I have my application installed on the user's machine(both windows and mac users). Now the user also goes to my web site for certain other things. I want to provide a link in the web site which says "Launch my app". When he clicks on the link, it should launch my application, which has been installed on his system. I was thinking of going the Active X route but it is not recommended + have to use another approach for Mac. The other option was some how get a file association with my application and make it work. Is there any other option ?
You could register your application for special URL schemas, like mygreatapp://open. In the same way that an ftp://... link opens the default FTP app and a mailto://... link opens the default email application, you can register your own app for any custom [myuniqueschemahere]:// schema.
Register your app as a "helper" app for browsers as part of the installer process.
So if you have a link on your website with a URL like "prashant://thisfineapp", clicking on it launches your application.
Related
I have a web application (accessed by clients using standard browser) which is available on custom individual url for each client and I would like to "generate" a "custom desktop application" (probably zip file with some exe file and some xml config file - where exe runs webview with url from xml) which can be installed on clients computer (Windows 10 support only is ok). This application when launched will open frameless window (no menu, no url bar etc) of a custom size with webview opening the defined https url (url will contain secret login hash for user / or session must be kept even after computer restart etc ..). This app should run only online (no offline mode needed).
The goal is to take one simple specific proces (entering simple data) from a complex web application and make this simple process easilly accessible for users (just click icon and enter data, submit to server, close, no login ever needed).
I have no experience developing for Windows 10, but I expect there must be some easy "universal app" solution as probably more developers are solving the same problem. What are the most (time) effective, but standard and safe possibilities?
I found a nice tutorial: https://www.todesktop.com/guides/nativefier. This tool is based on Node.js, which works fine on macOS, Windows, or Linux.
First, install Node.js on your computer. Then, run
npm i nativefier -g
to install nativefier. You can wrap your web app into native app simply by running
nativefier "your-url" --name "Application Name"
You can read the post for further information, like code signing your application, generating native installers, etc.
I'm building a web application that when finished will need to trigger a desktop app to open and load a specific file (or connect to a URL I'm passing to the desktop app).
I'm having a hard time finding documentation about how to do that on a Mac, can you point me to the right place?
You want to define a custom URL protocol.
Here is an example;
http://weblogs.asp.net/morteza/How-to-run-a-desktop-application-from-a-web-page
Here are some notes about how to do it on a Mac;
https://superuser.com/questions/548119/how-do-i-configure-custom-url-handlers-on-os-x
https://onflapp.wordpress.com/lincastor/
We're trying to set up a new marketplace app. As suggested by the Google Apps setup UI, we have provided a Setup URL for setting up an account with the service.
However, if I click on the Test Install Flow button, it redirects to the Universal Navigation link instead of the dedicated application Setup url.
What's going on?
The setup URL is never invoked by Google. I don't know why, and I don't know why they provide a field for it.
An answer I got from a Google guy is that if you need an interactive setup you should just implement it in your Universal Navigation link (on the first time the admin opens it or something). The full answer is here: Google Apps Marketplace app installation callback
Do you know if the Windows Phone SDK offers an API that allows to add a custom App entry inside the Application Settings page?
I would like to create a new entry "AppXYZ" that links the settings page of the application.
Is this view reserved just for "system" applications or could also be used to add a link to an external app's settings?
Although not well-known, there is a way to do that. In WMAppManifest.xml you can specify that your app belongs in HubType="268435456". That way, it will be integrated there. This is not an officially-supported approach and I am yet to see a third-party app approved in the Store that would handle this.
You can link to the settings page of your own application but not to the windows phone settings page you show us in the screenshot. Developers are only allowed to show some of these by using the corresponding URL schmemes.
Unfortuantely there is no possibility to integrate your app to the official settings hub as a third party developer. Adding HubType="268435456" in your WMAppManifest.xml file will prevent a successful sumbission.
Sorry for the bad news...
I am trying to develop Windows Phone App, I would like to know that how can I call the default web browser with a specific URL(e.g. http://www.google.com) when I launch the program?
Thanks
When you're launching "the program" as you say (Internet Explorer) you use the following code:
WebBrowserTask browser = new WebBrowserTask();
browser.URL = new Uri("http://www.google.com", UriKind.Absolute);
browser.Show();
The WebBrowser task is inside the Microsoft.Phone.Tasks namespace, the documentaion of which is here: Microsoft.Phone.Tasks.WebBrowserTask
You should also know that the "default" browser is always Internet Explorer, because right now there is no way for users to define an alternative browser as their "default".
Edit:
After reading your question more closely, I can tell there is a little bit of ambiguity. If you want to launch the browser immediately when your app launches, you should know the following:
This kind of application will fail Microsoft's marketplace validation (check the Application Certification Requirements for Windows Phone
Even if it didn't fail the certification, it would be a kind of strange application... not one that is of very much use to your users.
If, however you intend to launch the phone's browser when the user clicks a button, then the above code I posted will work just like you want it to, just make sure to include this line at the top of the code file that it's in:
using Microsoft.Phone.Tasks;
Hope that helps!