How to make Flash ActiveX control compatible on deployment machine? - c#

The application used the ActiveX control axshockwaveflash, when you install and deploy the application on another machine there is a problem of compatibility version Flash, how to solve this problem? Can someone experienced in the past?

Hello friend from Russia. I think you're seeking a solution to use both languages.
In fact, with C#, you can make Silverlight applications, which can do some of the functions that Flash provides, such as simple animations, form elements, and even camera & microphone. End users need to install Silverlight player in their browsers ( supported by Mac OS X & Windows ).
With Flash ( ActionScript ), you can make Flash animations as well as games. End users need to install Flash player in their browsers ( Google Chrome has built-in Flash player ).
In short, you need only either language to bring your contents to end users. No need to use ActiveX as it is commonly disabled / blocked by browsers.

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Embedding web page into industrial pc

I’m looking for a way to embed a single page style web application into an industrial pc that’s running TwinCAT 3 plc to control an automation system. The hmi on this system is already written in c# using the beckhoff ads dll. What I’m having trouble with is how to embed the server that’s reading and writing data to my plc instance and the web page front end into one application. I’m looking to use c# or python as those are the languages that I have experience in. I would like to be able to log into this webpage by the up address of the Pc and get a page on a phone or laptop that allows elements on the screen to be interacted with like buttons and a joystick style control for creating motion on the machine.
Which OS is the PLC running on? If WinCE, its a bit trickier. You'll need VS2008 to compile against the NET35CF for C#.
With a "full" version of windows, things become simpler - you can use whichever version of .NET will fit on the controller, or whichever version of Python supports the python ADS library.
After that, create your connections into the PLC as per the Beckhoff ADS examples when required by your web page.
Of course you will need to manage the web server accordingly. Some Beckhoff PLCs already use IIS for basic diagnostics, so you would have to set up an appropriate route to your page to avoid conflict.

I'm developing a simple cross platform system tray application. Here are the requirements, which tools should I use?

I hope you can help!
In brief, what I need is something like a cross platform web browser, with little or no chrome, that is easily distributable and allows the (local and remote) HTML pages running in it to receive messages (JavaScript?) when system global hotkeys are pressed.
I'm developing a desktop application which will utilise an existing web-based REST API. I would like this app to be cross-platform (Windows, Mac OS and Linux) and have a consistent interface across all platforms. The app runs in the system tray and uses global hotkeys for convenient access to a lot of it's functions without having to open the main UI window.
I have already written a rough initial version of the app using C#/Windows Forms, but there are a few issues. It currently uses unmanaged Win32 code to provide support for global hotkeys, which is not cross-platform even if I ported it to Mono. Plus, it's really not very pretty...
Ideally, I'd like to build the UI using traditional web technologies like XHTML/CSS and use JavaScript/AJAX to communicate with the remote API, which is why I thought Adobe AIR would be a good solution—but unfortunately it still doesn't support global hotkeys. I've also looked at XULRunner but I'm not sure I properly understand what that's intended for.
So the basic requirements for whichever combination of tools I will use are:
Allow me to create the user interface in XHTML/CSS/JavaScript
JavaScript to remotely communicate with the web API via AJAX
Allow the app to show—and be accessible via—a tray icon (in whatever OS it's running on)
Allow the app to respond to global hotkeys (again, in whatever OS it's running on)
Does anyone have any advice for me on this? I'm open to any suggestions and examples, no matter the language or tool.
Edit: I just stumbled across Nokia's Qt Toolkit, does anyone have any experience with this?
I think AIR application is a good solution. For the global hotkeys there are some "alternatives" Can I assign a global hotkey to an Adobe AIR app?

Invoke Flash methods from C# (MONO)

Using .NET (Windows), you can embed an ActiveX Flash player into a Windows form, load a swf file and set variables or invoke functions with single method calls from C# (I imagine because of the presence of a Flash OCX).
That said, I would like to do the same thing in MONO (Linux): how could this be possible?
Is it possible to "embed" an HTML page, using some (system controlled) prefered renderer (like firefox)? In that case it might be possible to get a flash in there and control it through javascript... It does sound a bit far-fetched though.
If you do manage to get the flash in there, you might be able to communicate with it through a TCP/IP connection from the flash to your program.
Flash takes the form of an ActiveX (i.e. COM) DLL on Windows because that's the preferred extensbility platform for Internet Explorer. In other browsers, and on other platforms, Flash takes a different form, using the browser plugin API I believe. Since ActiveX is a no-go on Linux, perhaps it might be possible to implement a plugin host of some sort that can make the Flash plugin think it's running inside a browser. This would probably be "non-trivial" as they say, but theoretically possible.

