We can open our app with "appname.exe filename.pdf", so you can open a pdf with our program. On other places (like in the admin settings) you can open .xml or .json files. For opening files inside the app we use the Microsoft.Win32.OpenFileDialog.
When you use this control windows seems to store the selected file in the registry and links it with the app it was selected with. After opening the app, when you right click on the app symbol in the taskbar, you can see all files that were selected with the OpenFileDialog. We would like to disable this behaviour or modify the files, so only .pdf files are stored there. Or (when you open such a file by other means like drag'n'drop or so on) add these files manually or remove not .pdf files like the .xml files.
After some search (most solutions are for OpenSaveMRU which is WinXP, etc.) I found a registry key HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ComDlg32\OpenSavePidlMRU. There are a mass of keys and folders with subkeys, mostly with file extensions. But there are all encrypted. So it is hard to see with the eye what entries are for what. To decrypt these settings there shall be something like this:
https://learn.microsoft.com/de-de/windows/win32/api/shlobj_core/nf-shlobj_core-shgetpathfromidlista
After showing this dialog and pressing OK inside it is stored:
Microsoft.Win32.OpenFileDialog openDlg = new Microsoft.Win32.OpenFileDialog()
{
CheckFileExists = true,
DefaultExt = ".pdf",
DereferenceLinks = true,
Filter = AppStrings.FileType_PDF + "|*.pdf" + AppStrings.FileType_ZIP + "|*.zip|" + AppStrings.FileType_All + "|*.*",
Multiselect = true,
Title = AppStrings.Title_OpenFile,
ValidateNames = true
};
Has someone any experience with these stored entries and modifiying them or does anybody know how to disable this storing?
Related
I have a problem Where I cant make my program automatically read the given file path inside the .dat and be ready to launch the program when pressing launch file without opening openFileDialog and choosing the program every time.
the code im using here is for the user to enter the file path for the first time then create a file path .dat file and it works with now issues.
using (OpenFileDialog openFileDialog = new OpenFileDialog())
{
string desktop = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop);
string path = Path.Combine(desktop, "LS\\Fail-SafePath.dat");
openFileDialog.InitialDirectory = filePath;
openFileDialog.Filter = " PlayGTAV (*.exe)|PlayGTAV.exe";
openFileDialog.FilterIndex = 1;
openFileDialog.RestoreDirectory = true;
if (openFileDialog.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
{
filePath = openFileDialog.FileName;
var fileStream = openFileDialog.OpenFile();
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(fileStream))
{
fileContent = reader.ReadToEnd();
}
using (StreamWriter sw = File.CreateText(path))
{
sw.WriteLine(filePath);
}
After that that i have a start button for it
private void panel21_MouseClick(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
Process.Start(filePath);
}
This works well when the user does it for the first time but now I want it to read that .dat file path automatically without having to ask the user for the file path every single time which I don't know how to do and need help with please.
I was thinking to do it like that: When Pressing the Launch button (After the first time) The Program Checks if the Fail-SafePath.dat Exists if Yes it reads the lines from it and starts the program from the given path without opening OpenFileDialog.
I'm Using Visual Studio, Windows Form.
If it's a file that the application will always need, then something like you mentioned:
I was thinking to do it like that: When Pressing the Launch button (After the first time) The Program Checks if the Fail-SafePath.dat Exists if Yes it reads the lines from it and starts the program from the given path without opening OpenFileDialog.
Could work easily enough. You could have your application look for it in the default location, and if not there, have your user select it.
Another solution could be using something like Application Settings or User Settings, which are values persisted between executions of .NET projects.
Depending on your full application design, you could also have the file path and other settings stored in some database or other data storage. There are a lot of ways to accomplish this.
EDIT: To elaborate further on the Application Settings
The application settings are very easy to read and write to.
You just need to create the ones you want, before trying to use them.
They can be created by:
Open Visual Studio.
In Solution Explorer, expand the Properties node of your project.
Double-click the .settings file in which you want to add a new setting. The default name for this file is Settings.settings.
In the Settings designer, set the Name, Value, Type, and Scope for your setting. Each row represents a single setting.
To read from your settings:
this.FilePath= Properties.Settings.Default.FilePath;
To write to and save the setting:
Properties.Settings.Default.FilePath= Path.GetFullPath("importantFilePath");
Properties.Settings.Default.Save();
I have a problem where if you set the filename in the dialog box to a sub directory within the initial directory you set it to and then clicking 'Save', the dialog window doesn't actually save the file but opens the sub directory which I could still interact with.
For example If I set the initial directory for the dialog to 'C:\MainDir' and that directory consists of SubDir1, SubDir2, then in the save file dialog I could see that I am in the initial directory with two sub directories. If I set the filename to SubDir1 (no extension) in the dialog, and then I hit 'Save', what happens is instead of saving the file as 'filename.extension' the dialog opens the directory specified by the file name.
Here's what I currently have:
SaveFileDialog dlg = new SaveFileDialog();
dlg.DefaultExt = ext;
dlg.AddExtension = true;
dlg.FileName = filename;
dlg.Filter = filter;
dlg.FileOk += OnFileDialogOk;
dlg.InitialDirectory = dir;
bool? dlgRes = dlg.ShowDialog();
Is this something that can be easily fixed?
Quick Answer: No.
