In a C# .NET 3.5 app (a mix of WinForms and WPF) I want to let the user select a folder to import a load of data from. At the moment, it's using System.Windows.Forms.FolderBrowserDialog but that's a bit lame. Mainly because you can't type the path into it (so you need to map a network drive, instead of typing a UNC path).
I'd like something more like the System.Windows.Forms.OpenFileDialog, but for folders instead of files.
What can I use instead? A WinForms or WPF solution is fine, but I'd prefer not to PInvoke into the Windows API if I can avoid it.
Don't create it yourself! It's been done. You can use FolderBrowserDialogEx -
a re-usable derivative of the built-in FolderBrowserDialog. This one allows you to type in a path, even a UNC path. You can also browse for computers or printers with it. Works just like the built-in FBD, but ... better.
Full Source code. Free. MS-Public license.
Code to use it:
var dlg1 = new Ionic.Utils.FolderBrowserDialogEx();
dlg1.Description = "Select a folder to extract to:";
dlg1.ShowNewFolderButton = true;
dlg1.ShowEditBox = true;
//dlg1.NewStyle = false;
dlg1.SelectedPath = txtExtractDirectory.Text;
dlg1.ShowFullPathInEditBox = true;
dlg1.RootFolder = System.Environment.SpecialFolder.MyComputer;
// Show the FolderBrowserDialog.
DialogResult result = dlg1.ShowDialog();
if (result == DialogResult.OK)
{
txtExtractDirectory.Text = dlg1.SelectedPath;
}
Unfortunately there are no dialogs other than FolderBrowserDialog for folder selection. You need to create this dialog yourself or use PInvoke.
So far, based on the lack of responses to my identical question, I'd assume the answer is to roll your own dialog from scratch.
I've seen things here and there about subclassing the common dialogs from VB6 and I think this might be part of the solution, but I've never seen anything about modifying what the dialog thinks it's selecting. It'd be possible through .NET via PInvoke and some other tricks, but I have yet to see code that does it.
I know it's possible and it's not Vista-specific because Visual Studio has done it since VS 2003.
Here's hoping someone answers either yours or mine!
After hours of searching for a similar solution I found this answer by leetNightShade to a working solution.
There are three things I believe make this solution much better than all the others.
It is simple to use.
It only requires you include two files (which can be combined to one anyway) in your project.
It falls back to the standard FolderBrowserDialog when used on XP or older systems.
The author grants permission to use the code for any purpose you deem fit.
There’s no license as such as you are free to take and do with the code what you will.
Download the code here.
Related
This is not a question about standard localization - I know how to localize the app, use resources, Uid's and so on - this works perfectly.
The problem is that the app comes within a bundle, therefore when the user installs the app it covers only languages that are selected in device/phone settings. But I would like to provide an option in settings that would allow choosing a language regarding the settings. For this purpose, I can use ApplicationLanguages.PrimaryLanguageOverride, which works very nice when deployed via VS, but as I've mentioned - version from the store lacks resources, as not all are installed.
Does anybody know how to bypass this bundle behavior?
The problem is also that I'm using MAT (multilingual app toolkit) and my translation comes with xliff files. I've spent quite a lot of time to find a way to convert them to resw files, without success. Is there any way to do it (or I've to write my own converter)?
You need to use ResourceContext:
var context = new ResourceContext(); // deliberately not using getForCurrentView()
context.Languages = new string() {"fr-fr"};
ResourceMap resourceMap = ResourceManager.Current.MainResourceMap.GetSubtree("Resources");
String str = resourceMap.GetValue("string1", context).ValueAsString;
More info at:
'How to load string resources' and
'ResourceContext class'ResourceContext class'.
PS. I have app in store and there is no problem with changing language without reinstall so all resources must be there
Check out this: UWP: Resource file for languages is not deployed correctly you need to get rid of bundle in order for my code from above to work. Or you could check if chosen language is installed in OS and if not you could not allow user to choose it using:
Windows.System.UserProfile.GlobalizationPreferences.Languages
I work for an IT company where we all carry around flash drives that have our most used programs on them.In my spare time I am hoping to create a "main menu" item that is kind of a fun and convenient way to access these files. I am working on creating this using Visual Studio 2013 and using visual C# windows forms. I have come across a snag however that I can't seem to find a workaround for. I am by no means fluent in C#, but I need to have a button on the windows form open a file without specifying what drive it comes from. I understand that I have to specify a path, but as these will be stored on the flash drives of myself and my coworkers I cannot foresee that the path will always begin with E:. Depending on what USB slot the drive is plugged into it could be N: or F: or the like. I have provided an example below:
Using what I currently know I am opening files using this line of code:
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("C:/Users/Myname/Desktop/Asmodeus/Anti-Virus/Anti-Virus Installers/avast_free_antivirus_setup.exe");
Is there any way possible I can have the file open simply from
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("Asmodeus/Anti-Virus/Anti-Virus Installers/avast_free_antivirus_setup.exe");
or something of that nature?
Thanks in advance.
There must have been some mis-communication when I asked my question previously. what I am looking to do is open an executable file via a button click on the windows form using a relative path. I am not able to specify the absolute path because the application will be run from a flash drive and therefore will change depending on what USB slot it is currently inserted into.
