The SideShow team is excited to announce the Windows SideShow Bitmap Driver!

This is an open source project that we are hosting on CodePlex:

http://www.codeplex.com/SideShowBitmap

We have provided source code for a Driver and a Simulator. This solution renders pages on a computer and sends bitmap images to the SideShow-compatible device, so the device can be lower cost. This solution allows SideShow functionality to be easily adapted to existing, in-market hardware, in many cases without any hardware modifications. This solution differs from other SideShow solutions. Typically, the SideShow device would parse and render the SCF content. In contrast, the Windows SideShow Bitmap Driver is doing the parsing and rendering.

There are 2 major wins that this project brings to our partners and platform:

1. To tailor the driver for your device, you may download the source, alter the look and feel of the user interface as you see fit, and add different transports to the driver. In this sample Windows Rally technologies have been implemented including Plug and Play Extensions for Windows (PnP-x) and Device Profile Web Services (DPWS) as the transport. Because the heavy lifting (parsing and rendering of SCF XML) is handled by the driver, this project is very well suited for devices that have low CPU power or for devices that are always connected.
2. The Windows SideShow Bitmap Driver serves as the first published Simple Content Format (SCF) implementation! It allows you to port the code to your device so that it parses and renders SCF. Combine this with our recently published protocol for the Universal Driver for Windows SideShow, and you can quickly build a complete SideShow solution for your device.

We want the community involved! We want to hear your ideas for this driver, and we want your feedback. Check out our CodePlex site and get involved today!

Thank you!

Darryl