News
(09.04.07) Mydia Player project site goes live
Project site is up and running. Looking to make frequent updates to it initially, but I'll be constantly juggling between actual development of the player, site updates, and my full-time job.


(08.23.07) Alpha NSIS Installer
Developed an installer/uninstaller for an alpha build of the player using NSIS. Pretty cool and easy to learn install system, and it's free! Learn more about it here.


(08.16.07) Branding
Lengthy creative process of branding the player is complete. I've arrived at a final logo and chose to go with minimalistic colors (mostly greys). The idea is to keep the focus on the colorful video content (and album art). Also, I'm thinking about making the final player skinnable, so that users and developers may modify the its appearance to their liking.


(04.11.07) Concept
Got the idea for the project around this time and started research and development.


Current System Requirements:
  • Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/Vista
  • Broadband Internet Connection (DSL/T1/Cable Modem)
  • 1024x728 resolution or higher
  • 5MB hard disk space
The main impetus behind the development of this project is to create a highly customizable and easily extensible media player for online users and developers alike. Users should be able to personalize the player by creating custom skins. I've also attempted to write the application in a modular manner that developers could easily work with to reskin and modify, stripping out or adding functionality of their own. The main focus is on online videos, but you can also listen to songs from your local music library. Currently the application only runs on Windows, and there is only support for mp3 and flv file formats, but this will probably change in later iterations of the software.


The Core: Flash

The core of the program is developed in Adobe Flash, using Actionscript 2.0. Keeping in line with OOP principles, all developed components are represented by actionscript classes that can be easily modified (or even removed). This makes the incremental development of the player easier as adding a new feature often equates to writing a new class for it. Most of the user interface elements (scrollbars, accordians, collapsable panels, pop windows, etc.) are custom classes that I wrote specifically for this project, but can easily be ported or skinned for another.


Make it Standalone: MDM Zinc

Initially, I wanted to make a web-based player... but Flash has quite a bit of security sandbox issues that prevent cross-domain data loading. Don't want to get into it, but if you're a flash developer, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Suffice to say, the same restrictions don't apply if you run a flash movie locally from your machine. That's when I started researching ways of making a standalone application. Enter Multidmedia Zinc, an application that allows you to program a Windows (or OSX) standalone application using Flash. I was skeptical at first, but the scripting language was easy to pickup and the forum support from the mdm team was great. I'd definitely recommend flash lovers to check it out.