I want to write plugin for GNOME Do, that will work with Firefox extensions data (for example, with URL Alias patterns). I have looked through files in my profile folder (~/.mozilla/firefox/.default/), but haven't found anything related.
Can anybody help me?
I unzipped the XPI, and it looks like the key data is stored in the preference system under the urlalias branch. This is serialized to disk in the prefs.js. file Each line is a single preference, so it should be pretty simple to parse (you could conceivably use Firefox's XPCOM interface, but that's probably unnecessary).
Related
I want to create a workaround for the URL protocol file: in Chrome, as it's security doesn't allow you to open certain files or locations. This would be for a small app of mine that I designed.
I searched around, and while I've found a lot of potentially good answers (such as this answer), I don't fully understand what each line should do, and whether it would actually work in my application.
The end-result that I want for this is to have a protocol like ih-link: that would allow me to open up links in Windows Explorer or elsewhere, similar to how you can do so in say, Outlook or Microsoft Word (if you create local or network shortcuts to a folder or file, it'll open it up without issue). Attempting this in Google Chrome gives varied results, either a browser-generated directory, or an error ususally.
I'd like to know, assuming the answer I linked to would work for me...
Is "URL Protocol"="" where I'd define the name of the protocol, so I'd use "URL Protocol"="ih-link", or something like that? I remember reading something about leaving that blank, so would I replace IntranetFileLauncher with whatever protocol name I want (in this case, it'd be ih-link?)
The next part that references explorer.exe seems to just reference the icon.
After that, what do the following two lines do?
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\IntranetFileLauncher\shell]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\IntranetFileLauncher\shell\open]
The last lines of that script appear to just have it strip the protocol from the URL and pass the file path to explorer.. am I correct on this? I take it I would need to format the path as I would do for windows (using \ instead of /)?
I'm afraid to experiment without knowing more, mainly because I know that many things with the registry can be very dicey, so any clarification on this would be helpful.
Reading the actual documentation is better than trying to guess what some random code sample does.
URL Protocol is just a marker, it does not need a value. The default value (#) is where the name of your protocol is stored.
Yes, that entry (incorrectly) specifies the icon.
Those two lines are pointless. They create two empty keys but only the ...\shell\open\command line is required to properly build that registry path.
Yes, you might have to change / to \, add: call set url=%url:/=\% to the command.
Using cmd.exe to parse untrusted input is not ideal, it would be better to write a custom application.
I’m new to the IT industry but keen to learn.
Wanted to ask if anyone could point me in the right direction when trying to create a Powershell script to change settings within a computer app called plantronics hub.
Just need a better insight to what commands I need to use and functions. Just so that instead of going to a users machine every time and changing the settings I can just run a script and let it do it for me.
There are a few things you can look at. Look through the program files to see if there's any kind of command line utility for this sort of thing. Obviously, documentation is another good place to look. If available, you can also call their support and simply ask. Keep in mind they may have already considered this scenario, and may have other suggestions.
Try and figure out how the application stores its settings, Registry, XML, ini file etc...? PowerShell can work with any of these, but you need to answer this question before knowing what direction to go it.
If the settings are in the registry I'd start looking under HKLM:/ & HKCU:\Software\Plantronics. Settings and/or configuration files may be in the program files folder or under the user profile app data folders.
A few techniques:
Export the registry, make a configuration change, export the registry again to a different file. Compare the 2 files via some file comparison tool, like BeyondCompare or WinMerge. This might help you find anything that changed after you made the change.
Use procmon.exe . If you filter it properly you can determine which files the application is touching either on start or when you make a configuration change. ProcMon can also help identify which registry keys and values are being looked at.
Note: If the settings are consistent between stations you may be able to copy the config. This could be as simple as a file copy or importing a registry file.
This is likely not a simple topic - I have researched this to the best of my abilities and realize that it is not supported in any typical fashion.
My goal is to enable something similar to .app files from OSX, where the application, as well as its user data, can exist in the same file. I imagine it would require writing a tool to manage this behaviour, but this question is more about how to achieve this in the Windows OS. I am quite flexible regarding the implementation details, but the more straightforward the behaviour, the better (i.e. avoiding copying or compressing/decompressing entire directories/archives at runtime would be ideal).
Approaches I have considered:
Find a way to get explorer to treat a directory as a file, so that it can be associated. I have found a way to get explorer to treat a directory as a control panel item, I have thus far been unable to find a way to use this to associate a custom program. See the infamous "godmode hack" for Windows (name a directory something to the effect of "GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}"). This one seems the most hopeful, but I'm at wits end trying to find information about creating a new association of this type.
Come up with some kind of archive format which can extract executable information to a temporary directory, launch this executable passing the archive as a commandline parameter. This seems like the ugliest solution, from a performance perspective. I would prefer a different solution if at all possible, one which doesn't involve making duplicates of the program or its data to run.
