I am building a game which loads its map from a text file.
While creating the parts that handle maps, I simply kept the text file in the content folder and fetched it by its Windows filepath. This won't work for proper deployment (or even running the game from different drives) because it requires that the filepath be exactly the same.
I looked around for a way to include the text file the same way I would a Texture2D, but I cannot find any class that allows me to use it. Some answers to other questions suggested that I just use the text file from my content folder? How would I do that? My program's name is IslandQuest (placeholder; it doesn't even involve an island) so would I place the text file in the IslandQuestContent folder generated by XNA Studio? How would I access it from there such that its filepath doesn't depend on the drive configuration of a computer?
Thanks for any help.
This may not be the best way to do this but just looked back at what I did in my first year at university with XNA,
I added my txt file to the contents folder. Then in the properties for the file (select it in the solution explorer and view properties window) there should be "Copy to Output Directory", make sure this is copy if newer.
Then its just a case of
string.Format("Content/{0}.txt", filename)
I do think this can be improved perhaps by the following but it is untested
Path.Combine(Content,filename +".txt");
In my case I was reading XML file files from a data folder in my main project.
So under my project in Solution explore I had this set up:
WindowsPhoneGame1
...
data/
content.xml
Game1.cs
Program.cs
etc...
Where properties for content.xml were Build Action: Content and Copy to Output Directory: Copy always
In the class that read the file I used TitleContainer.OpenStream Method which according to the docs:
Returns a stream to an existing file in the default title storage
location. .... The stream returned is read-only. The file to be read must already exist, or this method will fail.
My example code
//open stream
Stream stream = TitleContainer.OpenStream("data/content.xml");
//do something with it...
Create a "Content" folder in your main project.
Put the files that cannot be put in the Content project in there.
Be sure to set all your content Build actions to Content and Copy Always.
The Content folder from your main project and the content in the content project will end up in the same folder when built.
The file path would still be "Content/file.ext" or whatever.
Related
In my project , i have a download button in jqgrid. When I click this button the appropriate file must be downloaded, but here is my problem; all these files come from different folders, so I cannot set a folder name in mappath. I saw different code for downloading, but in every case there has to be a folder name.
I have gound one solution for this; to bind the folder name & file name in a grid ,but there is a huge amount of data and I cannot change the database.
My question is: how can I download a file without a giving folder name?
but here my problem is all these files come different folders, so i
cannot give folder name in mappath
you can't download a file without knowing the virtual or absolute path. In your case, you want to download a file, but certainly (your code)doesn't know where it resides. more accurately, your code doesn't have a clue to provide the path of the file.
You should be able to provide a mechanism to down the file(be it keeping the file path in a DB table or a mapping of user to folder), you wont get a generic solution to your issue.
I am new in c# and i really love it but i wanna know if i add a file(for example an image file) to my project and if do not copy it to application folder how can i use it?
For example the name of file is file.jpg and i write this event handler for a button:
picturebox1.image=image.FromFile(#"file.jpg")
// it won't show me because it is not copied to app folder.
How to use it without copying?
Obviously you must distribute the picture somehow. It can be as a resource (the picture will then be copied into the exe) or as contents (the file will be copied into the app's folder).
If you use the Contents solution, you should not assume that the current directory is the directroy of the application. You should then write something like:
pictureBox1.ImageLocation = Path.Combine(
Path.GetDirectoryName(Application.ExecutablePath),
"file.jpg");
Otherwise, you'll have to know the full path of the image file.
I'm working on a simple progam, and part of it populates a list from a txt file.
this probably is not a smart question but, I didn't find any info on this.
I was wondering where is the best place to put text files in the application directory.
O know about the Resouces but, I wasn't able to get the path of the file I stored there.
so 2 questions:
where is the best place to put a txt file? (or any other importent file to use in the application)
if I put files in the Resources how do I get its path ?
(sorry fo my English)
If these are files that you do not need to expose to the users and only serve an internal purpose, then you can embed them in your assembly as resources, and extract them when you need them.
To do this, create a new directory in your application. Let's call it 'Resources'. Then, add text files to it. Use the properties window of each text file to change the BuildAction setting to "Embedded Resource". Then, in your code once you need the contents of the file you can use code like this to extract it:
using System.Reflection;
// ...
using (Stream stream = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream("MyApplication.Resources.MyFile.txt")) {
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(stream)) {
string contents = reader.ReadToEnd();
// Do stuff with the text here
}
}
If you don't want to do this, the correct location to place files is in a directory you create under the AppData directory. This is a known system path, which you can obtain like this:
string folderLocation = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData);
string myPath = Path.Combine(folderLocation, "MyAppName");
You can then use a StreamReader or other class in System.IO to find/enumerate and read the files.
