Working with Media Center Markup Language
The Windows Media Center Presentation Layer allows applications to access the Windows Media Center rendering technology to create experiences with the same richness and quality of the user interface (UI) within Windows Media Center.
The UI for a Windows Media Center Presentation Layer application is written in Windows Media Center Markup Language (MCML), which is an XML-based declarative language. MCML provides dynamic layout capabilities, integrated animation support, rich text and graphics support, automatic keyboard and remote navigation, parameterization, private local storage, conditional-based data binding, and access to managed code assemblies from markup. The Windows Media Center Presentation Layer also makes it easier to implement directional navigation in the UI by providing a reusable model and default policies, allowing applications to support reasonable default navigation on most user interfaces and incremental adjustment based on simple alignment and containership hints.
This section introduces MCML, describes its basic concepts, and shows how to use MCML to create applications for Windows Media Center. This section provides basic code examples to illustrate a particular feature. For more in-depth samples, see the Media Center Markup Language Sampler.
This section provides an overview to working with MCML.
| Topic | Description |
| MCML Basics | Describes basic concepts of MCML, such as the model-view approach, MCML syntax, using namespaces, and accessing libraries and assemblies. |
| Defining a UI | Describes the basics attributes of an MCML UI, which include Content, Properties, Locals, and Rules. |
| Working with View Items | Describes the visual primitives that you can use to create an MCML UI. |
| Creating a Layout in MCML | Describes the different options to use for laying out child elements in an MCML UI. |
| Working with Input Handlers in MCML | Describes how to work with input handlers to capture user input. |
| Working with Animations in MCML | Describes the basic concepts of creating animation in MCML. |
| Working with Windows Media Center Presentation Layer Web Applications | Describes the features and limitations of Windows Media Center Presentation Layer Web applications, and how to navigate to other pages. |
See Also