The Media Center Sandbox

I'm looking to implement a button that when clicked on, is expanded into a dropdown.

Something like this:

Imagine a page with 3 buttons on it:
<List Channels> <List Movies> <Sort by Name>

When user hits "List Channels" - channel list appears below, when user hits "List Movies" - movie list appears below, when user hits "Sort by" button, a dropdown is shown with a list of choices by what the user can sort by.  User selects a choice and the listing below is refreshed according to sorting, while the dropdown is closed.

Are there any examples out there for this?  What should I be starting with, if nothing exists?

Thanks,
Igor Papirov

Hi Igor,

This isn't a UI model that is used by the main Media Center app, so could be confusing for your users... you might want to consider something more like an existing UI or completely different (i.e. not emulating a 2 foot interface in the 10 foot environment).

I don't know of any examples of this kind of, but in terms of developing something like this, you could use an approach similar to that used for custom drop down menus on websites - create the main left/right control (the "menu bar") and then hide/display other controls in the correct locations below it, when the correct item is selected in the left/right control.

Cheers,
Andrew

I've ended up unhiding a panel when a user clicks on a button that shows my "dropdown" choices.  Came out pretty intuitive-looking.  Thanks for your help.  Really wish you guys would come up with some sort of set of standard controls or building blocks that people could use instead of building everything from scratch everytime.

You could always do that too! :) There are projects you can contribue to, or create your own on codeplex or somewhere.

Cheers,
Andrew