Comments on: Using GamerServicesDispatcher to fix up exception handling

By: John Brown

John Brown — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:16:58 +0000

Thanks for the prompt reply. I had already moved the Window.Handle in my code but it made not difference to the problem. I have just finished creating a simple game form and that is what I use on both Windows and Xbox. It’s not quite as neat as the Guide display, but it does the job. Although I am only ever going to distribute the game on the Xbox I might distribute the level editor on Windows so I like to keep the two code sets as similar as posible.

Thanks for the examples they have been very helpful.

By: Nick

Nick — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:00:39 +0000

That is odd. I fixed one bug in the code above which is that you should always set the WindowHandle in the new game. But it’s strange that this works fine on Xbox but not on Windows.

Personally though, I don’t worry about it. Since running on Windows I’m always under debugger, I can see when errors happen. Alternatively if you wanted to run off the debugger (or ship the game), you shouldn’t use gamer services as they aren’t in the XNA redist. In that case I would use System.Windows.Forms and display a message box instead. Or, for bonus points, make a nice, neat form that shows what happened with a button to email it to you or send it to your server.

By: John Brown

John Brown — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 12:22:58 +0000

I like this error handling series and I am very please I can get rid of my last component, by using the …Dispatcher instead BUT… you knew there would be a but.

I can’t get the Guide message to display in Windows. It works great on the Xbox.
What extra trick do I need to do to get it to work?

Many thanks