I want to distribute my UWP app using side-loading.
I have created the .appxbundle using Visual Studio, and also EV code-signed it.
So, when the user clicks on the .appxbundle file, my app is properly installed and the user can start working with it!
In this way, I can place such .appxbundle on my website, and the users can download and install it. Marvelous.
Now, I would like to customize each download, by adding a file with some tracking information to attribute a download e.g. to a specific ad campaign that I am running.
So my server can generate a ZIP file containing the .appxbundle and a little .txt file containing the tracking info (I need to generate a separate file because the signed .appxbundle takes too long - several minutes - to regenerate each time).
The user then unzips the ZIP file, clicks on the .appxbundle and installs the app.
The tricky part is that, during the installation of the app, I would like to copy the .txt file into the LocalState folder of the app that is being installed.
Is it possible?
How can I do that?
Thanks!
If your users are going to install the app by clicking a ms-appinstaller:// link, you can attach extra data using the activationUri.
This can be a custom URL scheme that you register for your app with any url parameters. The appinstaller will call this url once the app is installed.
We use this to pass login information to the app, like this:
ms-appinstaller:?source=https://localhost:8000/myApp.appinstaller&activationUri=my-app-track-install:?campaign=billboards
If your app registers for the my-app-track-install url scheme in the Appxmanifest, then from the apps perspective the first launch is then a url activation with the url you added as activationUri. In your case you would track the install, and then proceed to launch the app normally.
You can find more info on this in the example and remark for this (semi-related) api-documentation:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/uwp/api/windows.applicationmodel.package.getappinstallerinfo?view=winrt-19041
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I have created a wpf app and have been learning how to deploy it as a side loaded windows store app through an appinstaller package.
I now want to launch the app through a shell command with parameters. I did setup a protocol, but it doesnt seem to open the app. to make things worse I do not have permission to see the contents of the windowsApps folder it should be installed in.
can anybody explain how i can launch this app with an argument? Also can anybody explain how the file structure is setup inside the windowsApps folder?
In the end i setup a protocol in the declarataions of my package manifest for my app to allow it to be opened through a url eg myapname:
here is an explanation of how this works
the full uri that is called is passed in the app parameters so i put custom handling in to allow me to pass waht i want in as a querystring
so for example i could call mayapp:?arg1=myvalue or myapp:localhost:80?myarg=myvalue
I created a Messages Extension in Xcode 8 using the appropriate template, that seems to be working fine and when I run the extension, it's installed in the Messages app and I can use it without any issues.
My problem is that I wanted to create an actual app to be associated with this extension (so that the user would be able to search the extension through the Messages Store or install the actual app through the App Store). I gave it a matching bundle identifier (my extension is com.XXX.testmessage.MessagesExtension, so for the app I set com.XXX.testmessage), but when I run the app, it doesn't install the extension.
Is it possible to do that? And if so, what am I missing?
In XCode8, open your existing app. Then you need to add a new target to your app (File->New->Target->iOS->Sticker Pack Extension (or an iMessage Extension if you want a custom messages experience)). It will then create a folder visible in Project Navigator. The name of the folder depends on the name you gave to the extension. In that folder you will find a Stickers.xcassets where you can drop your stickers.
My application downloads a PDF and stores it in the LocalState folder for my Windows 8 app.
I have a link within the app that I would like to show the PDF when the user clicks it.
I've tried displaying it using ms-appdata:///local/pdfs/filename.pdf in a window.open call and I also tried using the InAppBrowser plugin within cordova with no luck. Additionally, I've tried the following:
var uri = new Windows.Foundation.Uri('ms-appdata:///local/pdfs/filename.pdf');
var file = Windows.Storage.StorageFile.getFileFromApplicationUriAsync(uri);
Windows.System.Launcher.launchFileAsync(file).done();
I know the file exists as I'm getting a file result back. Just not sure how to allow the user to view it.
By design, the local appdata folder on Windows is accessible only to that app, or to full-trust desktop applications (and this is probably true of similar sandboxed locations on other platforms). As a result, a Windows Store app that gets launched with Launcher.launchFileAsync won't be able access that location (nor can a webview process, which is also sandboxed). If a desktop application gets launched, on the other hand, it probably can access the file, but you can't tell ahead of time if that's the case. Bottom line is that local appdata isn't a good location for letting other apps get at the file.
You'll need to save the file in another location that is accessible to other apps. There are two approaches here, both of which will require a little user interaction to select a location, so they can place the PDFs anywhere they want:
Have the user select a save folder for your app, which they can do once. You would invoke the FolderPicker for this purpose, and save the selected folder in the FutureAccessList. This way you can have the user select the save folder, which grants you consent to save there, and by saving it in the FutureAccessList you can retrieve it in subsequent sessions without having to ask the user again. Refer to the File Picker Sample and the File Access Sample for more.
Have the user select a save location for each individual file, using the FilePicker (see the same sample), and you can also use the access cache to save permissions to those individual locations if you need them later.
There might be Cordova plugins that work with these APIs too, but I haven't checked. Either way, once the file is in an accessible location, launching the file should work just fine.
As an alternate solution, you could consider rendering the PDFs directly in your app. Windows has an API for this in Windows.Data.Pdf, with an associated sample. There might be a plugin or other JS libraries that could also work for this.
i have created extension by using crossrider they gave me xpi & crx file which i extracted and want to install manually by copying data to the browser's extension path.
I've read & tried many posts regarding this but they are not helpful because i think some posts are old & not able to find target paths & registry.
like in many posts they say create the following key in the registry here
32-bit Windows: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Google\Chrome\Extensions
but i couldn't find that on my windows registry & i am using 32bit.
i want something like i copy my extension data to the browser's extension directory & inject some registry value thats all. if it possible then How?
For firefox just add the xpi or unpacked folder to the profile folder. No need for registry so its cross platform.
It can't be automatic as spyware would be all over that. After placing xpi in the extensions folder of the profile, on next startup of Firefox it will prompt saying it found an unauthorized by user add-on, and gives user a chance to enable it, or keep it disabled.
If you want to do it without startup, just launch the file path to the xpi or unpacked folder (if unpacked folder doesnt work, then point it to the install.rdf) in the browser, user will be prompted if they want to install.
There are some registry options though: Install Firefox extension using Windows registry
In Chrome, it's no longer possible to add an extension programmatically on Windows unless the extension is actually published in the Store.
This is for security reasons: previous registry-based (and otherwise) methods were open to malware abuse.
If your extension is published in the store, you can add it semi-automatically via registry. The user will still be asked whether to enable it on the next load.
You can also install extensions silently using Enterprise policy (only if the machine is part of a Windows domain and you have admin rights on the domain policy), on other OSes, or load it unpacked for testing with the --load-extension command line switch (will not persist after Chrome is restarted).
In Chrome go to
chrome://extensions
Enable Developer Mode at the top and click on the button to load an extracted extension.
When we try to delete/uninstall Cocoa .app file ,we directly move the .app file to trash.
This does not ensure the deletion of app user data folder in application support.
The user data lies there hanging. So i wanted to save the user data/ files inside application itself (app->showPacakge contents->somewhere).
If it is not possible! Any ways of clearing app user data folder in application support when user moves app to trash ?
Not a great idea.
The package content is signed. Any modification will be detected by the OS and will prevent launching of the app.
Not to mention the fact that you might not have access to the Applications folder, where most users will keep their app.
if you are using packages for installing your application, then you can have pre-install script, which deletes user data in the application support folder.