What I am hoping to accomplish is insert a line of code that will allow me to open an executable file that is located in the \bin\debug folder along with the application itself. I have a picture for clarification but apparently do not have enough reputation to post it. Thank you and sorry for the earlier confusion.
Usually you can just use Environment.GetFolderPath (MSDN) to give you what you need. It doesn't do absolutely everything, but if you need Desktop and the like, that is plenty.
Depending on the target version of .Net, the SpecialFolders exposed are not all there. It may turn out that you need more than they provide, but in your case it doesn't sound like it.
If there is more you need that is not covered in the default, check out this project. I'm sure there are others like it, but it does a little more than the default BCL version, using the API directly. It is at least something to read and learn (and translate from vb.. use an online translator, very quick). I haven't looked at it, but it seems like you are learning this c#/.net thingy, so it might be helpful
This article is about accessing Windows special folders.
These folders include your “Favorites”, “Cookies”, system libraries and the like.
Here is code, including a large number of constant definitions, plus documentation,
allowing access to and creation of these folders.
I'm wondering is there any way to use the normal shortcuts form windows like %PROGRAMFILES%, %APPDATA%,.... when using System.Diagnostics.Process.Start ?
What I want to do there is using one of those shortcuts to dynamically create the path that is being used to tart the program I want to start with Process.Start.
Example:
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("%PROGRAMFILES%\MyApp\MyApp.exe");
Edit: As a comment to the accepted answer:
As one important thing was mentioned in the comments I want to also put it here:
If the solution does not work as the file is not found, one should print out the result of the System.Environment.ExpandEnvironmentVariables command. It can be that it points unintendedly to the x86 program files location instead of the program files location (or vice versa) depending on if for the application itself (project properties) "Prefer 32-bit" or platform target is set accordingly. If that is kept in mind the solution works quite nicely.
Use System.Environment.ExpandEnvironmentVariables to perform the expansion first, then pass the result to Process.Start:
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(
System.Environment.ExpandEnvironmentVariables(#"%PROGRAMFILES%\MyApp\MyApp.exe"));
I am almost sure this does not work, however, there is an environment class in the .NET library that can return the information you are looking for.
Probably like:
// Change the directory to %WINDIR%
Environment.CurrentDirectory = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("windir");
If you use 'programfiles' instead it might work (could not check here).
You can use
Environment.GetFolderPath(System.Environment.SpecialFolder.ProgramFilesX86)`
To get the path to a special folder (in this case, 32-bit program files directory). There's more in that class that would be of help as well.
Also, I expect that Process.Start with the non-expanded path will work fine if you use UseShellExecute - the shell is capable of expanding paths on its own.
However, this is still probably a bad solution. What if the user installed your target application somewhere else? Are you sure there's no better way to get path to the application?
I'm trying to open something in ie via
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("iexplore.exe", uniquePartOfUrl);
However this doesn't account for the fact a window is already open, if it is then I want to just use that. How could this be done?
IMO, the best way to open a web page is to use the following syntax:
Process.Start("http://www.mysite.com");
This way the OS will open it in the users default browser, and use the browsers tab functionality if it has that capability. Nothing annoys me more (ok, maybe some things do) than programs that force me to use a specific browser for no good reason, when I already selected which browser I want to use already. Honoring the users decision here is a good thing.
On CodeProject, there exists a project to "Capturing the Running IE Instances in C#"
It gives you one way to do it.
Using the WIN32 API, you can enumerate the windows opened, and filter them to get the running instances of IE.
It may be helpful for you.
You can try something like this:
var p = new System.Diagnostics.Process();
var s = new System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo(uniquePartOfUrl);
s.UseShellExecute = true;
s.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Normal;
p.StartInfo = s;
p.Start();
I don't have a compiler handy to test it right now, but the idea is that it should simply tell the OS to "open this URL" and let the OS decide how, which may use the existing window depending on the application. Worth a shot.
For reusing an existing window of IE, you can approach it in 2 different ways
Find the current instance of IE and then open it using that instance. This is covered by the answer given by #LaGrandMere
Set IE using the inbuilt settings to make it reuse itself. For using this method, you can follow the instructions given at this Microsoft support article.
for extracting special folder icons I'm using
ExtractIconEx(Environment.SystemDirectory + "\\shell32.dll",ncIconIndex, handlesIconLarge, handlesIconSmall, 1);
Here im passing explicitly nIconIndex for special folders like MyDocs,MyPictures ..etc
and its working fine in XP ,however in Vista its not retrieving the correct icons ..there it retrieves yellow folder icons..it should not be the case.
Cn anybody help me on this..
Vista added a new API called SHGetStockIconInfo but it does not support my documents AFAIK. But that does not matter since the method you SHOULD be using works on both XP and Vista (Your current solution will not work when the user has selected a custom icon, you are just looking in hardcoded system dlls, this could change at any point)
So, what you should do is, get the path or PIDL to the shell folder you are interested in (SHGetFolderPath and friends) and pass that path/PIDL to SHGetFileInfo. SHGetFileInfo can give you a icon handle, or the index into the system image list.
I'm not sure what the .NET equivalent for those functions are, but you should be able to figure that out, or use PInvoke
Check out the IconLib library at codeproject.
The best example I've seen of success in this area from .NET (and it was done with VB.NET) is in this article.
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cpp/VbNetExpTree.aspx
My $.02 is that working with the shell API is extremely painful from .NET due to the level of COM interop required and the complexity of the API's.