Adobe AIR Clipboard detection - air

The beautiful thing about creating desktop apps in Adobe AIR is that I can still use my web development skills to do so.
For some reason, I am running into a slight issue with detecting what's in the clipboard, and displaying it in my App.
Here's my code:
<body>
<div id="infoDiv"></div>
<script>
function everysecond() {
setInterval("checkClipBoard()",1000);
}
function checkClipBoard(){
if(air.Clipboard.generalClipboard.hasFormat("text/plain")){
var text = air.Clipboard.generalClipboard.getData("text/plain");
}else{
var text = "nothing in clipboard";
}
$("#infoDiv").html(text);
}
everysecond();
</script>
</body>
Whether my app is in Focus or not, it doesn't seem to detect anything I Copy to the clipboard (Ctrl + C)
Anyone see my issue?

Clipboard polling is a terrible hack. You will be conflicting with other apps that are (legitimately) opening the clipboard. So while your app runs, you'll be causing failures (and possibly crashes) in other apps where the user is trying to copy/paste data. Have you ever seen "cannot open clipboard" errors? It's things like this that cause them. I don't know what capabilities are available to you in Air, but if there isn't a clipboard notification feature (WM_DrawClipboard messages, for example), then you should probably re-think the need for what you're trying to do here.
This says it best:
“Programs should not transfer data into our out of the clipboard
without an explicit instruction from the user.” — Charles Petzold,
Programming Windows 3.1, Microsoft Press, 1992

From the docs:
Only code running in the application sandbox can access the system clipboard
directly. In non-application HTML content, you can only access the clipboard
through the clipboardData property of an event object dispatched by one of
the HTML copy or paste events.
If your HTML content is outside the application sandbox this might be the problem.

Related

Can vscode's markdown preview scripts trigger actions directly in an extension?

I'm writing a vscode extension where I'm hoping to squeeze more dynamic functionality out of markdown preview. Effectively the problem I'm trying to solve is:
In markdown preview, there's a checkbox
When user clicks the checkbox in markdown preview, send a message/event to the vscode extension runtime
Vscode extension can listen for this message/event and store the action in local storage
Checkbox state is saved - and subsequent renders of the markdown preview can use this action
Ideally, I'd like to do this while keeping the default markdown preview security (https://code.visualstudio.com/Docs/languages/markdown#_strict). After all, I don't need the extension to or markdown preview script to talk to a remote server - I just want them to be able to talk to one another.
Problem as code
To write the problem as sudo code, I want my markdown preview script to contain something like:
const button = ... // get button element
button.addEventListener('click', () => {
... /*
* Send a message to the vscode extension. Something like:
* `vscode.postMessage('vscode.my-extension.preview-action' + value)`
* (which I can't get to work, I'll discuss why)
*/
});
where then my extension can listen for messages like 'vscode.my-extension.preview-action'.
What I've Tried Already
I have tried acquireVsCodeApi() but because the markdown extension already does that, I can't do it again in the subsequent loaded script. I've also tried registering a uri handler but as far as I can try out the preview script still needs to fetch to that uri, which is still blocked by the default markdown security settings.
Perhaps markdown preview scripts are not the place to do this kind of thing, but I just wanted to leverage as much as possible that's already there with the vscode markdown extension. I want to supplement markdown but not replace it, the functionality I want to add is just icing on markdown documentation.
I've read https://code.visualstudio.com/api/extension-guides/markdown-extension#adding-advanced-functionality-with-scripts and it doesn't tell me much about markdown extension scripts capabilities and limitations.
Thanks to #LexLi I looked at some of the source code in the markdown extension and was able to come up with an ugly hack to make this work in preview scripts. Markdown allows normal clicks. And vscode extensions can handle normal clicks. I've paraphrased the code so there could be small syntax errors.
In the extension I did this:
vscode.window.registerUriHandler({
handleUri(uri: vscode.Uri): vscode.ProviderResult<void> {
console.log(`EXTENSION GOT URL: ${uri.toString()}`);
},
});
Then I made sure my extension/preview script put this in the document
<!-- in the preview script I place a button like this -->
<!-- it even works with hidden :) so I can do more app customization -->
<a
hidden
id="my-extension-messager"
href="vscode://publisher-id.my-extension"
>
cant see me but I'm there
</a>
Then my preview script I can even set href before faking a click:
const aMessager = document.querySelector("#my-extension-messager");
console.log('client is setting attribute and clicking...')
aMessager.setAttribute('href', 'vscode://publisher-id.my-extension?action=do-something');
aMessager.click();
console.log('client clicked');
Logs I saw (trimmed/tweaked from my particular extension to match the contrived example):
client is setting attribute and clicking...
client clicked
[Extension Host] EXTENSION GOT URL: vscode://publisher-id.my-extension?action%3Ddo-something
It's a hack but I can do a lot with this. Within the URL I can encode data back to the extension and kind of pass whatever I want (as long as data is relatively small).

