Zune Playlist / SMIL Copier

I needed a tool that would copy the contents of a Zune playlist to a given directory. I did a bit of googling and I couldn’t find anything, so like any good nerd I wrote a tool that did.

SMILCopier

The format of Zune playlists is a simple XML format known as SMIL. I think Windows Media Player also stores playlists in this format but I haven’t confirmed that yet.

I wrote the tool very quickly and have only tested it on my machine with my test data, but I’ll provide the source if you’d like to modify for yourself. The source is C#.

Download Executable
Download Source

Getting started with SlimDX

Since I tried OpenTK, I decided to give SlimDX a try as well. So, here’s a simple getting started app:

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using SlimDX;
using SlimDX.Direct3D9;
using SlimDX.Windows;

namespace SlimDXApp1
{
	public partial class SlimDXApp1Form : RenderForm
	{
		struct Vertex
		{
			public Vector4 Position;
			public int Color;
		}

		Device device;
		VertexDeclaration vertexDeclaration;

		public SlimDXApp1Form()
			: base("SlimDXApp1")
		{
			this.ClientSize = new Size(800, 600);

			this.device = new Device(new Direct3D(), 0, DeviceType.Hardware, this.Handle, CreateFlags.HardwareVertexProcessing, new PresentParameters()
            {
                BackBufferWidth = this.ClientSize.Width,
                BackBufferHeight = this.ClientSize.Height
            });

			this.vertexDeclaration = new VertexDeclaration(this.device, new[] {
        		new VertexElement(0, 0, DeclarationType.Float4, DeclarationMethod.Default, DeclarationUsage.PositionTransformed, 0),
        		new VertexElement(0, 16, DeclarationType.Color, DeclarationMethod.Default, DeclarationUsage.Color, 0),
				VertexElement.VertexDeclarationEnd
        	});
		}

		public void Run()
		{
			MessagePump.Run(this, () =>
			{
				this.device.Clear(ClearFlags.Target | ClearFlags.ZBuffer, Color.Black, 1.0f, 0);
				this.device.BeginScene();

				this.device.VertexDeclaration = this.vertexDeclaration;

				this.device.DrawUserPrimitives(PrimitiveType.TriangleList, 1, new[] {
					new Vertex() { Color = Color.Red.ToArgb(), Position = new Vector4(400.0f, 100.0f, 0.5f, 1.0f) },
					new Vertex() { Color = Color.Blue.ToArgb(), Position = new Vector4(650.0f, 500.0f, 0.5f, 1.0f) },
					new Vertex() { Color = Color.Green.ToArgb(), Position = new Vector4(150.0f, 500.0f, 0.5f, 1.0f) }
				});

				this.device.EndScene();
				this.device.Present();
			});
		}

		[STAThread]
		static void Main()
		{
			SlimDXApp1Form form = new SlimDXApp1Form();
			form.Run();

			// Cleans up COM handles
			foreach(var item in ObjectTable.Objects)
				item.Dispose();
		}
	}
}

Getting started with OpenTK

I started experimenting with OpenTK and I had to look in a few places to put this code together, so I’m posting it here for anyone who might be looking for an easy getting started lesson.

I’ve set up a window similar to what I’ve been used to in Xna (CornflowerBlue 4 life). I’ve also set up a 2D projection matrix and drawn a triangle in a 2D fashion. You’ll need to add a reference to the OpenTK assembly for your project in Visual Studio.

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using OpenTK;
using OpenTK.Graphics;
using OpenTK.Graphics.OpenGL;

namespace OpenTKApp1
{
	public class AppWindow : GameWindow
	{
		public AppWindow()
		{
			this.Title = "OpenTK App 1";
			this.WindowBorder = WindowBorder.Fixed;
			this.ClientSize = new Size(800, 600);
		}

		protected override void OnRenderFrame(FrameEventArgs e)
		{
			base.OnRenderFrame(e);

			GL.ClearColor(Color.CornflowerBlue);
			GL.Clear(ClearBufferMask.ColorBufferBit | ClearBufferMask.DepthBufferBit);

			GL.MatrixMode(MatrixMode.Projection);
			GL.LoadIdentity();
			GL.Ortho(0, 800, 600, 0, -1, 1);
			GL.Viewport(0, 0, 800, 600);

			GL.Begin(BeginMode.Triangles);
			GL.Color3(Color.Red);
			GL.Vertex3(400, 150, 0);
			GL.Color3(Color.Green);
			GL.Vertex3(600, 450, 0);
			GL.Color3(Color.Blue);
			GL.Vertex3(200, 450, 0);
			GL.End();

			GL.Flush();
			this.SwapBuffers();
		}

		[STAThread]
		public static void Main()
		{
			AppWindow window = new AppWindow();
			window.Run();
		}
	}
}

Keeping SplitContainer SplitterDistance consistent

If you’re having trouble keeping the SplitterDistance property of a SplitContainer consistent across app sessions, you can set the FixedPanel property of the splitter to FixedPanel.Panel1.

splitter.FixedPanel = FixedPanel.Panel1;

I guess this could also work with FixedPanel.Panel2 as well but I haven’t given it a try. Credit this stackoverflow post.

Xna: Load Texture2D from Embedded Resource

If you’re writing an app which uses Xna, you may need to load a texture from an embedded resource. Here’s how:

First embed the resource in your app. Do so by choosing Embedded Resource as the Build Action in the properties of the resource.

Properties Dialog for a File

After that you can load the Texture2D using a stream handle to the embedded file.

Stream stream = Assembly.GetCallingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream("AppNamespace.Folder.font.bmp");
return Texture2D.FromFile(graphicsDevice, stream);

GetCallingAssembly() can be exchanged with GetExecutingAssembly() if needed. The name of the resource must be fully qualified with the app’s namespace and folders. I usually keep my resources in a folder Resources so I would have: AppNamespace.Resources.font.bmp.