Load and Play a Video File at Runtime using Silverlight 2 Beta 2
Posted by: Suprotim Agarwal ,
on 7/21/2008,
in
Category Silverlight 2, 3, 4 and 5
Abstract: In this short article, we will quickly see how to load and play a video at runtime using the OpenFileDialog control in Silverlight 2.
Load and Play a Video File at Runtime using Silverlight 2 Beta 2
Note: This article is written based on a pre-release version of Silverlight and could change in future.
In this short article, we will quickly see how to load and play a video at runtime using the OpenFileDialog control in Silverlight 2.
If you are not familiar with hosting Silverlight 2 in ASP.NET, I hope you have read one of the previous article which talks about the prerequisites of creating Silverlight applications. The article can be found over here Hosting Silverlight Content in ASP.NET 3.5.
Step 1: Open Visual Studio 2008 > File > New Project > Select the language (C# or VB) > Select ‘Silverlight’ in the Project Types > from the templates, select ‘Silverlight Application’. Type a name ‘RuntimeMedia’ (for VB.NET users - RuntimeMediaVB) and location for the project and click ok.
Note: If you are unable to view the templates, you do not have Microsoft Silverlight Tools Beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008.
Step 2: You will observe that a default page called ‘Page.xaml’ gets created. Set the Width and Height of the user control to 600 & 500 respectively. Remove the <Grid> and replace it with <Canvas> and set its background to Gray. The code after these changes will look similar to the following:
<UserControl x:Class="RuntimeMedia.Page"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
Width="600" Height="500">
<Canvas Background="Gray" >
</Canvas>
</UserControl>
Step 3: Now add a <MediaElement> and a <Button> Control. After setting the height and width of the MediaElement and and a few additional properties of the Button control, the code will look similar to the following:
<Canvas Background="Gray" >
<MediaElement x:Name="mediaEle" Height="440" Width="600"></MediaElement>
<Button x:Name="btnShow" Click="btnShow_Click" Height="50" Width="100" Canvas.Top="450" Content="Load Media"></Button>
</Canvas>
Notice the Event Handler btnShow_Click. We will use this event to code the functionality to select media files at runtime.
Step 4: We will be using the OpenFileDialog class to select media files at runtime. Once the user has selected the file, we will play the selected files.
Go to the code behind (Page.xaml.cs or Page.xaml.vb) and write the following code:
C#
private void btnShow_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
OpenFileDialog fileDialog = new OpenFileDialog();
fileDialog.Filter = "Media WMV|*.wmv";
if (fileDialog.ShowDialog() == true)
{
FileDialogFileInfo fdfi = fileDialog.SelectedFile;
mediaEle.SetSource(fdfi.OpenRead());
mediaEle.AutoPlay = true;
}
}
VB.NET
Private Sub btnShow_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs)
Dim fileDialog As OpenFileDialog = New OpenFileDialog()
fileDialog.Filter = "Media WMV|*.wmv"
If fileDialog.ShowDialog() = True Then
Dim fdfi As FileDialogFileInfo = fileDialog.SelectedFile
mediaEle.SetSource(fdfi.OpenRead())
mediaEle.AutoPlay = True
End If
End Sub
In the code above, we create an instance of the OpenFileDialog and specify the file filter string by setting the Filter property to "Media WMV|*.wmv". We then call the ShowDialog method to show the open file dialog box to the user. When the method returns, we test to see if the user pressed the OK button (fileDialog.ShowDialog() == true). If the result is True, we use the SetSource() method of the MediaElement to set its source to the supplied stream. The ‘AutoPlay’ property plays the media as soon as it is loaded.
That’s it. Run the application and check out the functionality to add video files at runtime. I hope you liked the article and I thank you for viewing it.
This article has been editorially reviewed by Suprotim Agarwal.
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Suprotim Agarwal, MCSD, MCAD, MCDBA, MCSE, is the founder of
DotNetCurry,
DNC Magazine for Developers,
SQLServerCurry and
DevCurry. He has also authored a couple of books
51 Recipes using jQuery with ASP.NET Controls and
The Absolutely Awesome jQuery CookBook.
Suprotim has received the prestigious Microsoft MVP award for Sixteen consecutive years. In a professional capacity, he is the CEO of A2Z Knowledge Visuals Pvt Ltd, a digital group that offers Digital Marketing and Branding services to businesses, both in a start-up and enterprise environment.
Get in touch with him on Twitter @suprotimagarwal or at LinkedIn