You cannot override the default save method of Windows OS.
What you can do is perhaps to verify whether the filename you wanted to use (in this instance, SubDir) exists already as a directory. If it does, then you would need to change that name, as that will only manifest the behavior you've already seen.
Side Note: Just imagine you have a very important folder which contains critical files, and Windows would let you save a file that is named with that directory. That is a disaster waiting to happen.
The only ways I can think of doing this are a bit extreme:
You could roll your own dialog
You could modify the functionality of the standard dialog
The answers found here: Customizing OpenFileDialog could help with that.
I guess I should also note that while it may seem helpful to accommodate this kind of input and automatically append the extension, it'll be counter-intuitive to many users who will expect the default behaviour.
In short, I'd probably think twice about this.
I'm using OpenFileDialog (.Net Framework 4, Windows 10) and I've noticed that it will allow the user to specify a URL as the file name (e.g., http://somewebsite/picture.jpg). This is very useful for my application, so I don't intend to disable it. The way it works is downloading the file into the user's temp directory and returning the temporary file name in the dialog's Filename property. This is nice, except for the fact that the user starts to build up garbage in his/her temp directory.
I would like to tell when a file was downloaded by the OpenFileDialog class (as opposed to a previously existing file), so I can clean up by deleting the file after use. I could check if the file's directory is the temp directory, but that's not very good since the user might have downloaded the file him/herself.
I've tried intercepting the FileOK event and inspect the Filename property to see if it is an HTTP/FTP URI, but despite what the documentation says ("Occurs when the user selects a file name by either clicking the Open button of the OpenFileDialog") it is fired after the file is downloaded, so I don't get access to the URL: the Filename property already has the temporary file name.
EDIT: This is an example of what I'like to do:
Dim dlgOpenFile As New System.Windows.Forms.OpenFileDialog
If dlgOpenFile.ShowDialog(Me) <> Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK Then Return
''//do some stuff with dlgOpenFile.Filename
If dlgOpenFile.WasAWebResource Then
Dim finfo = New IO.FileInfo(dlgOpenFile.Filename)
finfo.Delete()
End If
In this example, I've imagined a property to dlgOpenFile "WasAWebResource" that would tell me if the file was downloaded or originally local. If it's the first case, I'll delete it.
There's no obvious way to do this, but as a workaround, how about checking where the file lives? It looks like by default this dialog downloads files to the users Temporary Internet Files directory, so you could introduce some code that looks something like this:
FileDialog dialog = new OpenFileDialog();
if (dialog.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
{
string temporaryInternetFilesDir = Environment.GetFolderPath(System.Environment.SpecialFolder.InternetCache);
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(temporaryInternetFilesDir) &&
dialog.FileName.StartsWith(temporaryInternetFilesDir, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase))
{
// the file is in the Temporary Internet Files directory, very good chance it has been downloaded...
}
}
I have an OpenFileDialog and I only want to allow .txt as a valid file for the users.
I know I can add a Filter to the OpenFileDialog like so:
var dialog = new OpenFileDialog();
dialog.DefaultExt = ".txt";
dialog.Filter = "Text Files (*.txt)|*.txt";
var result = dialog.ShowDialog();
// Do something with the result
The problem however, is that I can still directly say something like "test.jpg" in the OpenFileDialog and then it opens this uploads this .jpg file. (Obviously it goes wrong somewhere later, but that doesn't matter for now.) I just want to know how I can restrict the user to only add ".txt" files, nothing else? (By directly validation it inside the OpenFileDialog, instead of doing it somewhere later.)
You cant do that only in OpenFileDialog and even if you could its a bad limitation.
Using the *.txt example there are multiple files extensions that are plain text inside, *.bat or all the codding file extensions *.cs, *.js, etc...
You should not limit the user on what file he can put on it.
For more complex file types if your program cant handle the file passed by the user you should show an error not prevent the user from passing the file.
According to this msdn article one of the sources for InitialDirectory property used in FileDialog is:
A path that was previously used in the program, perhaps retained from the last directory or file operation.
...
So if you selected your first file from folder x, the next time you try to select a file it will open up the FileDialog with with folder x selected (saving you having to navigate there).
Playing around with notepad this seems to carry across opening a file, saving a file, opening a file and even when printing with "Microsoft XPS Document Writer" which brings up it's own dialog.
So my question is where is this value stored between dialogs? I would like to be able to see what it is and potentially change it? The specific area i would like to change it is in the "Microsoft XPS Document Writer" printer which brings up it's own dialog. So it's not as simple as just setting the initalDirectory Value.
It's stored in the registry, somewhere in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ComDlg32\ (LastVisitedPidlMRU).
You should take a look at this link:
MRU locations are what you are looking at!
Here's a way for accessing it:
var openFileDialog1 = new OpenFileDialog();
string path = openFileDialog1.InitialDirectory;
// you can change path if you want
openFileDialog1.InitialDirectory = path;
// after you are donw you can display you dialog
if (openFileDialog1.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
{
// do something
}
Another way is to use Directory.SetCurrentDirectory method which sets the application's current working directory
And from Microsoft website, it is stored at this location in the registry:
//The MRU lists for Windows Explorer-style dialog boxes are stored by file type for each user in the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ComDlg32\OpenSaveMRU
hope this helps