Datasheet

} // for for
sprites.End();
base.Draw(gameTime);
} // Draw(gameTime)
Now you can start your project and move around with up and down. This is pretty good for your first
little application, isn’t it?
Notes about XNA
To finish this chapter, here are some additional tips and tricks about the XNA Framework and XNA
Game Studio Express 1.0 and 2.0. As you saw, you can just start coding and it works great, but it is
always good to have a couple of bookmarks for your browser you can rely on when you run into prob-
lems or don’t know how to solve a specific issue. Additionally, this section discusses the advantages of
.NET and C# a little and checks out the differences between XNA and Managed DirectX.
Important Links
Here are a few links for your bookmarks:
❑
http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/ — XNA Developer Center on Microsoft’s
MSDN page with the XNA Game Studio Forum and the XNA Framework Forum, which are the
most active XNA forums you will find on the Internet. You can also download the latest XNA
version here, read the FAQ, and see what’s new.
❑
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_XNA — Entry on Wikipedia about XNA, con-
stantly updated and contains many links to other topics. A few useful external links are listed on
the bottom of the page.
❑
www.thezbuffer.com — One of the first Managed DirectX sites with a lot of articles, links to
blogs and people. Andy Dunn, the creator of the site, always keeps it up-to-date, shows you the
newest XNA projects, and knows a lot about Managed DirectX and XNA.
❑
www.ziggyware.com — An XNA community website founded by Michael “Ziggy” Morton. It
has grown a lot in the last years and contains hundreds of articles and news posts, and has a
very active community behind it. Make sure to check out the active discussion forum; the site
also features XNA Image of the day, polls, and other cool stuff.
❑
www.riemers.net — A very old and solid DirectX site with tons of information about DirectX.
Recently switched to XNA and has great information on that, too. There is also an active forum
on this site.
❑
http://xnadevelopment.com — One of the first XNA sites with many links, tutorials, and
tips to get you started in the XNA world, Not many updates here, however.
❑
http://xnaresources.com — Another site that had a lot of news and some really useful tuto-
rials on tile engines for XNA 1.0, but not much updates recently either.
❑
http://abi.exdream.com — Official website of the author. You can find more games I made
here, as well as Rocket Commander XNA, the XNA Shooter, or the Racing Game from this book,
and all the documentation and video tutorials I made for them. Additionally I suggest checking
out the Rocket Commander Video Tutorials, which were pretty popular on Coding4Fun.
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