Screen Capture with XNA

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You've developed a game and now you'd like users to capture screen to show their friends or share it via social media accounts,then read & follow the steps in this article.

It will help you a lot.

To get started,create a new xna windows game.

Add reference to these:

System.Drawing
System.Windows.Forms

And then import them using:

using System.Drawing;
using System.Windows.Forms;

Then add these variables on your project:

Bitmap screen = null; 
int a = 1;

"screen" variable will be used to capture the screen, "a" variable will be used while saving as output.

Now in Update function we will control if any key pressed,if true then we will capture the screen and save it as a output.png(it will be named output1.png,output2.png - depending on "a" variable)

KeyboardState stat = Keyboard.GetState();
System.Drawing.Rectangle bounds = Control.FromHandle(Window.Handle).Bounds;
if (stat.IsKeyDown(Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input.Keys.Escape))
{
screen = new Bitmap(bounds.Width, bounds.Height);
using (Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(screen))
{
g.CopyFromScreen(new System.Drawing.Point(bounds.Left, bounds.Top), System.Drawing.Point.Empty, screen.Size);
}
screen.Save("output" + a + ".png", System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Png);
a += 1;
}

the bounds are the sizes of our XNA Window,if they were'nt we would have captured full screen Windows.

As you can see we used classical Windows way as its going to work only for Windows then why not use it?

Now lets run it and see.Press Escape key and it will create outputs automatically:


 

Hope that helps!

Getting All Colors in XNA

To display all the colors,i've used combobox from windows controls


First of all we need to get the Type of Color:

Type structType = typeof(Color);

Then we use PropertyInfo to get all the controls:

  

PropertyInfo[] fields = structType.GetProperties();

So we iterated through PropertyInfo and populated our combobox object

foreach (PropertyInfo field in fields)
{
cbo.Items.Add(field.Name);
}

When we run it,we'll be getting extra useless items:
 

So what to do?

I've written a simple iteration to remove these useless items:

for (int a = 0; a <= 5; a++)
{
cbo.Items.RemoveAt(0);
}

it removes the first 6 items from the list.

Simple but useful.As it seems:

So? 

Our work is done here.We got our Colors populated.

Hope it helps

Developing XNA Apps in Visual Studio 2012(without XNA GS)

Have been trying to find a way since there is no official release for XNA GS in Visual Studio 2012 even its Release Candidate.

using System;

namespace XNAProject2
{
   static class Program
   {
    
      static void Main(string[] args)
      {

         using (Game1 game = new Game1())
         {
            game.Run();
         } 
      }
   }
}

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media;
namespace XNAProject2
{
public class Game1 : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game
{
GraphicsDeviceManager graphics;
SpriteBatch spriteBatch;       
public Game1()
{
graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this);
Content.RootDirectory = "Content";
}
protected override void Initialize()
{
base.Initialize();
}
protected override void LoadContent()
{
spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice);            
}
protected override void UnloadContent()
{
}
protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime)
{
base.Update(gameTime);
}
protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime)
{
GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue);
base.Draw(gameTime);            
}
}
}

Here we are!

Now lets run it if it will run or not:

Why this problem occurs because of lack of 64-bit support for previous .net framework references which we call extensions.

Now head over here:

and change as it seems:

After you change it to x86 it must have worked nicely



 

int x=10;
int y=10;
int width=256;
int height=256;       
Texture2D pic_texture;

pic_texture = Texture2D.FromStream(GraphicsDevice, TitleContainer.OpenStream(@"performer.png"));

spriteBatch.Begin();
spriteBatch.Draw(pic_texture, new Rectangle(x, y, width, height), Color.White);
spriteBatch.End();

Here we render our sprite with given texture file,x&y coordinates,width and height of the sprite shall be.

Lets run it!

And display our sprite:




 

Are XNA games running under Silverlight host?

I was curiously experimenting WP7 Emulator to find something how XNA runs in Windows Phone 7 Emulator for a loong time 

MessageBox.Show(Application.Current.RootVisual.GetType().Name);

MessageBox.Show(Application.Current.Host.GetType().Name);

So after saw this output,the first thing came to my mind was the GPU Support for Silverlight.So the reason adding GPU Ability to Silverlight was to run XNA inside Silverlight Host or something else?

Hmm.i'd better keep drag more!  

I'll let you know about the events. 

Update: Ok guys my suspicions were right.XNA apps on WP7 runs inside a Silverlight Host.

I asked it on Twitter

 

But i dont know why? Only Guys-From-Microsoft can answer that :)

Maybe its for using Lauchers,Choosers in short terms for using all the task system inside xna? Just theory.

Display MessageBox in WP7(XNA)

Assuming you need to show a MessageBox in an XNA application on WP7,the easiest way is to add System.Windows namespace.

using System.Windows;

Then you need to call "Classic" Show function of MessageBox

MessageBox.Show("Hello There!");

XNA Control Library for WP7 & XBOX 360

Lately,

i have been working for building a library.It can be used for WindowsPhone7,XBOX 360 & Windows Game projects.

its not finished yet but im willing to give you a shot 

i called it "REXLibrary"

Here are whats included in this library:

-Button
-Menu
-CheckBox
-NumericUpDown
-ComboBox
-RadioButton
-PictureBox
-Label
-NotifyIcon
-TextBox 

Best,i'd better keep working on it 

Cheers!