When an application has associated/companion data files it sometimes makes sense to embed them as a Resource, because then there is less chance for them to be tampered with e.g. deleted, or the data modified.
And other times it makes sense to keep the file loose....so you have to decide the best place to store them....you can locate these in the place where the application is installed, or in the Application Data/AppData directory.
For embedding files in Resources have a look at this link:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319292
It has a step-by-step guide showing how to embed a file (e.g. a Text file into Resources), and then using a StreamReader to access it and read its contents.
To store the files and access them from a suitably located directory you can use:
System.Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData
with
Environment.GetFolderPath()
to find out where the AppData directory is.
Then when you create your application Setup/Installer, you should get it to create a directory for your application underneath AppData, and then you can decide what files you want to be installed into that location.
See:
Saving a file to Application Data in c#
Note, ApplicationData "roams"...i.e. when you logon to a different machine, the files are transferred onto that machine as part of your profile....you may not want this....so you could instead use:
System.Environment.SpecialFolder.CommonApplicationData
I would like to load a custom file put as a resource file in my silverlight application, but the FileStream doesn't works (since I must stay in a partial trust environnment).
Is there any solution to load my file? (it is a binary serialized data).
UPDATE
Answer found :
I put my file as a "Resource" (not embedded neither content or anything else)
Loaded it like this :
StreamResourceInfo info = Application.GetResourceStream(new Uri(#"/Utilitaires;component/Resources/" + name, UriKind.Relative));
And then using the "info.Stream" property.
Now, I have an other asking. By doing like this, the file is added to the assembly (to the exe/dll), and make it a bit bigger.
But since these datas need to be loaded at the same time as the assembly, should I let them as a resource, or use another method to load them separatly? (and what should be the method? I need it to work in local as well as on a server).
Thanks,
KiTe
Since you need the resource at the same time as you load the assembly then the only other reason to place the file outside the Xap would be to allow the file to be modified without modifying the Xap.
Personally I would include the file as "Content" rather than "Resource". This means that the file ends up as an entry in the Xap (which is just a Zip file) rather than inside a dll.
You still use GetResourceStream to access it but the Url becomes something like:-
new Uri(#"/Assets/" + name, UriKind.Relative)
Where Assets is a folder you create in your project to store additional files, also name should include a file extension.
Using this approach kind of gives you the best of both worlds. The file is included in the Xap but if for some reason the file content needs to be modified the Xap can be opened as a Zip file and the file replaced.
I have successfully been able to build content into my winform using Winform Series 1 and Winform Series 2 but my question is, how do you get the content to be loaded back into the editor the next time you open it. The content, .xnb, file is currently being saved to a temp folder. Is there anyway to have the content be loaded back into the editor with out having to go and build each file again?
Could I just save it to the Content folder inside the bin/ folder and then look through that folder at the start up and look for .xnb files and just load them? or is there an easier way to this?
In the second WinForms sample there is a HTML readme file that describes how the application saves built content to a temporary directory and then deletes it when the program closes.
This is the important bit:
Depending on your application, you might prefer to always use the same temporary directory name, and never delete it. This will leave files lying around on your hard drive. The content build process is incremental. If your program tries to load the same content files that were already built during a previous run, you will not need to carry out any actual processing work. This can speed up loading times for programs such as level editors that are likely to want to load the same files each time they start up.
It says that deleting the temporary directory "is handled by ContentBuilder.DeleteTempDirectory, which is called by Dispose". So simply find the call to DeleteTempDirectory and remove it.
The readme file describes in more detail how the temporary directory is selected (and why). You could modify CreateTempDirectory to suit your application better. For example if your editor has "level" files, you might want to save your built content (.xnb files) in a subdirectory with the same name, next to your level, so that your game can easily open the built content.
Once your files are being kept between sessions - all you have to do is reload them. The two obvious ways are to store a list of the files that are open, and reload it next session. Or simply open everything that is in your output directory:
Here is some rough code to do the latter (assuming no subdirectories):
string folder = #"C:\TemporaryXNAFilesOrWhatever";
List<Texture2D> textures = new List<Texture2D>();
ContentManager content = new ContentManager(serviceProvider, folder);
string[] files = Directory.GetFiles(folder, "*.xnb");
foreach(string file in files)
{
string assetName = Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(file);
textures.Add(content.Load<Texture2D>(assetName));
}