Develop Reference

Toast Notifications in Win Forms .NET 4.5

I've searched through a number of different posts to do with creating toast notifications from a Win Form however when these through I get an error when generating the toast notification.
System.Exception: Element not found. (Exception from
HRESULT:0x80070490).
I have edited the csproj file and added the following:
<PropertyGroup>
<TargetPlatformVersion>10.0.10586</TargetPlatformVersion>
</PropertyGroup>
and added the references to Windows.Data and Windows.UI and also a reference to System.Runtime.dll as per the suggestions in Windows.UI.Notifications is missing
using Windows.Data.Xml.Dom;
using Windows.UI.Notifications;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System;
namespace ToastNotify
{
class Notify
{
public void GenerateToast(string header, string content)
{
ToastTemplateType toastTemplate = ToastTemplateType.ToastImageAndText02;
XmlDocument toastXml = ToastNotificationManager.GetTemplateContent(toastTemplate);
XmlNodeList toastTextElements = toastXml.GetElementsByTagName("text");
toastTextElements[0].AppendChild(toastXml.CreateTextNode(header));
toastTextElements[1].AppendChild(toastXml.CreateTextNode(content));
XmlNodeList toastImageElements = toastXml.GetElementsByTagName("image");
((XmlElement)toastImageElements[0]).SetAttribute("src", "..\\..\\Resources\\icon.ico");
IXmlNode toastNode = toastXml.SelectSingleNode("/toast");
((XmlElement)toastNode).SetAttribute("duration", "long");
ToastNotification toast = new ToastNotification(toastXml);
try
{
ToastNotificationManager.CreateToastNotifier().Show(toast);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
MessageBox.Show(ex.ToString());
}
}
}
}
Any suggestions as to where I am going wrong?

You should explicitly provide applicationId for CreateToastNotifier.
Like this:
private const String APP_ID = "Microsoft.Samples.DesktopToastsSample";
...
ToastNotificationManager.CreateToastNotifier(APP_ID).Show(toast);
But I have bad news. Starting from Windows 10 1709 WinForms applications just does not show toast notifications. Before that Show(toast) was working, but now it neither throw an exception, nor show any toast notification.
I'm still figuring this out.
As noted by Prateek Shrivastava there are (new) limitations.
Have a look here https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/uwp/api/windows.ui.notifications.toastnotificationmanager.createtoastnotifier
Update:
Here is the step by step guide, to create a setup with APP_ID so notifications will work on all Windows 10 versions:
Send a local toast notification from desktop C# apps
Update:
It works again in Windows 10 1903 without setup.

Use This and make sure you are setting the Image (Icon) full path if you want to show an icon otherwise just pass null.
public static void GenerateToast(string appid, string imageFullPath, string h1, string h2, string p1)
{
var template = ToastNotificationManager.GetTemplateContent(ToastTemplateType.ToastImageAndText04);
var textNodes = template.GetElementsByTagName("text");
textNodes[0].AppendChild(template.CreateTextNode(h1));
textNodes[1].AppendChild(template.CreateTextNode(h2));
textNodes[2].AppendChild(template.CreateTextNode(p1));
if (File.Exists(imageFullPath))
{
XmlNodeList toastImageElements = template.GetElementsByTagName("image");
((XmlElement)toastImageElements[0]).SetAttribute("src", imageFullPath);
}
IXmlNode toastNode = template.SelectSingleNode("/toast");
((XmlElement)toastNode).SetAttribute("duration", "long");
var notifier = ToastNotificationManager.CreateToastNotifier(appid);
var notification = new ToastNotification(template);
notifier.Show(notification);
}

I need to chime in here, because I'm working on a WinForms app (.Net Framework 4.7*) that's failing to build on a GitHub build worker because at some point, support for toast notifications was hacked in with some weird references to these WinMetadata\Windows.*.winmd files.
Woe be to anyone who has found this StackOverflow question.
You're probably targeting the .Net Framework 4.x because you're working on a Win Forms app. .Net Framework 4.8 is supported on Windows 7, and Windows 7 does not have ToastNotifications which is probably the class you're looking for. Hence the problem.
I think the only solution is the one in the updated answer that's most upvoted, which is just target the more modern UWP framework that will only work on Windows 10 and up. But you're still trying to send toast notifications from a framework that's not designed to support it. At some point in your code, you're probably doing a check if the platform you're running on is Windows 10 or newer. Not even a compiler statement, just straight up C# or VB.Net. That's not how the .Net Framework is designed to work - it's meant to be platform-agnostic.
My only advice is; setup a new build target for Windows 10+ and setup your project following the advice from Stephen. That should be the least-hackish way of making WinForms do neat Windows 10 tricks.

