I have created an app that makes use of file types that are not standard to Windows Phone and I have registered my app to these extensions and they can be opened in my app perfectly from example the email client.
My application can modify the file as well as generate completely different ones. I then have an internal file manager page where users can delete files and choose to open then.
My problem now is that I want the user to share these files via email, Bluetooth, tap+send(nfc), etc. with a menu pretty much like the you get in the gallery(photos) app on Windows Phone. Is this a standard function that I can somehow access, or is there another standard library or anything really that I can use to as quickly as possible implement file sharing?
There is a ShareMediaTask but it is intended for sharing media files on any kind of files, so you need to implement everything by yourself.
Related
I want to supply a bunch of files with my Windows Phone 8.1 app which are necessary for running the application. I searched on the net and found that this page. But I don't know which place in particular is the ApplicationData.Current folder. What I want is the following:-
Can I create a folder called Resources or use the existing Assets folder in my Project tree and save the files in there.
If yes, then how can I access that folder from within my App i.e. how can I open and close files in that Directory(relative or absolute addressing format to be used)? If you can provide a one or two line code for this, it would be great.
Do I have to use the ReadTextAsync method to read the entire text of the file into a string or are there any other methods.(The System.IO.File.ReadAllText() method is not accessible when creating Windows 8.1 Phone app).
Thanks in advance.
Your App is installed on SD or Phone, depending on user Settings on the Phone. You can't normally access those files eg. by browsing files while Phone is connected to computer - the apps are Isolated.
Depending on your App:
if it's 8.1 Silverlight then you will find all the information here at MSDN.
if it's 8.1 RunTime then take a look here.
Although you can't access files inside your App from outside the App, from WP8.1 you have access (read/write) to SD Card and other KnownFolders.
EDIT - you can also access your files by using Uri schemes.
I have a WinRT app that, in part, does file downloads from an online service and manages the local copy of the files. When stored locally, the files need to be encrypted, but during editing/viewing, as that happens in external editors (office, pdf, etc) they need to be decrypted.
Is there a way within the WinRT API set to launch an external browser (ie. Windows.System.Launcher.LaunchFileAsync) and somehow get notification when that app has been closed?
Right now, I can download and encrypt the file fine, but when I want to view it, I have to decrypt it and launch the external editor with no way of knowing (or even necessarily running again) when it's finished so I can re-encrypt the file.
Ideally I would like to somehow bind the external application to mine so that my app is unavailable until the external editor is closed, but would settle for notification when the app is closed or any other creative solutions.
Your app scenario looks something like skydrive app from Microsoft. It downloads files from the skydrive service, integrates with file open and file save pickers.
Try integrating with file picker contracts.
you can start here. There are sample code also available to implement file picker contracts.
I would like to download a file to the DownloadsFolder in a Windows Store App. And then I'd like to bring up a Windows Explorer open on the DownloadsFolder (actually on the folder I create in the DownloadsFolder)
But I can't figure out how to do it.
This stackoverflow question Launching a Desktop Application with a Metro-style app suggests using Launcher.LaunchUriAsync. But the documentation claims:
You cannot use this method to launch a URI in the local zone. For example, apps cannot use the file:/// protocol to access files on the local computer. Instead, you must use the Storage APIs to access files.
And indeed, I was trying to use the "file:" protocol to bring up the explorer window. When I did try this mechanism Launcher.LaunchIUriAsync fails.
If the browser can do this, why can't I?
Is there a way for me to bring up windows explorer, or is that outside the real of possibility?
I don't think you can launch the Windows Explorer from metro. One thing you can use, however, is the File Picker.
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsapps/File-picker-app-extension-0cb95155
If you're willing to have some non-Windows Store components in your solution, there is a workaround for this. Although you can't launch a process directly, you can always run a HTTP listener inside a Windows service which listens for commands from your sandboxed Windows Store (Metro-style) app and launches Explorer (or any other process) for you. A trivial way to do this would be a Web API service inside a Windows service - just implement the GET action in your controller and have arguments for the executable to launch and optionally executable arguments as well.
This is kind of doing an end-run around the sandbox security, though, so you might want to have a tailored Web API instead which just launches a pre-packaged set of apps (like Explorer or one of your own apps).
Of course, for consumer apps this is not a good solution because you can't just install everything from the Windows Store. For LOB apps, though, it's not a bad compromise because you typically have more control over the environment. This is a good way to surface some metrics or other data into a live tile and have your desktop app launch when the tile is clicked. Whether or not this makes for a good user experience is a totally different conversation.
BatRT allows you to run batch file commands from WinRT applications. It utilizes URI calls. This can be used to open up applications or perform file operations.
To summarize, as we all know,
a) Silverlight is expected to be hosted by a browser, and runs in an isolated sandbox so that there won’t be any security issues
Silverlight don’t have direct access
to the file system, other than the
isolated storage area
There is no
direct way to open common dialog
boxes like File Save in Silverlight (Though Opendialog box is supported).
b) Silverlight can’t access local resources like a printer
What are the ways to go beyond the sandbox, so that I can host a Silverlight application locally, to read files and save them back if required, to hand over data to a printer, and so on..
