Media Center Status Application version 0.6.7 released!

What's new

• Facebook login issues fixed

Download and more information here.

Technorati Tags: Windows Media Center,Facebook,Twitter

Media Center Status Application 0.6.6 released!

Fixed in this version

• Twitted suspend now clears Tweet queue which prevents queued tweets from appearing after suspend has been clicked.

Download here

 

Technorati Tags: Media Center,Twitter,Facebook

Media Center Status Application update is out!

Fixed in this version (0.6.4) are the following issues.

• Facebook login dialog wasn’t displayed in all scenarios, so use couldn’t login to Facebook after starting Media Center
• Amazon media query was completely broken due changes in Amazon service

Download here

 

Technorati Tags: Media Center,Twitter,Facebook

Visual Studio Dependency Chart

Having few spare minutes at the airport waiting for the plane AND downloading Windows 8 Developer Preview I thought why not investigate how my Media Center Status Application is actually structured in terms of assembly dependency.

Visual Studio 2010 provides nice way do do that. Just select Architecture –> Generate Dependency Graph and select what kind of graph you wish to generate. Below you see Dependency Chard by Assembly of my application with nice arrows leading from an assembly to another indicating how assemblies are related to each other. You can dig deeper in your assemblies by clicking the small arrows on top right of each assembly.

What I learned of my tool immediately is that I should maybe consider moving Amazon functionality to own assembly. At least that’s how I’ve done with Facebook and Twitter, so it would be more coherent to do the same with Amazon code. However, my idea is to make external web site functionality to function as plugins, and Facebook and Twitter behave the same in that regard (=getting status or updating status to/from these services).

Amazon is used differently, as the application only queries Amazon for additional media details, such as CD or DVD cover art. There are other services that could be used for querying cover art and other information in addition to Amazon, so conclusion is that separating Amazon code into own assembly might be right way to go so possible future plugin developers could add support for other media information services as well.

Media Center Status Application 0.6.2 released!

Changes

• Fixes Facebook login
• Autumn cleaning - removed lots of unused code making assemblies somewhat smaller

Download

Media Center Status Application version 0.6.2 Release Candidate is out!

Fixes

• Fixed Twitter login not working

New features

• Option to clear XML status when there is no active media in Media Center
• Option to clear XML status Media Center is closed.
  
• Additional details of the media available in XML.

Download here

Media Center Status Application version 0.6.1 released

After beta period and excellent feedback from users, final version of 0.6.1 is now released.

New features

• Uses OAuth to authenticate to Facebook and Twitter (meaning that logging in works better, is faster and is future proof)
• Uses Facebook Graph API to communicate with Facebook (also making the application more future proof)

Fixes

• Fixed stream publishing to Facebook when Amazon query was enabled but no hit was found
• Removed unnecessary Amazon link from Facebook stream post
• Publishing media details fetched from Amazon now works again

Download here

Beta: Media Center Status Application version 0.6.1 released

So, this is beta, as only I have tested it and found it to be working. Please let me know if you run into any issues. I also appreciate reporting if everything seems to work.

New features

• Uses OAuth to authenticate to Facebook and Twitter (meaning that logging in works better, is faster and is future proof)
• Also uses Facebook Graph API to communicate with Facebook (also adding some future proofness)

Fixes

• Publishing media details fetched from Amazon now works again

Download here

Media Center Status Application version 0.6 released

New features

• Option to post new item to user's Facebook Wall instead of changing user Status. Configuration tool can be used to select whether to post to Wall, update user Status or do both.
  
• User may configure specific Amazon shop (US/UK/FR/DE/JP/CA) which is queried before wall post in order to try to get some details, cover and rating of the media being played.
• User may select what media types have Amazon queries enabled. By default Music, DVD, Video have queries enabled. TV related media types don't have it enabled by default as very few TV series have DVD boxes, resulting incorrect search results.
  
• Extended permissions are now requested during Facebook login process (upon Media Center startup), so there is no need to grant permissions beforehand. Existing extended permission web page will remain for troubleshooting purposes.
• If Facebook status update type is Wall, Facebook friends may hide status update messages on their News feed. Because of this, you might want to make sure not to spam your friends too much, so consider enabling Status update confirmation in configuration tool and/or increase the polling time to maybe few minutes.
  

Changes

• Uses new Facebook desktop application authentication method.
• No longer gets current Status from Facebook upon startup
  
• No longer uses soon-to-be-deprecated Facebook domains. NOTE! Old versions (pre 0.6) of the application will STOP working when Facebook removes the old domains, so please update as soon as possible.
  

