from the net, stuff like the Addendum.zip file from MS with examples and stuff. One other thing I am missing is the digital lifestyle developer blog, which apparently had some useful info for first time developers http://discuss.mediacentersandbox.com/f ... /4784.aspx Anyone know where this blog is?

I spend some hours creating a basic app, and it went fairly well. I do have some questions, that hopefully someone in here can answer (if people are still reading this blog)

* Does anyone know where I can find the border image + animation for stuff like gallery items on focus? Like when you select something in WMC in a gallery, the item (picture) is scaled up and a "glass style" animated border appears. I can't seem to find this image in ehres.dll. I find a similar picture for the button, but that has a reflection in it, which is not used for the gallery items...


* Is there ANY way to communicate to a website that I have navigated to from within WMC? I usesomething like: host.MediaCenterEnvironment.NavigateToPage(PageId.ExtensibilityUrl, "[YOUR URL WITH PARAMETERS GOES HERE]"); for OAUTH authentication, but the trick is that I need to know from MCML/C# when the user has finished the authentication, so I can get the token adn store it somewhere, then redirect to an MCML page that says "auth process finished blabla...".
I ahve done the same for a phone 8 app, and there I use a webbrowser control and listen to a "navigateTo" event, and compare the url, and when the webpage navigate to the "finished" page, I assume that the process is finished.


* In MCML what should be UI and what should be Panel? For example, in recorded tv, the recorded tv pane is an UI I assume, but whatabout the details popup? I guess it is a hidden UI that they show/hide and capture the back button so that a press back does "hide" instead of actually navigating back in the session history. Assumption correct?

* General question about ehress.dll, is there any documentation or wiki in regards to what is what? It is very difficult to find stuff ehre since I don't reli know what MS has named things...

/S

sccrgoalie1

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#3

Post by sccrgoalie1 » Tue Jan 07, 2014 4:04 pm

I'll try to answer a few of your questions...
MrNorth wrote:Figured I should answer my own question...

Not much has happened since 2010 when I was last working on some MCML project. What has changed has been to the worse, where resources have disappeared from the net, stuff like the Addendum.zip file from MS with examples and stuff. One other thing I am missing is the digital lifestyle developer blog, which apparently had some useful info for first time developers http://discuss.mediacentersandbox.com/f ... /4784.aspx Anyone know where this blog is?
Nope, but I do have a copy of Addendum.zip if you're interested send me a PM
MrNorth wrote:
I spend some hours creating a basic app, and it went fairly well. I do have some questions, that hopefully someone in here can answer (if people are still reading this blog)

* Does anyone know where I can find the border image + animation for stuff like gallery items on focus? Like when you select something in WMC in a gallery, the item (picture) is scaled up and a "glass style" animated border appears. I can't seem to find this image in ehres.dll. I find a similar picture for the button, but that has a reflection in it, which is not used for the gallery items...
I know for the guide (from experience) it's actually not a border but rather a different image
MrNorth wrote: * Is there ANY way to communicate to a website that I have navigated to from within WMC? I usesomething like: host.MediaCenterEnvironment.NavigateToPage(PageId.ExtensibilityUrl, "[YOUR URL WITH PARAMETERS GOES HERE]"); for OAUTH authentication, but the trick is that I need to know from MCML/C# when the user has finished the authentication, so I can get the token adn store it somewhere, then redirect to an MCML page that says "auth process finished blabla...".
I ahve done the same for a phone 8 app, and there I use a webbrowser control and listen to a "navigateTo" event, and compare the url, and when the webpage navigate to the "finished" page, I assume that the process is finished.
Can't help here. But (thinking out loud), couldn't you create a basic page that gathers the information you need and then injects into the oauth webpage. Then you could do all the processing in the background very similar to your phone 8 app.
MrNorth wrote: * In MCML what should be UI and what should be Panel? For example, in recorded tv, the recorded tv pane is an UI I assume, but whatabout the details popup? I guess it is a hidden UI that they show/hide and capture the back button so that a press back does "hide" instead of actually navigating back in the session history. Assumption correct?
UI is a whole page or object you can only have one direct child of UI. So you'll want a panel or colorfill or something to put all your items in. Details popup is exactly as you guess. This is what I did in my addin.
MrNorth wrote: * General question about ehress.dll, is there any documentation or wiki in regards to what is what? It is very difficult to find stuff ehre since I don't reli know what MS has named things...
No I don't think you'll find any documentation. Good luck hunting!

MrNorth

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#4

Post by MrNorth » Thu Jan 09, 2014 11:55 am

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah about the selected item in the gallery, yes the UI for that is probably like the MS button created using layers of pictures + content. I just wish someone knew where I could find that picture (browse any gallery in WMC, focus on an item, the item scales up and get an animated border (probably 2 png files where 1 of them is animated). I can't find it, gaah! I will check out some other open source projects, and see how they have solved this... the glass frame is kind fo lick I think... adds elegance to the UI.

I will send a PM for the addendum.zip, it is a shame that stuff has been removed. But MCML is buried as far as MS is concerned, so I guess it is no big news that stuff is disappearing...

/H

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