Update:
Is full WPF is not an option for me? No. I'm also interested in a cross platform solution - for instance, you could host Silverlight in Mono Web browser control, so that you can run it virtually anywhere.
The idea is to re-use the same application that I'm building for web in my desktop as well, by providing separation of concerns at some areas - like persistence, resource access etc.
Scenarios:
1- Some kind of gadget container, with access to local resources.
2 - A desktop Silver light based media application
Update:
I just did a POC to enable me to access printer and save files locally, of course through a shell where I'm hosting my Silverlight application. If you wan't you can have a look at the post here in my blog
Two ways I can think about is,
Create a "Shell"
Host the HTML Page with Silverlight, in a Winforms desktop application, using a web browser control, and communicate to and fro using HTML DOM. Then I can request the hosted shell to do things like printing. See details here
Mono also has a web browser control - based on FireFox XULRunner instead of IE - not yet succeeded in loading Silverlight inside that. Another option might be using Webkit.
Embed a web server
Embed a light weight web server with in the Host application, and handle requests to perform such operations. You can probably define a protocol on top of HTTP for things like saving to a local folder, sending data to print etc.
Is a full WPF application not an option for your situation?
As you probably know Silverlight uses a subset of WPF so you may be able to change your application relatively easy.
A wpf app would be easier than having a web server etc bundled within your application.
You wont in the foreseeable future be able to have access to resources such as printer and files (apart from isolated storage) through Silverlight as you know.
You could have a seperate part of your app to upload files to the webserver then read these in your silverlight app from a service.
Depending on your printing requirements (e.g. if you just want to send everything to an office printer) you could send the informaton you wanted printed to a service that will then print it for you. However I am guessing you want each client machine to be able to print in which case this wont work for you.
I am attempting to also reuse a codebase for both desktop and silverlight. There are two options that I know of in addition to the ones mentioned
If you directly reference (instead of a project reference) a silverlight dll from a normal project, it should work. This would let you reference a silverlight dll for both projects.
Have two project files (one wpf, one silverlight) that point to the same set of files. You might have to have to use a few compiler flags here and there, but this should let you use the same files for both.
Is there any way to create a virtual drive in "(My) Computer" and manipulate it, somewhat like JungleDisk does it?
It probably does something like:
override OnRead(object sender, Event e) {
ShowFilesFromAmazon();
}
Are there any API:s for this? Maybe to write to an XML-file or a database, instead of a real drive.
The Dokan Library seems to be the answer that mostly corresponds with my question, even though System.IO.IsolatedStorage seems to be the most standardized and most Microsoft-environment adapted.
Depending on what type of virtual drive you wish to build, here are some new OS API recently introduced in Windows, macOS and iOS.
Some of the below API is available as managed .NET code on Windows but many are a native Windows / macOS / iOS API. Even though, I was able to consume many of the below API in .NET and Xamarin applications and build entire Virtual Drive in C# for Windows, macOS and iOS.
For Remote Cloud Storage
On Windows. Windows 10 provides Cloud Sync Engine API for creating virtual drives that publish data from a remote location. It is also known under the “Cloud Filter API” name or “Windows Cloud Provider”. Here are its major features:
On-demand folders listing. Folder listing is made only when the first requested by the client application to the file system is made. File content is not downloaded, but all file properties including file size are available on the client via regular files API.
On-demand file content loading. File content can be downloaded in several modes (progressive, streaming mode, allow background download, etc) and made available to OS when application makes first file content reading request.
Offline files support. Files can be edited in the offline mode, pinned/unpinned and synched to/from the server.
Windows shell integration. Windows File Manager shows file status (modified, in-sync, conflict) and file download progress.
Metadata and properties support. Custom columns can be displayed in Windows File Manager as well as some binary metadata can be associated with each file and folder.
On macOS and iOS. MacOS Big Sur and iOS 11+ provides similar API called File Provider API. Its features are similar to what Windows API provides:
On-demand folders listing.
On-demand files content loading.
Offline files support.
File Manager Integration. In macOS Finder and iOS Files application you can can show file status (in the cloud, local).
I am not sure currently if files/folders and can show custom columns in macOS Finder and store any metadata.
For High-Speed Local Storage
On Windows. Windows provides ProjFS API. Its main difference from the Cloud Sync Engine API and macOS/iOS File Provider API is that it hides the fact that it is a remote storage. It does not provide any indication of the file status, download progress, ets. The documentation says it is intended for “projecting” hierarchical data in the form of file system.
You can use the Dokan library to create a virtual drive. There is a .Net wrapper for interfacing with C#.
Yes, use the classes in System.IO.IsolatedStorage
The contents of My Computer can include Shell Namespace Extensions. These COM objects run inside the main Explorer process, as do many other shell extensions. Using C# for such extensions is a bad idea, since your extension cannot control which CLR version Explorer.exe can use. And Microsoft allows only one CLR per process.