WPF Christmas Lights: see the source!
· 2008-12-13 10:37 by Thijs Kroesbergen for Brokenwire.NET
Not so very long ago I wrote about my quest to re-write the ancient Christmas Lights using brand-new technologies.
I promised to share the code with you (and write some more about it), so I published the Christmas Lights on Codeplex.
Please feel free to browse through the code, and I'll be glad to see any contributions!
Biggest points of interest at the moment:
- Performance, my current method of "blinking" seems sluggish. Maybe the hardware accelerated pixel shader effects in the .NET framework 3.5 SP1 will help here?
- The app needs more blinking patterns and maybe a "create your own pattern" feature.
- Blinking speed based on system events, like network activity. Currently the lights blink based on a timer, or based on the number of keys hit on your keyboard. Other event sources would be nice.
- Nicer light bulb shapes, possible a choice of bulbs.
Now repeat after me:
I will not be bored during the holidays because I have the WPF Christmas Lights to play with!
Just kidding... have fun!

Be prepared: get the Christmas Lights Super-easy access to the Sysinternals tools