WMP_EXE.exe

Fireball · 10-30-2003, 02:57 AM

Technical Question: What does WMP_EXE.exe do?

If it's just an extra Launcher for WMP9 - why are the WMP-Calls not done inside ME?

Greets
Marcus

frodobaggins · 10-30-2003, 03:07 AM

I would assume they broke the app into sections as a "cheap" form of multithreading.

Fireball · 10-30-2003, 03:17 AM

Maybe - but this would make no sense - WMP9 runs threaded, even if directly put in as an ocx or just instantiiated via CreateObject()

frodobaggins · 10-30-2003, 04:46 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Fireball

Maybe - but this would make no sense - WMP9 runs threaded, even if directly put in as an ocx or just instantiiated via CreateObject()

That's not the point, the other code, including the database application, doesn't.

Of course I may be wrong on why they did it, I am just guessing.

It could also have been done because the separated the apps into sections for ease of programming, ie got the media player section running good, then did the same with the database. Keeping the code separate and cleaner.

dob · 10-31-2003, 03:37 AM

anyone there have a good example of embedding windows media player .. in a win32 app?

frodobaggins · 10-31-2003, 03:48 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by dob

anyone there have a good example of embedding windows media player .. in a win32 app?

what language ?

dob · 11-03-2003, 02:29 AM

visual c++

I have an idea to build small framework with plugin architecture with some basic plugins for winamp, wmp, some basic visulization helper classes. I mean that some people can code it and I think here we will find many beta tester so it will be clear and so on ...

frodobaggins · 11-03-2003, 03:10 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by dob

visual c++

Then you're in luck, there are some good examples in the wmp9 sdk.

phat_bastard · 11-03-2003, 02:39 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by frodobaggins

I would assume they broke the app into sections as a "cheap" form of multithreading.

Yes, it is implemented in a wrapper .exe so it runs in it's own process. WMP as an in-process control / object slows down everything in the main app because the vb runtime does not create or properly marshall separate threads for controls and classes (even though it's supposed to). Doing an activex exe wrapper allows us to do things in separate threads without using the createthread api. If you've ever done this in vb you know it's not exactly pretty. The ActiveX exe allows us to pass objects, arrays, structures, whatever we want back and forth between the two applications, which is a huge advantage over threading something using CreateThread. Also, it is safe to run in the VB IDE, which by itself is not threadsafe.

We'd love to know of more elegant ways to do this - if anyone has suggestions.

Fireball · 11-04-2003, 09:27 AM

phat_bastard: thx for your reply - I didn't recognize that it's an ActiveX exe.