In the distant past you could open a URL in the browser like:
int rc = ShellExecute(hwndMain,"open","iexplore.exe",URL,NULL,SW_SHOWNORMAL);
However, if you want to distribute your app in the Microsoft Store ShellExecute is not allowed any more.
Is there a trusted way to open a (help page) link in the user's Edge browser?
Related
I have developed a very basic Outlook Web Add In, with the purpose of loading a Power Apps app by using an iframe object with a URL pointing to the app, all this from Office 365 on desktop devices.
It works as intended and, when loading, Power Apps asks the user to login first, this isn't the app itself asking to login, but Power Apps asking the user to identify first and then loading the app. This also works, at least on some devices.
It has come to my attention that some users can't make it past the login request, as instead of opening a browser tab and showing the login form, the iframe in the Add In, shows this message, which, obviously, makes users think the app isn't working:
This app isn't working. Refresh your browser or try again later
Apparently this message is not that uncommon and at least from what I've read it isn't clear enough either.
Besides that, Windows is displaying this message:
You'll need a new app to open this about link
I'm not even sure what it means, but it shows a list with zero apps that can open this "about link", and the option to go the Windows Store.
What should happen (and happens on some devices):
User is shown login request (by Power Apps)
User logs in
App is loaded and shown to the user
What happens (only on some devices):
User is shown login request (by Power Apps)
Windows can't open a web browser, so the user can't log in
Message saying app isn't working appears, because app was never loaded.
As I don't quite understand why this only happens on some cases, I have been testing the issue, and I have found that when the Power Apps login button is clicked, a file called ielowutil.exe, which apparently stands for Internet Low MIC Utility Tool, is executed before the web browser is shown with the login screen, and this only happens on the devices that can eventually load the app, the ones that fail never run this program.
From what I understand this file is related to Internet Explorer.
The Outlook Web Add In is already working within a web browser, according to Microsoft the browser is chosen automatically (Browsers used by Office Add-ins), so if it's already opened then I don't quite understand why it can't open a new tab/window.
The combination of system requirements for Office Add-ins and Power Apps may be the cause of the error here. While some combinations of platforms and Office versions still support IE 11 for add-ins and may default to opening URLs in IE per Browsers used by Office Add-ins and Support Internet Explorer 11, it looks like IE is no longer supported by Power Apps (see Supported browsers for running Power Apps).
For users who experience the issue you mentioned because of IE, you may need to add an alternate experience for the add-in to gracefully fail (see Determine at runtime if the add-in is running in Internet Explorer) or consider a different solution for hosting the Power Apps app.
In firefox mobile for android there is an option called "request desktop site".
I want to know if there is the oposite for desktop, to request the site like a mobile browser.
I know that in the developer panel there is a "responsive design mode", but it only adapts the screen size, it does not request the site as a mobile phone (different from the "request desktop site", that in fact request the desktop version using a desctop user agent name)
In the comments of my question, the answer was given so I will post it as such(thanks to #Dexter).
For changing the site requested, the user agent must be changed (because the user agent is what pages use to identify weather the client is on desktop or on mobile). An extension like User Agent Switcher can do the job.
Install the extension from here
Select the wanted user agent in the extension menu
reload the page
Not a duplicate of: "How to open URL in Microsoft Edge from the command line?": This question is not a duplicate of the question linked above. The question linked above is about having Edge display a specified URL when launched from the command line. This question is about how a program external to the browser is launched by clicking on a link from within a web browsers such as Chrome and Firefox. I would appreciate it if someone would reopen this.
I was wondering how Microsoft is able to open up their applications such as Store and Edge from my browser.
For example when I'm using Google Chrome,
On their site at the top there is a message saying (it only seems to appear if you use Windows) "Try Microsoft Edge".
If you press Get started there is a confirmation screen that launches Edge. This is from Chrome but it seems to work in Firefox as well.
This can also be seen on the Microsoft Web Store, which opens the Store on Windows 10 (once again this only works if you're on Windows)
As far as I know application cannot be launched from a webpage so how do they do it?
What the WP7 application needs to do?
- download some others applications and install them automatically on the device.
The device will send first a request to a web server with some rules and will receive an answer containing the links to the applications that need
to be downloaded and installed on the device.
As far as I read, the Marketplace is the only way to get apps on a Windows Phone 7 device, so let's suppose that the applications I want to
install are already on the Marketplace and I can refer to each one by their links (according to this post).
Can I download programmatically an application from the MarketPlace (having the link to it) in another application and install it
on the device?
I do not want to open the app link in browser because this opens the Marketplace hub and points me to the application location.
Just for my curiosity: every time you want to install an application from Marketplace you need to sign in with a Windows Live ID?
Thanks & Regards,
Paul
You cannot dynamically download or execute code or install applications on WP7. The closest you can get is launching a MarketplaceDetailTask which directs the user to a page on the marketplace where they can choose to download the application.
The user's Live ID remains signed in until they sign out from Settings so, no, they don't have to sign in more than once.
Is there a way to open the Windows Phone 7 marketplace from a page being viewed in the mobile browser.
In an WP7 app I can do this:
MarketplaceDetailTask marketplaceDetailTask = new MarketplaceDetailTask();
marketplaceDetailTask.ContentIdentifier = "3cc99ca6-f0e6-df11-a844-00237de2db9e";
marketplaceDetailTask.Show();
On the desktop I can do this in a web page:
http://social.zune.net/redirect?type=phoneApp&id=3cc99ca6-f0e6-df11-a844-00237de2db9e
Is there a way to do this from a web page in the mobile browser?
The URL format to launch Marketplace on the phone when a user clicks on a URL is:
zune://navigate/?appID={app guid}
So for your app that would be:
zune://navigate/?appID=3cc99ca6-f0e6-df11-a844-00237de2db9e
If you want this hyperlinked in the browser simply wrap with a href tag.
Download Marketplace Search
The browser on Windows Phone 7 emulator doesn't support direct (type -> navigate) application navigation. What Omar is showing won't work if you type it up in the emulator because there are internal restrictions as to what protocols can called directly, and zune is not one of the supported protocols.
It will, however, work from the email application and the browser as a link.
The rules for marketplace links changed and the zune:// links are no longer valid.
The proper format for the deep link is:
http://windowsphone.com/s?appid=the_app_id
The appid is the guid assigned to your app and can be found on the details screen for your app in the app hub.
The advantage of this format is that it is a direct link to the app in the user's localized marketplace.
On a Windows Phone, this link opens the web browser, which immediately launches the marketplace app.