Table Of Contents(Side Bar) for Cocoa App's Help Book

I'm in the process of building a help book for my application, mainly using apple's documentation here, however it appears to be a little dated. In Yosemite OS X 10.10, apple's own apps have a collapsable side bar that displays the table of contents for the help bundle
Although, the side bar button is present on my own app I have no idea how to access it. Does anyone know how to access this sidebar? and provide content for our own apps?
I've just come up against the same problem, and I had to dig around in Apple Mail's help files to find out what they were using. Basically they have constructed their sidebar in HTML/CSS, and its not a part of the help viewer.
To enable the "Table of Contents" button in the help viewer, you need to use the javascript function:
window.HelpViewer.showTOCButton(bool, function, function);
For a more explicit example, the following code snippet will enable the "Table of Contents" button in Apple's help viewer, and link it to the function "toggleNavigation".
if ("HelpViewer" in window && "showTOCButton" in window.HelpViewer) {
window.setTimeout(function () {
window.HelpViewer.showTOCButton(true, toggleNavigation, toggleNavigation);
window.HelpViewer.setTOCButton(true);
}, 100);
}
The toggleNavigation function will contain code to open your sidebar.
function toggleNavigation() {
// YOUR CODE HERE
}
I found that using window.onload doesn't seem to work, but setting a timeout for 100ms did. In Mail, Apple used their equivalent of the "toggleNavigation" function, for both of the function parameters, as per the example. The third parameter is called when you press the "Table of Contents" button, but I've not worked out what the second one is for.

Safari extension options pages with access to background page

I'm developing a cross-platform browser extension, and have based all my code on the Chrome-way of doing this. I have counted on that the background page will be accessible from the options page, which in Safari extensions turns out to be not possible (since there is no such thing as an options-page). You can only access safari.extension.globalPage.contentWindow from within the extension popup, and the background page itself.
Now, I have an options page, which is an html-page within the extension bundle, and so far I haven't found a way for Safari to give it extension "rights". The closest I have come is adding a content script that's only added on the options page. This seems a bit silly, since the html page itself is in the extension bundle?!
Others have suggested using asynchronous ping-pong style message event handlers, and even the canLoad-mechanism (which is "only" able to run in a beforeload-event). I have been able to hack the canLoad-mechanism for synchronous messaging by forging the BeforeLoadEvent:
// Content script (run from anywhere)
var result = safari.self.tab.canLoad(new BeforeLoadEvent, "data")
-> "return value"
// Background page
safari.application.addEventListener('message', function(e) {
if ( e.name === "canLoad" )
e.message = "return value";
}, true);
It's a hack, but it works. However, I am crippled by the message transport serialization, since I need to be able access methods and data on my objects from the background page. Is there anyway around this?
Possible ways that might work but I don't know if possible:
Access options-page window-object from backgrounds page. Is that possible?
Message passing, need to bypass message serialization
Any shared/global object that I can attach objects to and fetch from the options page?
Make Safari run the options.html page from outside the content-script sandbox? It works in Chrome since they are both within the extension-bundle. It's quite annoying that safari doesn't do this too.
Run the options-page from within the popup. This is promising, but it crashes safari (which is very promising!). However, from the looks of it it's just something to do with a CSS animation in my options.html page. The biggest issue is that it has to be able to open an OAuth2 popup, but thanks to being able to programmatically open the popover, it might be a non-issue. However, this option is the most realistic, but I would rather have it open in a new tab.
Any suggestions and hackish workarounds would really help.

