A Skinnable MP3 Player
Here is a skinnable MP3 player written in Visual Basic based on the Microsoft
Windows Media Player. Media Player handles the chores of playing MP3
files and makes this functionality available as an add in component to your VB
program. This program also illustrates how to create Skins
or Irregular Forms that can take the shape of any
bitmap image.
Download Source Code
This MP3 player was developed by James Balducci. If you have any questions or
comments, you can reach him at p00p@optonline.net
or visit www.everythingbrown.com.
A Skin is an Irregularly
shaped form - a form that has a shape that does not resemble the standard
rectangular shape. There are many ways to create irregular forms. Here, the
skin is created by scanning a bitmap image a pixel at a time. As the image is
scanned the locations of pixels not matching the background color, assumed to
be the top left most pixel, are recorded.
Using these locations a Region is created. A
Region is the area within a form where the operating system permits
drawing. Anything outside the region is not displayed. For more details on
regions, visit my Active Skin page. Other
irregular form techniques are discussed on my Irregular
Forms page.
The Windows Media Player provides a wealth of functionality you can easily tap
into. It allows you to play most audio and video media types (by removing the
filter criteria on the common dialog control in this app you can play most
audio files). You can start, stop, pause the playing, and even scroll through
songs, adjust output volume, filter clips by title and author and much more.
Media Player lends its functionality easily to VB applications by referencing
the MSDXM.OCX as an add in component in your VB
project. Once referenced, you can view its methods and properties in the Object
Browser and read more about them in MSDN.
Download the source and run it. Navigate to a folder containing your .MP3 files.
Select the desired song and click the play button.
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