Cannot add icon in shell extension with C#

I've found a very nice tutorial and i am trying to understand something that is not in this tutorial (because the tut itself works fine)
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/9163/File-Rating-a-practical-example-of-shell-extension
When you look at applications like WinRar, TortoiseSVN, Antivirus-apps and many more, there is an icon next to the Shell Extension Item.
I would like to know how this is done. (Programmatically with C#)
Adding a separator works, adding a submenu works and click+action also works, but i'm struggling with the icon. This cannot be so hard. Can somebody help me?
And please don't say that Microsoft doesn't longer support this in .NET 4.0, because it is not guaranteed and therefore they don't supply samplecode. If all those other apps can do it, then it is possible.
Please supply me some sample code, some tutorials or maybe even a working piece of code.

Please have a look at the following article, it uses .NET 4.0 it to create Windows Shell Extensions using the SharpShell nuget package.
NET Shell Extensions - Shell Context Menus
Using this library, you can set the image directly while creating the contextmenustrip as shown below
protected override ContextMenuStrip CreateMenu()
{
// Create the menu strip.
var menu = new ContextMenuStrip();
// Create a 'count lines' item.
var itemCountLines = new ToolStripMenuItem
{
Text = "Count Lines...",
Image = Properties.Resources.CountLines
};
// When we click, we'll count the lines.
itemCountLines.Click += (sender, args) => CountLines();
// Add the item to the context menu.
menu.Items.Add(itemCountLines);
// Return the menu.
return menu;
}

You only have to add to the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers
and here is the code:
string TimeStamp = DateTime.Now.ToString("dd-MM-yyyy");
string key = "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Classes\\*\\shellex\\ContextMenuHandlers\\Winrar";
string valueName = "MyWinrar";
Microsoft.Win32.Registry.SetValue(key, valueName, HERE WHAT YOU WANT TO START, Microsoft.Win32.RegistryValueKind.String);
i hope it works for you!

All the apps you listed use COM and unmanaged code to create overlay icon handlers. There is even a special project TortoiseOverlays that provides a common library for drawing icons for TortoiceCSV, TortoiseSVN and TortoiseGIT. You can take a look at it's source code to find out how it is done. If you want to draw similar icons, you should probably just reuse it.
Using .Net for this type of extensions is not recommended, because when multiple extensions, built against different .Net versions would attempt to load in explorer process, they will crash the explorer.

Why does the WP8 Tiles example use reflection?

Use of the new WP8 Tiles uses reflection instead of instantiating and calling the methods directly as shown below.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/jj720574(v=vs.105).aspx
Type shellTileType = Type.GetType("Microsoft.Phone.Shell.ShellTile, Microsoft.Phone");
shellTileType.GetMethod("Update").Invoke(tileToUpdate, new Object[] { UpdateTileData });
I'm wondering if there is a specific reason reflection is being used this situation. Is it cause the WP < 7.8 won't have a reference to the ShellTile Type and thus the VM will error? If the VM never accesses this part of the code wouldn't that be good enough?

You can target your app for one of WP7 or WP8 platfroms.
In WP7 SDK there is no FlipTileData class, so you won't be able to compele code wich uses this class.
But you can run your WP7 app on WP8 device, so you can create Wilde Tiles using reflection.
You just need to check the OS version before:
private static Version TargetedVersion = new Version(8, 0);
public static bool IsTargetedVersion
{
get
{
return Environment.OSVersion.Version >= TargetedVersion;
}
}
Otherwise, if you target your app for WP8 platform only - feel free to use FlipTileData and other classes without reflection. Here you can find the example.

In WP7 SDK there is no API for these new Tile types, they are only available in WP7.8 and WP8. So if you want to use new tile sizes on WP7.8 devices or in WP7 application running on WP8 device, you have to use reflection.
Of course in WP8 app you can use the API directly with no problems.

