About Media Center Add-ins

In addition to hosting HTML applications, Media Center Edition 2005 can host managed .NET Framework assemblies, called add-ins, that run inside Media Center. Unlike hosted HTML applications, which run only when they are the current Media Center experience, add-ins continue to run regardless of what Media Center is displaying.

Add-ins use the application programming interface (API) elements exposed by the Microsoft.MediaCenter.AddIn and Microsoft.MediaCenter.Extensibility namespaces to control aspects of the Media Center experience, and to extend the capabilities of Media Center in some way. Media Center add-ins also have access to the .NET Framework's System namespace, and namespaces provided by external assemblies. These assemblies and namespaces make it possible to write an add-in that:

Uses the System .NET application programming interface (API) to communicate with a Web service. For example, an add-in could periodically retrieve the current score and inning of a baseball game.
Uses the Microsoft.MediaCenter.AddIn API to display notification dialog boxes in Media Center. For example, an add-in could display a dialog box notifying the user that the baseball game is nearly over.
Prompts the user to choose whether to switch to a new Media Center experience. For example, the user could switch to the baseball game or continue with their current experience.
Causes Media Center to switch to a different experience. For example, an add-in could direct Media Center to display the baseball game on broadcast TV or over an Internet Protocol (IP) stream.





Add-in Execution Environment
Describes the execution environment in which Media Center add-ins run.

User Interface Considerations for Add-ins
Discusses design considerations for add-ins.

Creating an Add-in
Explains how to create an add-in.

Installing and Registering an Add-in
Explains how to install an add-in and register it with Media Center.

Initializing and Running an Add-in
Describes the methods that Media Center calls to initialize and run an add-in.



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