Book description
How would you like to build an Xbox game, use your Nintendo Wiimote to create an electronic whiteboard, or build your own peer-to-peer application? Coding4Fun helps you tackle some cool software and hardware projects using a range of languages and free Microsoft software. Now you can code for fun with C#, VB, ASP.NET, WPF, XNA Game Studio, Popfly, as well as the Lua programming language.
If you love to tinker, but don't have time to figure it all out, this book gives you clear, step-by-step instructions for building ten creative projects, including:
- Alien Attack: Create a 2D clone of Space Invaders with XNA for the PC, Xbox 360, and Zune
- LEGO Soldier: Create an action game using Popfly with a custom-built virtual LEGO character
- World of Warcraft RSS Feed Reader: Use WoW's customizable interface to have feeds pop up while you're gaming
- InnerTube: Download YouTube videos automatically and convert them to a file format for off-line viewing
- PeerCast: Stream video files from any PC
- TwitterVote: Create custom online polls on Twitter
- WHSMail: Build a website with ASP.NET for Windows Home Server that lets you view the messages stored on a computer with Outlook
- "Wiimote" Controlled Car: Steer your remote-controlled car by tilting the Wii Remote controller left and right
- Wiimote Whiteboard: Create an interactive whiteboard using a Wii Remote
- Holiday Lights: Synchronize your holiday light display with music to create your own light show
The perfect gift for any developer, Coding4Fun shows you how to use your programming skills in new and fun ways.
"This book is amazing! The scope is so wonderfully broad that anyone who has an interest in designing games at any level should read this book."
-- Alex Albrecht, Creator of Diggnation / Totally Rad Show / Project Lore
Publisher resources
Table of contents
-
Coding4Fun
- SPECIAL OFFER: Upgrade this ebook with O’Reilly
- A Note Regarding Supplemental Files
- Preface
-
I. Gaming
- 1. Alien Attack
-
2. LEGO Soldier: A 2-D LEGO Side-Scroller Popfly Game
- Overview
- Popfly Game Creator Terms
- Building LEGO Soldier Step-by-Step
- Building the Popfly Game
- Designing Custom Actors
- Importing Actors
- Designing the Main Scene
- Building Game Properties
- Building Behaviors
- Building the Main Scene Behaviors
- Building the LEGO Security Actor Behaviors
- Building the Fire Bullet Projectile Behaviors
- Building the LEGO Skeleton Behavior
- Adding Behaviors for the Barrel Actor
- Building the HealthBar Behaviors
- Adding the Blind Scientist Behaviors
- Publishing Your Game
- Final Thoughts
-
3. FEED READER: An In-Game RSS Reader for World of Warcraft
- Overview
- Before We Get Started
-
Understanding the Feed Reader Addon
- Dissecting Feed Reader
- How Feed Reader and Feed Grabber Work
- The Feed Reader UI
-
Adding Code for Frame.xml
- Global variables
- Defining a variable as a saved variable
- Registering for Warcraft events
- The SelectFeed and SelectFeedItems functions
- The SelectFeedItem function
- The UpdateFeeds and UpdateFeedItems functions
- The UpdateFeeds function
- The UpdateFeedItems function
- Updating the summary
- OnClick event for Feed buttons
- OnClick event for FeedItem buttons
- Adding a basic slash command
- Feed Grabber
- Final Thoughts
-
II. Software and Web
-
4. InnerTube: Download, Convert, and Sync YouTube Videos
- Overview
- How InnerTube Works
- How YouTube's API Works
- Building Classes for YouTube Feeds and Videos
- Calling the InnerTubeService Class
- Downloading Videos from YouTube
- Converting YouTube Videos Using ffmpeg
- Syncing YouTube Videos to iTunes and Zune
- Putting It All Together
- Setting Up the InnerTube WPF Application
- Building the InnerTube UI
- InnerTube Skeleton
-
Dissecting MainWindow.xaml
- Setting the MainWindow.xaml data context
- Part 1: The Feed List ListBox
- Part 2: The VideoList ListBox
- The Data Template UI
- Data Binding the Video List ListBox
- Binding to an Image
- Building the Image Value Converter
- Setting Up a Class As a Static Resource
- Part 3: The Details Pane
- Formatting Numbers in WPF
- Data Binding in the Details Pane
- Data Binding to User Controls
- MediaPlayer User Control UI
- MediaPlayer Data Binding
- Playing and Pausing Video
- Final Thoughts
-
5. PeerCast: Watch Videos on Your PC Anywhere in the World
- Overview
- A Tour of PeerCast
- How PeerCast Works
-
Building the Application UI
- Choosing the Application Mode
- Building the MainWindow.xaml UI
-
Adding the MainWindow.xaml Code
- MainWindow properties
- MainWindow constructor
- Signing in
- Receiving UI updates from ProgressChanged
- Toggling the UI
- Receiving a video list
- Deserializing the file list
- Playing a video
- Sending a Play message
- Sending a full-screen play message
- Getting a list of videos from the server
- Selecting the video streaming directory
- When P2pWorker completes
- Final Thoughts
- 6. TwitterVote
- 7. WHSMail: An Outlook Webmail Add-in for Windows Home Server
-
4. InnerTube: Download, Convert, and Sync YouTube Videos
-
III. Hardware
- 8. Wiimote-controlled Car
- 9. Wiimote Whiteboard
- 10. Animated Musical Holiday Lights
- A. Using the C4fStyle File for WPF Projects
- Index
- About the Authors
- Colophon
- SPECIAL OFFER: Upgrade this ebook with O’Reilly
Product information
- Title: Coding4Fun
- Author(s):
- Release date: November 2008
- Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
- ISBN: 9780596554354
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