Media Center Status Application goes open source

Windows Media Center Status Application I mainly developed during the early stages of Windows Vista (also supports 7 and 8) is now open source. It was originally developed for my own use, but I soon realized there were hundreds if not thousands of Media Center users out there who wanted to share their media viewing preferences in social media, such as Facebook and Twitter.

During the evolution of the application many nice features were added, such as getting notifications of tweets of people you follow inside Media Center. It didn't take long until someone requested a way to filter out what items are published to Facebook wall (as it was called back then), so I also added RegEx filter to filter out specific media titles from getting sent out - if one had automatic publishing enabled.

There was also ambitious monetization ideas when I added feature that fetched media images (such as DVD and CD covers) from Amazon to show in the Facebook status update. I always knew that the user base for the application wasn't that huge and wasn't too surprised I didn't end up getting a dime from Amazon referrals. But I did get few hits so it proved it was working.

Otherwise monetization relied on donations, and I was surprised that I indeed got two donations totalling €25. That was €25 more than I was expecting, so thank you Marc Stride and Graham Evans. I'd like to think I bought beer with that money and enjoyed it on a sunny summer evening, but probably I just bought cement or boards for the house construction.

I got the idea for the application once during Microsoft's MSDN conference where I decided not to participate in the boring directly work related enterprise sessions, but instead go off-the-beaten-path. I learned so much not only about Media Center, but also on Robotics Studio. The next few evenings I spent at the hotel programming this application.

Biggest challenge was by no doubt the ever changing APIs of Facebook, Twitter. First the Facebook walls were gone and Graph API was introduced, then Twitter did lot of changes in authentication. Media Center development was the only one that didn't receive any major changes since Vista, unfortunately.

I was considering open sourcing it for a long time, but just didn't get to it, but hey, better later than never.

You can find bits at https://mcsa.codeplex.com.

Compiled app, changelog and other details are still at http://www.jussipalo.com/fbmce.

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 0.6.1.1 is out!

New version of 0.6.1.1 was uploaded including proper fixes. If you installed 0.6.1.1 before Nov 8th 2010, please download again and reinstall. Sorry about that!

Fixes

• Displaying Twitter friends’ status updates in Media Center now work
• Removed "Status" update methond from Facebook as it no longer exists in Facebook
  

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

Windows Media Center TV Guide displays program info in wrong language

Problem:
When using Media Center in Windows 7 or 8 to watch TV in a country where broadcasters send EPG information in multiple languages, you may end up having your Guide programs titles and descriptions in wrong language. For this to happen you must be using different language version Windows compared to the language you would like to see the Guide in.

E.g., I live in Finland and want to see Guide information in Finnish. I use English version of Windows 7. Media Center Guide tries to get program info in English, but can only find Guide data in Swedish and Finnish (because Finland has two official languages). Swedish happens to come first, so Guide decides to show all information in Swedish, and only if program doesn't contain Swedish information, it will display information in Finnish. I will end up having half of the Guide information in Swedish and half in Finnish because only few channels provide EPG both in Finnish and Swedish.

This is a new issue in Windows 7 and didn't occur in Vista and XP. Despite I reported it to Microsoft during beta-testing, they didn't seem to fix this before launch.

Workaround:

1. Open RegEdit and navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\MCE.GlobalSettings
2. Change systemLanguage value to the language you wish to see the Guide data in, e.g., I had to change mine from "eng" to "fin"
3. Reboot your PC
4. [Optional] open an elevated command prompt, run the following command then wait a few minutes (approximately 4-5 mins): %windir%\eHome\mcupdate -pscn 0
5. Start Media Center and open the Guide: all schedule data should now be in correct language.

---
Shortly in Finnish:

Windows näyttää ohjelmaoppaan ohjelmatiedot väärällä kielellä
Jos käytössäsi on englanninkielinen (lue: muun kuin suomenkielinen) Windows 7 tai 8 mutta haluaisit Media Centerin TV ohjelmaoppaan tekstit suomeksi, se ei onnistu täydellisesti, vaan Media Center näyttää ohjelmaoppaassa tietoja väärällä kielellä. Osalla kanavista ohjelmatiedot tulevat ruotsiksi ja osalla suomeksi. Tarkemmin sanottuna jos ohjelmalla on ruotsinkielinen EPG-tieto saatavilla, Media Center näyttää sen, eikä suomenkielistä tietoa.

Tämä johtaa siihen, että ainakin YLEn ohjelmatiedot ovat ohjelmaoppaassa ruotsiksi, mutta muilla kanavilla suomeksi, sillä muut kanavat eivät näytä kovin aktiivisesti toimittavan kaksikielisiä ohjelmatietoja.

Ongelman voi kiertää seuraavasti:

1. Avaa RegEdit ja navigoi avaimeen: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\MCE.GlobalSettings
2. Vaihda systemLanguage arvo sen kieliseksi, jolla haluat ohjelmaoppaan tiedot nähdä, tässä tapauksessa vaihda se arvosta "eng" arvoon "fin"
   
3. Käynnistä tietokone uudelleen
4. [Ei pakollinen toimenpide] Avaa elevated komentorivi ja aja seuraava komento ja odota muutama minuutti (n. 4-5 min): %windir%\eHome\mcupdate -pscn 0
5. Käynnistä Media Center ja avaa ohjelmaopas: kaikki pitäisi nyt olla suomeksi

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

Vista support when developing Media Center applications on Windows 7

Problem:
I switched from Vista to Windows 7 x64 a while back and currently also do my software development on a Windows 7 machine.

Some time ago I begun getting complaints from some users that they were not able to use my Media Center Status Application as it was giving some "Invalid Application - Unable to launch FBMCE" errors when starting Media Center on Windows Vista.

I hadn't done any drastic changes in my program code and testing the application on Windows 7 machines (both x86 and x64) didn't indicate any issues. Finally I decided to really dig into this and installed Vista to Virtual PC. Well, what do you know, I immediately got the same error users were reporting :)

Solution:
Error message was because I had started to build my application on Windows 7 instead of Vista.

In Windows 7, the Media Center version of the assemblies referenced (Microsoft.MediaCenter.dll and Microsoft.MediaCenter.UI.dll) is 6.1.* but Vista only has versions 6.0.*.

Taking the assemblies from Vista and referencing those directly instead of the ones in Windows 7 GAC solved the issue and the application again works on both Vista and Win7.

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.