I'm looking for a point in the right direction. We're thinking of building an app in our office, and one of the features we're looking at is to be able to open and save files from our app in other apps and applications.
We came across the File Picker Contract which, with some simple examples, seems to be what we're looking for. But the one thing missing is it only seems to be available in other Universal apps (but it doesn't seem all of them).
Using multiple examples, we were able to see our apps in our other apps, but I'm hoping to take it further. For example, I thought Office 2016 was a Universal app, so shouldn't File Picker Contract apps appear in there as well? And is there a way to add it globally to all File Open / Save Pickers (like from notepad, or the snipping tool)?
This MSDN page (article) seems to suggest the picker uses a single, unified interface. Shouldn't that be the same interface the rest of the operating system uses?
Thanks in advance.
If you have to support Classic Windows apps, filepickercontract is not a right solution. It's only applicable for 'modern'... Win8.1 store or Win10 UWP apps.
And, current office2016(for desktop) is not an UWP app, I believe. UWP ver of Office 2016 is only applicable for Win10 Mobile.
One alternative is make a shell extension. By using this, you can extend the explorer's shell space and add your own items to explorer tree. But shell extension is so complex, old and only applicable for desktop devicefamily. I don't think that now is a nice timing to implement it.
I hope this answer could help you.
Related
It seems to be a deliberate security of Windows 10 Store apps that assemblies not be allowed to be loaded at runtime. I think that this feature is massive overkill and stops UWP development dead in its tracks. However, if it is a rock solid design decision by Microsoft, there is nothing we can do to argue with it.
Instead, I'd like to ask the question, assuming that you were not deploying your UWP app to the store, would it still be impossible to load an assembly dynamically? If it's possible, how?
Please see this feature request: https://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/110705-universal-windows-platform/suggestions/18145291-dynamically-load-assembly
Regardless of what environment you deploy your UWP application to, the UWP API will be the same. Choosing to deploy your app internally instead of to the Windows Store will not enable non-supported API features, eg. Assembly.Load().
It seems as though the answer to this question is no.
The game has changed in UWP. UWP is a platform which is geared toward getting apps in to the store. It's a stripped down platform and doesn't appear to allow you to load assemblies at runtime. This was possible in .NET.
However, there does seem to be a way to run UWP style apps on top of the .NET runtime using the Desktop Bridge. I'm not really that familiar with it, but you can read more here as a starting my point. My guess is that if you want to load assemblies dynamically, the best approach would be to use this:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/porting/desktop-to-uwp-root
Does anybody of you guys have experiences with including a C#-based Console Application in a C#-based Universal Windows App?
The reason why I'm asking: I've an already exsisting Console Application developed by another developer. This Application includes a database with all the queries which I need for my App.
The problem: When I try to include the CA in my UWA project many commands like
private global::System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef
throw new global::System.ApplicationException
don't get identified by VS2015.
Is there a way to let the UWA project identify CA commands? For example with adding an external CA-library or something like that.
Thank you!
You can't combine full .NET (console, winforms, WPF) assemblies with an UWP app, as they're different .NET frameworks. For more details, please read this reply. Part of the code is shareable in a Portable Class Library (PCL), but most likely not all of the code you've written.
Possible solutions:
Create an API (yourself or with the other developer) to expose the functionality needed over a (preferably) REST api.
Find a way to cheat the system. Example: launch a file (associated to the console application) with the Launcher api and output the results to a text file on disk, which you then read from your UWP app.
The first one is guaranteed to work. You might find a way to cheat the system for the second 'solution', but there's no guarantee that it won't break in the future when Windows 10 gets updated (experienced that myself for another 'hack' on the upgrade between Windows 8 and 8.1).
Hopefully a simple question; I seem to recall seeing somebody at one of the recent Microsoft conferences say that some of the UWP application functionality was to be made available within WPF/Desktop. Unfortunately, I can no longer find (or remember) which of the many videos this was from (though it was probably Build or similar on Channel9).
Is it therefore possible to use UWP controls within a WPF application? Basically I want the look and feel of an "app", including some of the new controls (RelativePanel, SplitPanel) and the themed buttons etc., but I need the power of the full desktop - such as access to the full file system.
Thanks.
I think you are referring to the different Bridges to port apps to Windows 10 from for instance, IOS, Android, Web, Win32, etc. and still take advantage of Windows 10 features and APIs. Specifically, I think you are talking about the Bridge to bring in Win32 apps. You can find the bridges listed here.
https://dev.windows.com/en-us/bridges
•"Project Centennial": This toolkit will enable desktop developers to package and publish their existing .NET and Win32-based Windows applications to the Windows Store. Developers can also use Centennial to call common UWP APIs and services."
Ok, I have a question to which, despite my best efforts, I have not been able to solve. I searched the internet, and this is one of those that is particularly difficult to search for, but it seems that no user of Windows 8.1 nor any developers developing for Windows 8.1 has posted to any website asking how to do this (I could be wrong, of course).
What I am trying to do is make a Windows Store app targeting Windows 8.1, that takes advantage of multiple Windows. To see what I mean, open up metro ie, right click on a tab, and click "open in new window." This is also in the mail app, where you can open a single message in another window, which behaves like a separate app, and can be snapped like so. It's a new feature of the Windows 8.1 OS.
But I can't for the life of me figure out how to do it in C# and XAML. Does anyone know how? Thanks.
Alex
There are new APIs in Windows.UI.ViewManagement, namely the ApplicationViewSwitcher and ProjectionManager classes. The former is for working with multiple independent views that the user can arrange side by side on whatever monitors they have, which is what IE and Mail use; the latter is for working with multiple monitors.
See the Application Views sample along with the Projection sample for working both scenarios in code.
Might be bit late with my answer, nevertheless I had your similar apprehensions about the "Dismal Support Refs" for this subject, when I first began searching the topic. However I have been able to overcome this and use the feature in my apps. There are some good refs available; The Windows Dev Centre has a Quickstart ie "Quiskstart Creating Multiple Windows", a Good guide is the "MultipleViews" Sample, With the following providing additional support.
1) "Be two places at once using multiple windows" at
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2014/01/09/be-two-places-at-once-using-multiple-windows/#pBHiQtDSPFrCA7Gv.97
2) "MultipleViews for Windows 8.1 apps" (parts 1-3)
http://www.kraigbrockschmidt.com/2013/11/21/multiple-views-creating-view/
BQ at WATERVIEW
Anyone know of any good references for building applications for IE 8? I found this http://www.apress.com/book/view/1430228539 (but not yet released)
for example: I would like to build a simple toolbar app that records visited websites. That possible?
Or are they other suggestions on how to build this type of application?
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa753587%28v=VS.85%29.aspx
MSDN seems like the ideal source.