Pretty darn easy to map xbox 360 gamepad and keyboard keys

if (GamePad.GetState(PlayerIndex.One).Buttons.A
            == ButtonState.Pressed)
{
    // Do something
}

The IDE just gives you choice of buttons (button is A in the case above) as soon as you press a . after Buttons above.

How to use VS 2005 or Orcas Pro/Team Edition

So with help from Benjamin Nitchke’s book and the dude himself, I got the XNA files to run under my Visual Studio Orcas Team Edition.

The trick is to create the project in the express edition, and then copy over the files replacing your existing VSpro project files. Main files to copy over are the Game1.cs and the Program.cs. Copy over the icon and png file too if needed. Then in VSpro add existing item, and add all those files.

Then you need to add 2 dll references manually -
Microsoft.XNA.Framework
Microsoft.XNA.Framework.Game

Lastly if you are on Vista x64 or XP x64, you need to goto the project properties –> Build –> change platform target to be x86. This is because XNA doesnt run under 64bit. Start debugging and all works!

XNA wants C# Express Edition, hate that.

I already have a team edition of Visual Studio, and I upgraded to the new Visual Studio 9.0 “Orcas” but still XNA stuff requires the Express Edition. Thought by now they would have fixed that. Too many versions are now on my system.

Getting 2 books soon about XNA and DirectX.

These come highly recommended.

• Professional XNA Game Programming: For Xbox 360 and Windows
• Beginning DirectX 10 Game Programming

More books:
http://letskilldave.com/archive/2007/03/13/Upcoming-XNA-Game-Studio-Express-books_2E002E002E00_.aspx

Hello world!

 #include <iostream>

int main()
{
    std::cout << “Hello World!” << std::endl;
}

More:
http://www2.latech.edu/~acm/HelloWorld.shtml
http://www.roesler-ac.de/wolfram/hello.htm