I would like to make my AIR desktop browser be the default web browser on a system, how can I go about and do this ?
I would also like to know how I can retrieve the link that has been clicked (in an email for example) to interact with the application.
thanks !
As far as I'm aware this is impossible in AIR. You can associate your app with file types using the air-app.xml descriptor or by calling NativeApplication.setAsDefaultApplication() (Read about it here). Opening files after using either of these methods will trigger your application to launch with an InvokeEvent (Read Here). You can read a good tutorial for this here.
However, if I understand correctly, you also want your app to take over any HTTP requests from inside any other app. To do this you have to override the protocol default application, which requires a registry edit and (I believe) that AIR can't do that. You may be able to write an external script in C or Java to do that for you (This might help with that).
Related
My searches have turned up nothing concrete. My extension uses Google's file picker to allow the user to browse their sheets and choose a desired file to write some data to, which manifest v3 breaks because of some GAPI limitations. Unless I've missed something obvious, there does not seem to be a simple workaround or method for this to migrate to v3 -- it just seems to be disallowed.
I'm not asking if there's a way to do something that they intend to not be possible (even though I doubt such a thing would exist with Google) but I'm optimistically hoping that maybe there is some hacky/annoying workaround that still fits within their rules. If I absolutely have to just allow them to set a sheet URL manually I will...I'm just trying to avoid it.
Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated.
You may have to test it yourself to make sure there are no weird behaviors, but Google has some recommendations regarding this in their migration guide:
In Manifest V3, all of your extension's logic must be included in the extension. You can no longer load and execute a remotely hosted file. A number of alternative approaches are available, depending on your use case and the reason for remote hosting. Here are approaches to consider:
Configuration-driven features and logic
In this approach, your extension loads a remote configuration (for example a JSON file) at runtime and caches the configuration locally. The extension then uses this cached configuration to decide which features to enable.
Externalize logic with a remote service
Consider migrating application logic from the extension to a remote web service that your extension can call. (Essentially a form of message passing.) This provides you the ability to keep code private and change the code on demand while avoiding the extra overhead of resubmitting to the Chrome Web Store.
Bundle third-party libraries
If you are using a popular framework like React or Bootstrap, you can download the minified files, add them to your project and import them locally.
For your case, option #3 seems like the easiest. Looking at the Google Picker API documentation it only uses two relatively small script files, https://apis.google.com/js/api.js and https://accounts.google.com/gsi/client. You could try to bundle these in your Chrome extension and call the methods locally.
So I have this bit of a project planned for Windows Store and Android. Basically, a networking multi-tool coupled with a scripting engine to implement protocols and behavior. Ideal uses being things like "my embedded device uses this simplistic network protocol. I'd like to quickly prototype a way to control it from my tablet".
It's my understanding that the Android market should have no problem with this. However, the Windows Store policy includes a vague clause concerning remote code execution
3.9 All app logic must originate from, and reside in, your app package Your app must not attempt to change or extend the packaged content
through any form of dynamic inclusion of code or data that changes how
the application interacts with the Windows Runtime, or behaves with
regard to Store policy. It is not permissible, for example, to
download a remote script and subsequently execute that script in the
local context of your app package.
Of course, the scripting engine will be sandboxed and such and should be "safe"(completely intepreted, no reflection), but does it violate this policy?
If you build in your scripting engine, and only run local scripts, you will be good. However, if you were thinking to have a repository of scripts that could be downloaded and subsequently run, that would be in violation of the policy as we understand it.
Unfortunately I don't think anyone but someone on that team can answer that (or someone with direct experience in that) because of the closeness to the legal language. Have you tried the Windows Store Appl Publishing forum at: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsstore/threads
In the context of scripting engine example given, unless the app modifies the scripting engine after deployment on user's system such that the representation of protocol/behavior (the script artifact's format) is made to change then it'll be policy violation. Its as if you submit Python interpreter, and at some point in time it abruptly moves onto interpreting ecmascript.