Find a way to associate a directory directly, though I have found no trace of this being supported in Windows, and I assume this is a dead-end.
Find a way to get an executable to include writeable embedded files. I have been unable to make any headway with this- I even tried a resource hacker approach, but obviously you cannot modify the assembly while its in use.
Tried to make a self-modifying JAR file with Java, but the route I took would add the JDK as a runtime requirement, which seems a bit overkill. Even then, it would be limited to Java, and I'm pretty sure it's not actually supposed to allow that in the first place.
Modify Windows Explorer. I shudder at the amount of work this would take, not to mention the at-best gray area it falls under legally. Perhaps there's a way to extend explorer to achieve this, I'm not sure.
A custom archive file. This seems like the most straightforward way to do it. But it would ideally need to be an archive format that has very little overhead for file I/O. Could even be some kind of virtual disk that gets mounted, but I am imagining that would be pretty heavy.
I would appreciate any insight that anyone has on this topic. I won't go into reasons as they are irrelevant to the question itself- I'm aware it is likely not the most practical solution to anything in particular. Consider it a novel pursuit.
It can be done by application virtualization,
Read this wikipedia page theory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_application
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_virtualization
And two pages about software:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware_ThinApp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_(software)
Windows 7 added the ability for a Desktop.ini file to add/change the folder verbs on a per-folder basis. Using that trick it is possible to create a "folders as applications" style setup.
What I need is a directory which the user can handle as a single file in the Windows explorer. Does something like this exist? If not, what comes closest?
The closest thing is probably Alternate Data Streams, although those are more akin to MacOS Named Forks than Bundles.
There are also some special cases, for example if you save a website with Internet Explorer you get an HTML file and a folder which are linked together.
Depends on your particular needs. As mentioned above, named streams are possible (on NTFS), however you should notice that not all applications copy files with named streams correctly. In some scenarios regular ZIP archives can work (Explorer shows them as folders). If you are doing software development, there exist libraries that let you store many files in one container file (eg. SolFS).
I think you can create a folder with an extension, e.g. Myfolder.bundle, then you can associate that extension with a custom icon. So it looks like a bundle as far as the end user is concerned.
My windows co-workers were asking me if I could modify my non-windows binary files such that when their "Properties" are examined under Windows, they could see a "Version" tab like that which would show for a Visual Studio compiled exe.
Specifically, I have some gzipped binary files and was wondering if I could modify them to satisfy this demand. If there's a better way, that would be fine, too.
Is there a way I could make my binaries appear to be exe files?
I tried simply appending the VS_VERSION_INFO block from notepad.exe to the end of one of my binaries in the hope that Windows scans for the block, but it didn't work.
I tried editing the other information regarding Author, Subject, Revision, etc. That doesn't modify the file, it just creates another data fork(what's the windows term?) for the file in NTFS.
It is not supported by windows, since each file type has their own file format. But that doesn't mean you can't accomplish it. The resources stored inside dlls and exes are part of the file format.
Display to the user:
If you wanted this information to be displayed to the user, this would probably be best accomplished with using a property page shell extension. You would create a similar looking page, but it wouldn't be using the exact same page. There is a really good multi part tutorial on shell extensions, including property pages starting with that link.
Where to actually store the resource:
Instead of appending a block to the file, you could store the resource into a separate alternate data stream on the same file. This would leave the original file stream non corrupted on disk and not cause its primary file size to change.
Alternate data streams allow more than one data stream to be associated with a filename. Each stream is identified by a colon : at the end of the filename and an identifier.
You can create them for example by doing:
notepad test.txt:adsname1
notepad test.txt:adsname2
notepad test.txt
Getting the normal Win32 APIs working:
If you wanted the normal API to work, you'd have to intercept the Win32 APIs: LoadLibraryEx, FindResource, LoadResource and LockResource. This is probably not worth the trouble though since you are already creating your own property page.
Can't think of any way to do this short of a shell extension. The approach I've taken in the past is a separate "census" program that knows how to read version information from any kind of file.
Zip files can be converted into exe files by using a program that turns a zip file into a self-extracting zip (I know that WinZip does this, there are most likely free utilities for this also; here's one that came up on a search but I haven't actually tried it). Once you've got an exe, you should be able to use a tool like Resource Hacker to change the version information.
It won't work. Either Windows would have to know every file format or no file format would be disturbed if version information were appended to it.
No, resource section is only expected inside PE (portable executable; exe, dll, sys).
It is more then just putting the data inside the file, you have a table that points to the data in the file header.
What you can do if you have NTFS drive, is to use NTFS stream to store custom properties this way the contact of the binary file will remain the same, but you will need to use a custom shell extension to show the content of the stream.