Sharing StorageItems from a byte[] array

I want to implement the Share source contract in my WinRT C# Metro app (Windows Release Preview). My app is storing arbitrary files. Not in the filesystem, but instead I get the data over a WCF service as byte[]. Now I want to share such "files" in my app.
The only possibility I've seen with a standard data format is using the SetStorageItems() method on the DataPackage. Thus I'm facing the challenge to convert the data from my byte array to a StorageFile, which can be shared. I found the StorageFile.CreateStreamedFileAsync() method and wanted to use it in this way:
// filename: string
// fileContent: byte[]
// ... setting DataPackage title and description ...
DataRequestDeferral deferral = args.Request.GetDeferral();
var file = await Windows.Storage.StorageFile.CreateStreamedFileAsync(filename,
async stream => await stream.WriteAsync(fileContent.AsBuffer()), null);
args.Request.Data.SetStorageItems(new List<IStorageItem> { file });
deferral.Complete();
It compiles fine, but it doesn't work as expected. I've tried the sharing with the standard Mail app. The Mail share view opens and I can create a new mail. The file is shown without thumbnail (as expected), but the e-mail can't be sent. It's showing the sending progress for several minutes and then an error occurs: "Couldn't share {filename} with Mail.". The share charm shows "Something went wrong" and "[...] Mail can't share right now. Try again later.".
It works perfectly when I load the StorageFile from the file system: the mail opens and is sent within seconds, no problems here. So either I'm using CreateStreamedFileAsync() wrong or there's a bug in this method, what do you think?
In the callback passed into CreateStreamedFileAsync, you need to actually dispose of the object - that signals to the OS that you are done.
Wrote a complete example here
The Mail app is not a target for sharing files. From http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/06/14/building-the-mail-app.aspx: "Mail supports sharing text, links, and pictures."
Remember that there are 2 parts of the Share contract: Share sources and Share targets. As you know, there are many different data formats that can be shared between them, like text, pictures, URIs, and files. The full list of the different data formats that are supported is at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh771179.aspx.
I recommend that you use the Share Target Sample app to test that your file is being shared properly - share to this and it will display everything that is being shared from your app as a source (and it does accept files for sharing). You can download it from http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsapps/Sharing-Content-Target-App-e2689782. You can also use the Share Source Sample app as an example and leverage code from this app; you can download it from http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsapps/Sharing-Content-Source-App-d9bffd84.
Hope that helps!
Ok, perhaps the preview version of the Mail app doesn't handle the sharing target contract correctly. Using the SDK sample app "Sharing Content Target App" from http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsapps/Sharing-Content-Target-App-e2689782, sharing a StorageItem created in memory with the StorageFile.CreateStreamedFileAsync() method posted above works fine.
Thus, that's the way you should go when you want to share in-memory byte[] arrays. For testing, make sure that the share target app doesn't run in Visual Studio when you want to share data from another app with it. Then the sharing sidebar mysteriously will disappear automatically...

How to stop firefox from downloading and applying CSS via a firefox extension?

Thanks to everyone in advance -
So I have been banging on this issue for quite a while now and have burned through all my options. My current approach to canceling css requests is with nsIRequest.cancel inside of nsIWebProgressListener.onStateChange. This works most of the time, except when things are a little laggy a few will slip through and jump out of the loadgroup before I can get to them. This is obviously a dirty solution.
I have read through the following links to try and get a better idea of how to disable css before a nsIRequest is created...no dice.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Document_Loading_-_From_Load_Start_to_Finding_a_Handler
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/The_life_of_an_HTML_HTTP_request
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Bird's_Eye_View_of_the_Mozilla_Framework
How do I disable css via presentation objects/interfaces? Is this possible? Inside of nsIDocShell there are a few attributes that kind of imply you can disable css via the browsers docshell - allowPlugins, allowJavascript, allowMetaRedirects, allowSubframes, allowImages.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Sam
The menu option that disables style sheets uses a function
setStyleDisabled(true)
so you probably can just call this function whenever new browser tab is created. Style sheets are still requested from server, but not applied. This function is not very sophisticated and doesn't mess with nsIRequest, source:
function setStyleDisabled(disabled) {
getMarkupDocumentViewer().authorStyleDisabled = disabled;
}
Digging in Web Developer Toolbar source code I have noticed that their "disable stylesheets" function loops trough all document.styleSheets and sets the disabled property to true, like:
/* if DOM content is loaded */
var sheets = document.styleSheets;
for(var i in sheets){ sheets[i].disabled = true; }
So if the key is to not apply CSS to pages, one of the above solutions should work. But if you really need to stop style sheets from being downloaded from servers, I'm affraid nsIRequest interception is your only option.
Set permissions.default.stylesheet to 2 and voilà!
You can actually use the permissions manager to block or allow stylesheets on a host-by-host basis.
Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a simple flag like allowImages. The bugzilla adding for that is https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=340746. You can now vote for it using the new bugzilla voting functionality. You can also add yourself to the CC list to be notified if anyone ever works on it.
A related request is to just give us basic HTML parsing support, which may be what you are trying to do. Unfortunately that isn't supported yet either, but you can vote/track the bugzilla for that at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=102699.
So the only workable solution seems to be some sort of interception as #pawal suggests. Here is a link that talks about the basics of interception to at least get you/us started https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XUL_School/Intercepting_Page_Loads. It lists several options that I list below.
These first few seem to just be at the page/document level so I don't think they help:
Load Events (addEventListener load)
Web Progress Listeners (nsIWebProgressListener) - I tried this approach, it only seems to be called for the page itself, not for content within the page.
Document Loader Service - A global version of nsIWebProgressListener so I think it has the same problem (page level only)
That leaves two others I have not tried yet. They work globally so you would need to filter them to just the browser/pages you care about.
HTTP Observers - Seems like it might work, need to verify it calls back for CSS
Content Policy - Seems like the best option to me since it explicitly is called for CSS, someday I hope to try it :)