Is it possible for a website to automatically find a folder on usb stick and upload all the files in it to the web server by clicking only one button?
The problem is that I don't know how to make upload form automatically detect usb stick as the drive name(ie. G:, F:, etc) may vary from computer to computer, so hard coding path is not possible.
Ps. I'm using yii framework for site development, but can add a new page that will handle this in any other language as the client really wants this feature.
Web sites are not allowed to set default files to upload (it's a major security risk!). Also, web sites cannot scan the hard drive/enumerate what file systems exist on a system, again, for security purposes.
It might be possibly to do this with Flash/Silverlight/Java. Java seems the most likely to allow a web developer to do this (Java plugin seems to be quite willing to give out every permission under the Sun).
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Allowing automatic uploads in web browsers would be a huge security hole so the browsers intentionally prevent it. Even if you manage to find a hole that permits it, the browser makers will break it as soon as they find out.
However, if you have an environment where an actual separate program can be installed on the end user's computer you could easily write a program to do automated uploads of specified directories when launched.
I have a website that would ideally be accessed by users who have downloaded and installed it as "software"... I know i can create an "Application Shortcut" in Google Chrome to allow me to access my web-app in a window that does not resemble a web-browser (i love this by the way and it would work perfectly if it did not require a full install of Chrome). The problem is that i am not sure of a way to re-distribute GoogleChrome with a pre-configured application shortcut like this. I have also read a bit about Mozilla Prism which seems similar. After reading over some options, it looks like AdobeAIR is my best bet. I have not yet worked with it, but it looks like I can create a downloadable executable that will contain a web-based interface. This seems ideal, but all the documentation i have read thus far seems to make it sound like all the resources need to be locally included within the distribution. Can i just create an "empty" AdobeAIR frame that contains my live (server) website? Having never worked with AIR, is this reasonably easy to do (just a matter of setting up an iframe or something)? I do not want any content stored locally on teh user's computer, as it is a constantly changing data set.
AIR has badge installation option, and you can author content in js for it. There is also full-featured browser control in AIR (webkit-based), so it seems AIR has everything you need.
We have an Adobe AIR application which could be possibly downloaded from multiple domains. And when it's run, it should connect back to the site it was downloaded from to get data to show to the user.
So far we have a separate application build for each domain with a site URL hardcoded into it. And I wonder is there a way for AIR application to find out at runtime the URL (or at least domain) from which it was downloaded?
What we would like to have is a single downloadable binary served from all different domains, which still can know it's origin URL.
There's no function to retrieve such information, it would just make no sense if you think about it.
The most stable way is to include an external configuration file into the package.
Note that you can use ANT to automate this process for this final deployment.
There's no direct way to do it.
Here are some options which come in mind:
Build different versions for each site (this could be automated)
Let user choose the site at first launch
Try to guess it using using whatever resources you have (timezone, language, etc)
How should this work? The only solution i see (independent from AIR) is that you deliver an extra (properties) file with the application, containing the URL downloaded from. So you dont need to build a separate app for each domain, but only package a different domain-file with it. The app then reads this file and executes some context sensitive stuff.
I am trying to address the exact same issue right now.
It looks like you can modify the install badge to pass parameters to the air app.
From what I gather the values are only passed down on install or launch-from-badge.
Something I plan on researching is that one of the parameters in "AIRBadge.as" is _appURL which is the URL of the page the badge is on. I don't yet know if that value makes it down to the installed AIR app in some way; but it could be a useful property. I'm ultimately hoping that the AIR install process injects that into the application descriptor xml, but I'm not holding my breath.
Check this page out: http://archive.davidtucker.net/2008/01/10/air-tip-5-passing-arguments-to-an-application-on-install/#
When the user downloads, you could store their IP address in your central DB. Then when the app is installed and runs the first time, the app could hit your central DB to match up their IP address with the server they downloaded from.
A cookie with a specific name being stored on a download page, and the AIR app looking for that? Though that might not work for direct downloads. It might also be hard to pull off since knowing the specific browser used to download it would be an issue.