Download here

Media Center Status Application version 0.5.4 released

New features

• Option to fully customize status strings
  

Download page

Media Center Status Application version 0.5.3.1 released

Fixes

• Fixed 32 bit Configuration Tool to update Recording TV event configuration values
  
• Fixed issue that caused error message if Facebook events were disabled but Twitter events were enabled

Download page

Media Center Status Application version 0.5.3 released

Changes

• Option to update status when TV show is being recorded, status will be "is recording PROGRAM NAME"
• Configuration Tool now correctly shows UAC dialog when starting
• Vista support is back
  

Download page

Media Center Status Application version 0.5.2.2 released

Fixes

• No more error messages if you hit Cancel or type incorrect credentials on Twitter login dialog
• Fixed a bug when Twitter status wasn't updated when Facebook login was cancelled or failed

Download page

Media Center Status Application version 0.5.2.1 released

What's new

• Fixed Twitter friend status updates display

Download page

Media Center Status Application version 0.5.2 released!

What's new

• Own tweets are not shown in Media Center if Twitter friends status update display is enabled
• You can now define which friends' tweets are shown
• Configuration tool is now installed with the tool

To enable viewing your friends' tweets in Media Center, you must configure it using the Configuration Tool. Check "Show friend status updates" will show all your Twitter friends' tweets in Media Center. While this is cool, you may wish to limit it only to a few selected friends. This can be done by adding your friends' Screen Name in the "Show status updates from these friends only". You can add many friends by separating the screen names using semi-colons (;).


Twitter friend's Screen Name is the one highlighted in yellow in the image below. Do not confuse it with the Twitter user's Name, which in the example below is "Alison".


Download page

Media Center Status Application version 0.5.1 released!

What's new

• Twitter friend status support. Now you can follow your friends' Twitter status updates on Media Center.

After installing the application you can enable notifications from all your Twitter friends to be displayed on Media Center like in the pictures below.

A friend updates status:

And soon you will see status update for a few seconds (between 5 and 10 seconds, depending on how long the message is) on your Media Center:

In Configuration tool you should enable "Show friend status updates" and define the interval how often updates are fetched from Twitter. Do not set interval over 99 per hour as Twitter limits the queries to 100 times per hour and teh interweb will break down if you use it too much.




Download and more information here.

Media Center Status Application version 0.5 released!

What's new

• Twitter support. Status can be updated also to Twitter.
• Removed "Facebook" from the application name as it is now so much more than just Facebook status update.
• Configuration tool was also updated to support Twitter configuration values
  

Due to the nature of Twitter, Twitter username and password are stored on you computer. In order to secure your Twitter password, it is encrypted before it is stored in Windows registry. Encryption is done with DPAPI user store, which means that only the same Windows account who encrypts the password is able to decrypt it.

NOTE! If you are sharing your Windows account and/or credentials with someone and they have access to the computer where Twitter password is stored in, they can decrypt your Twitter password relatively easily.

Twitter specific instructions

1. Install application
2. Start Media Center
3. First time you're asked to log in into Twitter, provide your Twitter username and password. By checking the "Remember me" checkbox your credentials are stored on the machine (password is encrypted), and you don't need to log into Twitter every time you restart Media Center.
4. Click Login, and the application will verify your Twitter credentials
5. After that, your Twitter status will be automatically updated based on what you watch/listen in Media Center
6. Different configuration values are described here.
   

Direct link to full x86 version is here.
Direct link to full x64 version is here.
Direct link to x86 patch here*.
Direct link to x64 patch here*.
Direct link to updated Configuration tool here.

Facebook application page is here and it contains more detailed information on how the application works.

My Twitter page: http://twitter.com/jussipalo

*) Requires manual work but no restarts, see readme.txt.

Media Center Status Application - Configuration Tool released

UPDATE!
Configuration tool is now installed with the Status Application and is available in Start -> All Programs -> Media Center Status Application.

---
Simple application that can be used to configure different aspects of Media Center Status Application has been released and can be downloaded here.

Usage

1. Download and start application, no installation needed
2. In the different tabs, change values as you prefer
3. Press OK to save changes and exit, Cancel to cancel changes and exit, and Apply to save changes without exiting

Most changes take effect immediately.

Media Center Status Application - Configuration values

Configuration values moved here.

Media Center Facebook Status Application 0.4.5

Media Center Facebook Status Application version 0.4.5 has been released.

Changes

• Windows 7 support. For you techies out there, it still uses MSAS, which is working, although deprecated, in W7.
  
• In music playback, it is now possible to configure whether to update status as "ARTIST - TRACK" or "ARTIST - ALBUM". Album mode is enabled by setting HKLM\Software\Hamar Data\FBMCE\EventsConfig_Music_AlbumMode to "1"
  

Thoughts

• Maybe I should finish and publish the Configuration tool that can be used to configure all settings without having to do it in registry editor.

Facebook application page is here.

Direct link to full x86 version is here.
Direct link to full x64 version is here.
Direct link to x86 patch here*.
Direct link to x64 patch here*.

*) Requires manual work but no restarts, see readme.txt.