Development

XBMC (formerly named "XBox Media Center") is a free and open source software (GPL) Cross-platform media player and media center entertainment hub. Originally developed as XBox Media Player (XBMP) for the first-generation Xbox game console in 2002, XBMC eventually have became a complete graphical user interface replacement for the Xbox Dashboard and more, as it has also been ported to also run natively under Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows operating-system.

Third-party developers/programmers can make and submit source code patches/modules with new features, functions or bug-fixes to us via our SourceForge.net project site. XBMC's source code is made up of a mix of programming-languages (mostly C++ with some Assembly, and C libraries). XBMC uses Microsoft DirectX multimedia framework (Direct3D) on the Xbox (as the Xbox does not support OpenGL), and the SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) framework with OpenGL rendering for other operating-system platforms, (such as Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows). XBMC main program (including the GUI) is mainly developed in Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 (7.1) IDE and for the Xbox requires a copy of the latest Microsoft Xbox SDK (a.k.a. XDK) to be compiled, (later versions of Microsoft Visual Studio are not supported by the XDK). XBMC's code also contain four multimedia-player cores which has to be compiled seperatly, (and work seemslessly to the end-user), none of these player-cores require the XDK to be compiled, (they are instead compiled with [http://www.mingw.org MinGW/MSYS). One generic audio/video-player core based on MPlayer, one in-house developed (FFmpeg-based) dedicated DVD-Video player core (for DVD-movies with menus), one in-house developed dedicated music-player core, and one in-house developed Tracker-Mod (audio-modules) player.

Some of the XBMC libraries are in the C programming-languages but those then uses a C++ wrapper and are loaded via XBMC's own DLL loader. The Xbox Operating-System/BIOS is kind of Win32-based however it does have all of the resources or capabilities of a full Microsoft Windows Operating-System, (for example: DirectShow, registry, nor DLL are nativly supported on the Xbox). Because of the constraints on the hardware (like only 64MB shared memory and a 733Mhz PIII CPU) and the XDK environment of the Xbox, all software development for XBMC is highly focused on reserving the limited resourses that exist, the main hindrance of which is the amount of available random access memory at any one time, (which is why XBMC code structure is built so modular, enabling libraries to be unloaded when they are not in active use). For more detailed information about XBMC inner working please follow these links and the categories at the end of this article:

Development Catagory Sections

• XBMC Inner Workings
• Development

Development HOW-TO

• HOW-TO download and compile your own builds of XBMC
• HOW-TO compile a new mplayer.dll from source code
• HOW-TO submit a proper bug report
• HOW-TO submit a patch (contribute source code)
• Basic overview of the XBMC source code
• Information on Language Support
  • Overview of input methods + code changes for multi keyboard language support
• HOW-TO debug Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL)
• Creating Python Scripts (widget plugins)
• Apply to join the Official XBMC Development-Team

Note! If you are a programmer/developer but not have access to VS.NET and the XDK then you can work on XBMC for Linux, XBMC for Mac OS X, or XBMC for Windows (Win32), or you can contribute indirectly by helping the FFmpeg (and the MPlayer) project. See bellow for more information.

XBMC for Linux

• XBMC Linux port project
• HOW-TO compile XBMC for Linux from source code

XBMC for Mac OS X

XBMC for Mac OS X is a sub-project of the *XBMC Linux port project:

• HOW-TO compile XBMC for Mac OS X from source code

XBMC for Windows (Win32)

XBMC for Windows (Win32) is a sub-project of the *XBMC Linux port project:

• HOW-TO: Compile XBMC for Win32 from source code