How do I automate SAP GUI with c#

I would like to automate an SAP GUI window using the C# language. I am able to do it in VBScript but code reuse is horrible. Besides Id like to use threading instead of having 80 or more processes running. Where can I find any documentation and samples of how to do this? Here is the code I am working with. Basically, the problem I am facing is - how do I make a connection to SAP GUI then create an SAP GUI on the fly then start making transactions and entering text in some fields.
using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using White.Core.Factory;
using White.Core.UIItems.Finders;
using White.Core.InputDevices;
using System.Threading;
using System.Diagnostics;
using SAP.Connector;
using SAP;
namespace SAP_Automation
{
class Program
{
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
string ExeSourceFile = #"C:\Program Files\SAP\SapSetup\setup\SAL\SapLogon.s8l";
White.Core.Application _application;
White.Core.UIItems.WindowItems.Window _mainWindow;
var c = SAP.Connector.Connection.GetConnection("**");
var c = new SAPConnection("ASHOST=*; GWHOST=*; GWSERV=*; ASHOST=*; SYSNR=00;USER=user; PASSWD=**;");
c.Open();
}
}
}
}
As you can see I can create a connection but I dont know how to create a session to the GUI and start entering text in fields. Any examples and samples would be appreciated.

This might be necro-threading but I was in a similar situation where I work. We needed SAP GUI Automation for testing purposes that could integrate with the rest of our homegrown automation platform written in C#. I helped create a proposal for one solution that took advantage of a SAP provided library for GUI automation that could be used as the basis for an automation layer for SAP.
Does the following file exist on your SAP file installation? x:\Program Files\SAP\FrontEnd\SAPGui\sapfewse.ocx?
If so, add it to Visual Studio (or whatever IDE you're using) as a reference. It is basically a class library which contains a bunch of SAP specific objects that will allow you to interact with. It is very effective because it exposes most of what you need from the SAP GUI. We discovered in other attempts that a lot of the objects in SAP were not available.
This is an early proof of concept I did. Start SAP with a connection string, enter credentials, navigate to a transaction code.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Collections;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using SAPFEWSELib;
namespace SAPGuiAutomated
{
//created a class for the SAP app, connection, and session objects as well as for common methods.
public class SAPActive
{
public static GuiApplication SapGuiApp { get; set; }
public static GuiConnection SapConnection { get; set; }
public static GuiSession SapSession { get; set; }
public static void openSap(string env)
{
SAPActive.SapGuiApp = new GuiApplication();
string connectString = null;
if (env.ToUpper().Equals("DEFAULT"))
{
connectString = "1.0 Test ERP (DEFAULT)";
}
else
{
connectString = env;
}
SAPActive.SapConnection = SAPActive.SapGuiApp.OpenConnection(connectString, Sync: true); //creates connection
SAPActive.SapSession = (GuiSession)SAPActive.SapConnection.Sessions.Item(0); //creates the Gui session off the connection you made
}
public void login(string myclient, string mylogin, string mypass, string mylang)
{
GuiTextField client = (GuiTextField)SAPActive.SapSession.ActiveWindow.FindByName("RSYST-MANDT", "GuiTextField");
GuiTextField login = (GuiTextField)SAPActive.SapSession.ActiveWindow.FindByName("RSYST-BNAME", "GuiTextField");
GuiTextField pass = (GuiTextField)SAPActive.SapSession.ActiveWindow.FindByName("RSYST-BCODE", "GuiPasswordField");
GuiTextField language = (GuiTextField)SAPActive.SapSession.ActiveWindow.FindByName("RSYST-LANGU", "GuiTextField");
client.SetFocus();
client.text = myclient;
login.SetFocus();
login.Text = mylogin;
pass.SetFocus();
pass.Text = mypass;
language.SetFocus();
language.Text = mylang;
//Press the green checkmark button which is about the same as the enter key
GuiButton btn = (GuiButton)SapSession.FindById("/app/con[0]/ses[0]/wnd[0]/tbar[0]/btn[0]");
btn.SetFocus();
btn.Press();
}
}
//--------------------------//
//main method somewhere else
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
SAPActive.openSAP("my connection string");
SAPActive.login("10", "jdoe", "password", "EN");
SAPActive.SapSession.StartTransaction("VA03");
}
You're right there is not a lot of documentation on this subject. Below are a few sources that helped me get started
-Original source of our plan
http://scn.sap.com/thread/1729689
-Documentation on the API (For VB and javascript but the general rules and objects are identical). Definitely read the portion on the SAP GUI Runtime hierarchy. It'll answer a lot of questions.
http://www.synactive.com/download/sap%20gui%20scripting/sap%20gui%20scripting%20api.pdf

