[jhsrennie]

Now that XBMC no longer supports the XBox what is the future of the "Programs" section?

On the one hand this section has always sat a bit uneasily in the non-XBox builds. Indeed my recollection is that the section has been hidden by default since version 8. On the other hand this forum sees repeated questions as to whether XBMC can launch applications. The popularity of the Launcher plugin is testimony for this.

Experiment shows that if you create a script as an addon then the script appears in the Programs section as well as the scripts section, which seems an unnecessary duplication.

How about allowing apps to be specified by simple XML files, analagous to the way a .strm file can be used to describe an audio stream. An "Add app" link could be added to construct the XML file, or of course users could simply use Notepad/vi/whatever.

JR

[jmarshall]

Scripts and Programs are being merged. Initially it will just list all programs addons.

[branlr]

it would be neat-o if we could add programs from launcher to that directory, or create some mechanism that could do it automatically--giving great unity for windows builds....

... or not. But we (meaning all of YOU who actually write the stuff) could!

[jhsrennie]

it would be neat-o if we could add programs from launcher to that directory, or create some mechanism that could do it automatically--giving great unity for windows builds....

... or not. But we (meaning all of YOU who actually write the stuff) could!

Merging the Programs and Scripts and using addons is quite a nice way to do things because everything becomes an addon, and XBMC can install addons automatically. So I could write an addon script to run some popular app and users can easily add it. I imagine many such addons will rapidly appear.

It does still make it hard for non-nerds to add their own apps that no-one has written an addon for, but then I suppose Launcher can take care of those.

JR