Create a Windows Media Player List

• Download source files - 92.26 KB
• Download demo project - 11.39 KB

Introduction

This is a very simple application created using various techniques of string manipulations and file manipulations. It is my first project created using C# and .NET as part of learning these new technologies. For beginners, this project does give you an idea of using File Input/Output functions, recursive functions, string manipulations.

Background

This project was created out of my frustration with creating a playlist (*.wpl) in Windows Media Player. It is a time consuming thing to create a playlist manually. I thought that it will give me an opportunity to familiarize myself with arrays, strings and file functions.

Windows Media Player (WMP) adds to its playlist only WMP known file types. For example, if you want to create a playlist from a directory which has files in various formats such as RealPlayer format (obviously, not Microsoft format), WMP ignores those files and adds only WMP recognized formats to the playlist. It is a bit of a pain when I am using WMP to play RealPlayer format files as well.

Using the Code

I have included two source files that have different techniques of using string functions and file I/O.

• frmCreateWMList_StrArray.cs -> Uses the fixed array of strings formats
• frmCreateWMList.cs -> Reads file formats from a file, string parsing

• Enter the directory where your files are located.
• Select the formats to be included in your playlist.
• Enter filename to Save playlist As...
• Press Create to generate the file.

Points of Interest

It is a good start for beginners who are just starting with C# and .NET and want to be familiar with string search, add, join string lists, recursive functions and file I/O.

This can be further developed to support various metadata tags supplied by Windows Media Player SDK.

Request

If you make any bug fixes / changes / improvements to this project, please drop me a line about the changes. However, it is not mandatory to do so.

Why are you waiting?! Let's groove...

History

• 22^nd August, 2006: Initial post