2010/3/31 Mariusz Pluciński <vsha...@gmail.com>: > 2010/3/30 Dan Kegel <d...@kegel.com> >> >> Sounds good to me -- and you could start right now by checking in stubs, >> if we don't have them already... >> >> The question is, though, how useful are these APIs (aside from >> needing them to play some games)? Which games make use of them?
Odd, I can't see Dan Kegel's reply. AFAIK, the API's aren't needed currently to play any games, but many games use them if they are available. I would guess that once game developers become comfortable dropping support for Windows XP (which is inevitable, but you can argue about how soon it will be), they'll start writing games that require this API. I suspect that once the classes exist, games will expect them to actually work, and adding the stubs will break some games that currently work. That means that once the stubs are in, it's very important to add at least a basic implementation. It also means that adding the classes will be a disruptive process, and it will only get worse the longer we wait. (Note: I haven't tested this theory, and for all I know most games will gracefully fall back on the old methods when they see a non-functional IGameExplorer. I wouldn't count on it though.) The project would potentially also include the Game Explorer shell namespace extension, which will likely be needed for shortcuts to work correctly. The control panel extension (CLSID_ControlPanel) is probably a good example. The main task there would be to implement an IShellFolder object that uses the game explorer database.
