How to print using the windows Print Pictures function - windows

Question

Windows has a really useful right click -> print function for most files, but I can't figure out how to arbitrarily call this function. I've found out how to do a direct print by calling
rundll32 shimgvw.dll,ImageView_PrintTo "Absolute\Path\To\File" "Printer Name"
and I can open the photo viewer by calling
rundll32 shimgvw.dll,ImageView_Fullscreen Absolute\Path\To\File
However, the intermediate print setup GUI I can't figure out.

Answer 1

Found out how to do it! Here's an example C# program:
Few things to note:
The program owns the dialog, so it needs a while loop to stay alive
If you're going to use this, you might need this post too
using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.IO;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Windows.Forms;
namespace PrintGUI // Note: actual namespace depends on the project name.
{
internal class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("Printing file:");
Console.WriteLine(args[0]);
OpenPrintPictures(args[0]);
Console.WriteLine("Done");
while (true)
{
}
}
[ComImport]
[Guid("00000122-0000-0000-C000-000000000046")]
[InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown)]
private interface IDropTarget
{
int DragEnter(
[In] System.Runtime.InteropServices.ComTypes.IDataObject pDataObj,
[In] int grfKeyState,
[In] Point pt,
[In, Out] ref int pdwEffect);
int DragOver(
[In] int grfKeyState,
[In] Point pt,
[In, Out] ref int pdwEffect);
int DragLeave();
int Drop(
[In] System.Runtime.InteropServices.ComTypes.IDataObject pDataObj,
[In] int grfKeyState,
[In] Point pt,
[In, Out] ref int pdwEffect);
}
/// <summary>
/// Open Print Pictures dialog
/// </summary>
/// <param name="filename">File to print</param>
public static void OpenPrintPictures(string filename)
{
var dataObj = new DataObject(DataFormats.FileDrop, new string[] { filename });
var memoryStream = new MemoryStream(4);
var buffer = new byte[] { 5, 0, 0, 0 };
memoryStream.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
dataObj.SetData("Preferred DropEffect", memoryStream);
var CLSID_PrintPhotosDropTarget = new Guid("60fd46de-f830-4894-a628-6fa81bc0190d");
var dropTargetType = Type.GetTypeFromCLSID(CLSID_PrintPhotosDropTarget, true);
var dropTarget = (IDropTarget)Activator.CreateInstance(dropTargetType);
dropTarget.Drop(dataObj, 0, new Point(), 0);
}
}
}