When it comes to displaying the progress of a long-running operation to the user, there are many options available to a GUI designer: Change the cursor to an hourglass Change the caption on the status bar Show an animated glyph on the window Show a dialog box A number of factors could affect which method… Continue reading

In many applications, the ability to dynamically load and execute third-party code (in the form of plug-ins) is highly desirable. Plug-ins can be used to provide: Alternative implementations of built-in features Completely new features (given some kind of framework on which they can be built) All functionality in the application (e.g. in a test harness,… Continue reading

Using WCF for IPC in Media Center Add-Ons Last time, I gave an overview of the design of my network browsing/copying add-on for Media Center. In this instalment, we look at how to use Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) as a means of interprocess communication (IPC) between the interactive and background portions of the add-on. Recall… Continue reading

In the last instalment, we looked at building a list control for Media Center. This introduced the ModelItem class, which is the basis for building the Model/View-Model in a Media Center application. With a reasonable amount of MCML now under my belt, I am shifting focus to the add-in itself. This article is designed to… Continue reading