Vector Graphics on Windows Mobile

I have to make an application that runs on both Windows (XP/Vista) and Windows Mobile. The graphics interface must be scalable (for different resolutions) and the controls must be custom (like the ones usually found on music apps).
SVG was my instant choice but the lack of support on Windows Mobile pretty much kill my time budget. I've tried to evaluate WMF and it seems the right answer but i don't really like it.
I was thinking about WPF/XAML but i don't know what are the differences between Windows and Windows Mobile.
The project must be in C# or C++ and it's a commercial project (thus no GPLed libraries).
What would be the best choice? What ma I overlooking?
WinForms has limited support for scaling:
http://sellsbrothers.com/writing/winformsAutoScaling.htm
You may also want to look at "anchor" and "docking":
https://web.archive.org/web/1/http://articles.techrepublic%2ecom%2ecom/5100-10878_11-6165908.html
Combined together you should be able to create a UI that works for both desktop and mobile.
You can do scaling UI in .NET compact framework, like Erwin said with docking and achoring. In the windows mobile applications i have written i do normaly have to write some custom code that deals with things like Font scaling ( Touch founds might need bigger Font then system default if the text should be clickable).
I dont think your going to get it to scale picture correctly without code, i found some question releated that on this site. In my experience i write 99.9% of my code so it runs fine on both windows and windows mobile, but i do make a different UI for windows mobile.
If normaly write code in .NET 2.0 / .NET 2.0 Compact Framework, but if your you dont care about having to install .NET 3 then it should be better ( .NET 2 is wider spread out then .NET 3 )
Another option is the Qt library which is written in C++. It is LGPL which means that it can be used in commercial products without having to release your sources (except for changes to the library itself). If for some reason that isn't good enough they also sell commercial licenses.
It runs on Windows and Windows Mobile. As a bonus if you do a reasonable job of programming (and assuming everything else you're doing coding wise supports it) your application can also be run on Mac OSX, Linux and S60.
It has support for Scalable Vector Graphics, a Canvas with full widget support and a bunch of other nifty features as well! I'd suggest checking out the documentation and seeing if it has everything you need.
Silverlight?

Can Adobe Air be the best solution for a Mac and iPhone application?

We are at a crossroad as what development tool to use for our application. We do not know if
we will go for Adobe Air or use the traditional road which is Objective-C and Cocoa. The software is similar to www.riffmasterpro in functionality. Is Air the best solution here?
Well, firstly, Flash isn't supported on iPhone so there is no Air platform for iPhone (at least, none that I know of - correct me if I'm wrong).
Secondly, native Objective-C applications on Mac will always surpass Air applications with regards to how well they tie into the OS. An example of this is TweetDeck. It's an amazing application but it just doesn't feel like a Mac app (no meaningful menus, no growl integration, etc...). Mac users are typically very specific with regards to how their apps behave.
I would advise that if you want to write Mac applications (and iPhone applications) to rather stick with Objective-C.
If your primary concern is cross-platform (with the exception of iPhone) then Air is an option worth considering.
If you're looking to build an app solely for the Mac/iPhone platform, I would suggest using Objective-C instead. Adobe AIR's strength is that it can be installed and used cross-platform with little problem.
One of the downsides of that, though, is that performance will never be as good as something that ties directly into the operation system.
problem of using middle frameworks is that you will never have the potential of the hardware, in other worlds you will not be able to use any feature that Mac/Windows can give to you by the hardware, you wll always be attached to what the framework will give to you and hope that you can do everything that you need...
specially in your music application.
regarding the Adobe Air framework, it is a good idea to cover both Linux, Mac and Windows computers but you will not be able to run it under the iPhone because there is no Adobe Flash supported... Adobe is making a flash player for the iPhone, but I do believe that will ot support Air, at least by the near future.
For the iPhone you can build a Web Application or a SDK Application, the last on, and if you will use SDK 3.0, you will find plenty of good things to use it to, but you need to develop a full application from sctrath.

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