xbmc remote - nowplaying home screen + Jumplist

Hey guys, since last week, I have been implementing the now playing feature along with many fit and finish stuff. Its coming closer and closer. I wanted to do many interesting things but most of them are stuck because of one limitation or the other. But for now, a video which has been over due..

And new images (specially the home screen). Another interesting feature is the jumplist for movies and albums

  

 

 

Updated images of xbmc remote (for windows phone 7)

Its been a week and I was busy making improvements to the xbmc remote. Its in a state where I can show some updated screenshots of the work. I have also captured a video to show the end to end working (sorry having problems uploading video so it has to be later).

Some completed features -

1. Music, Movies, TV library working with Playback (& queue in case of music).

2. Playback and Queue options are available for album, genere, songs. One can drill down into albums and select individal songs form the album as well.

3. Movie details and playback.
4. TV show series details with ability to play episode.
5. Progress bar animation after play or queue command.

6. Connections management screens (add, delete, edit and select default connection).

7. Images for thumbnail are downloaded once and cached in local storage on phone.

8. Home screen has status for connecting, connected and failed state.
9. Many other minor improvements

Next steps -
1. Playback controls.
2. Memory usage optimizations.
3. Now playing pages
4. Generic xbmc navigation
5. and many other features :)

So here you go.. enjoy the images and video.

 

Found the problem (Issues with WP7 application bar icons )

Found the actual issue with application bar icons not showing up. It seems one has set the "Build Action" property for the images to "Content". In my case it was set to "Resource" by default.

Hopefully you wouldn't spend the time I have to get icons showing up in your app bar.

Issues with WP7 application bar icons

I am trying to add application bar in the xbmc remote application and having hard time getting icons to show up. Its wiered. No matter what I do, it shows up like following -

Will keep trying and will post once I know the reason. BTW, I do have images added to my project correctly so hopefully I am not doing something stupid.

Windows Phone 7 - xbmc remote control development

I have been a big fan of xbmc http://xbmc.org (an open source media center software) and really likes the power and flexibility it provides. I also was excited about all the buzz of Windows phone 7 launched and wanted to try building app for this awesome phone. Considering the development platform for WP7 is silverlight, and I have bunch of experience using silverlight and .NET, I decide to write a remote control application for xbmc.

I initially hoped to do collaboration with one other developer on xbmc, but he decide to do his own development and then I had to take on the challenge myself and start building the app independently. It was a nice experience so far as building app for WP7 is really fun.

Below are some of the screen shots from my recent work. This is work in progress so more will come soon. Also I expect to learn and share few tips & tricks as this project moves forward.