It is very important here to understand what UI Automation can do and what its limitations are. It was designed to automate a user interface's capabilities. You can click buttons, enter text in a textbox, move windows, etcetera, whatever a user can do using the mouse and keyboard.
What it can not do is bridge the tall wall that the operating system puts up between processes. A wall that prevents a process from accessing the memory of another process. This is a very important security and safety feature. It for one prevents a process from accessing data that should be private to a process. Like a password. And for another it stops a crashing process from affecting other processes that run on the machine. You can kill a process with Task Manager and everything keeps motoring along happily as though nothing happened.
A consequence of this is that creating a SAPConnection object in your program is a connection that only your program can use. There is no mechanism to somehow pass this object to another process with UI Automation. At best you could use the data you retrieve from the connection to affect what buttons you click.
The kind of process interop that would allow sharing data between processes is well supported in .NET. Low-level approaches are socket and named pipes, high-level are Remoting and WCF. Older programs have COM Automation support, Office is a good example of that. That however requires two to tango, both programs must be written to take advantage of it.
So if you are trying to automate an existing SAP application and this app does not otherwise explicitly support automation, the kind that an Office program supports, then you are pretty much stuck with just filling text boxes and clicking buttons.

You can automate any kind of application (browser, desktop, java, etc) with UiPath.
Here's a tutorial on how to automate data entry, menu navigation and screen scraping on SAP.
You can
use it from code (SDK). It has a tool that auto-generates C# code
create and run workflows (visual automation) directly from UiPath Studio.
Here's a sample of the C# auto-generated code:
// Attach window menu
UiNode wnd3 = UiFactory.Instance.NewUiNode().FromSelector("<wnd app='sap business one.exe' cls='#32768' idx='1' />");
// Click 'Business Pa...' menu
UiNode uiClickBusinessPamenu_3 = wnd3.FindFirst(UiFindScope.UI_FIND_DESCENDANTS, "<ctrl name='Business Partners' role='popup menu' /><ctrl automationid='2561' />");
uiClickBusinessPamenu_3.Click(88, 9, UiClickType.UI_CLICK_SINGLE, UiMouseButton.UI_BTN_LEFT, UiInputMethod.UI_HARDWARE_EVENTS);
// Attach window 'SAP Business'
UiNode wnd4 = UiFactory.Instance.NewUiNode().FromSelector("<wnd app='sap business one.exe' cls='TMFrameClass' title='SAP Business One 9.0 - OEC Computers' />");
// Click 'Add' button
UiNode uiClickAddbutton_4 = wnd4.FindFirst(UiFindScope.UI_FIND_DESCENDANTS, "<wnd cls='ToolbarWindow32' title='View' /><ctrl name='View' role='tool bar' /><ctrl name='Add' role='push button' />");
uiClickAddbutton_4.Click(13, 24, UiClickType.UI_CLICK_SINGLE, UiMouseButton.UI_BTN_LEFT, UiInputMethod.UI_HARDWARE_EVENTS);
Here's how workflow automation of SAP Business One menus, buttons or typing looks like:
And finally the SDK documentation is located here... in case you don't want to use workflows.
Note: I work at UiPath. You should also try other automation tools like Automation Anywhere, WinAutomation, Jacada, Selenium, Ranorex use them side by side and choose the one that suits better your needs.

Recommended way to test for iOS Version specific feature at runtime

I'm targetting IOS 4.3 and 5.0 with an app built against the 5.0 SDK and would like to add support for the Twitter functionality introduced in iOS5 only when the app runs on a iOS5 device. What is the recommended way to reliably test for the availability of these OS features at runtime without having your app crash?
I know you do this using respondsToSelector in Objective-C but how is it done in C#?

With recent MonoTouch versions you can use the following code:
if (UIDevice.CurrentDevice.CheckSystemVersion (5, 0)) {
window.RootViewController = navigation;
} else {
window.AddSubview (navigation.View);
}
Otherwise you can get a string from UIDevice.CurrentDevice.SystemVersion and do some checks with your own code.

Follow up to comments, including mine...
If you want to check by feature you can do something like:
MonoTouch.Twitter.TWRequest req = new MonoTouch.Twitter.TWRequest ();
if (req.Handle == IntPtr.Zero) {
Console.WriteLine ("No Twitter support before iOS5");
}
What happens is that the selector to create the TWRequest instance will return null and the .NET object will be created in an invalid (unusable) state that you can query with the Handle property. Again YMMV, testing is key :-)