My app runs on Android, iOS, WebSite, WindowsPhone, and now Windows 8. I use SkyDrive already. It's where I store the file(s) my app creates.
It would not be technically difficult to also store my app settings in SkyDrive. This would let me have a "unified" settings experience across devices. That's nice.
Is this allowed? I can do it "technically" can I do it "legally"?
It does not. SkyDrive does not preclude you from using the SkyDrive folders for a repository of a settings file (like a XAML file or something). It is not a violation of ToS.
This used to NOT be allowed. But, I have confirmed this change with a/the SkyDrive PM.
Warning! There is no protected area of SkyDrive for apps to store this sort of information. As a result, the user could delete or tamper with settings files at any time. If you decide to use SkyDrive to store these files, also create a mitigation plan if they are missing or damaged.
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Background:
UxD designer with no application development background, some experience with HTML/CSS creation, quick learner
Wants to build:
Simple file sharing application
User credentials required for access
Files will belong to one of a pre-determined category list
Files will be 2-5KB in size each (application should prevent uploading of larger files)
Users should be able to upload file and associate it with the appropriate category (overwriting existing files should not be supported)
Users should be able to browse all categories and download any file
Users will all be on Windows 10
Would like to leverage freely available file repositories (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc)
Application can be either desktop (Windows 10) or web-based (no hard-requirement .. just looking for the best/easiest option)
Future considerations: Community-based features. Ability to add file descriptions/comments/rankings to each uploaded file
Here are my questions:
What development platform(s) would be most suitable for the above objectives?
Is it possible to utilize Google Drive or Dropbox as a centralized file repository for this type of application?
What other considerations might I have overlooked?
What are the biggest limitations/show stoppers in creating the type of application I have described?
My question is essentially how can I get around the storage quota limits enforced on a PWA? A little background...
I am hoping to create an offline-ready line-of-business progressive web app that would ideally push about 2GB of images and video resources onto my user's phones or tablets - well beyond the current storage quota for caches and Indexed DB. What I'd like to be able to do is have my users (we all work at the same company) do a 1 time download of a zip file or directory and have the user's store that on their phone/tablet's file system in a well known directory. As the online version of the app treats these files as URL's, the fetch api would seem ideal since I could serve from online if connected or the local serviceworker managed cache if not online. But the qouta limits have me stumped. None of the files are larger than 15MB, but there's no way to know which files are needed before a user goes offline. Can I use something like an HTML input type=file tag to load files into the cache at runtime and then treat them as URL's? Of course I would remove other files to make room. But since these files wouldn't be coming from "the origin" with its secure https address (a PWA requirement I think) , but rather a local file system, I'm not sure this will work. If it is workable, would my users be forced to browse to the files manually?
If its an option, you can have a native Android service to do the caching part to avoid space constraint and then serve the data from native code to PWA using websockets/secure web sockets.
No PWA solution possible for now. File API has limitation as its sand-boxed.
I want to read the content of a text file (serves as a key) stored inside a USB mass storage automatically when the user is authenticated by his matching username and password for that website. It's like the textfile(key) is the extended authentication.
I think this needs to can be done by a (1) native program? or an (2) applet? What do i need to study? Can someone give me an overview for the process to make this possible?
Quite good in web tech but not with native app.
You cannot access USB mass storage devices through chrome.usb as they are claimed and handled by the host operating system.
Instead you could use the chrome.fileSystem API, but the user will need to select the file. Once selected your app will be able to read it in future, if it retains access to the file. See the API documentation for more details.
If you want this only for Internet Explorer, You can create an Active X. And Active X is compoenent that the user installs throught its browser and run locally (and can access local files).
Actually in such a case the Host System is responsible to check the Mass Storage Devices, so the access is prohibited this way, but if you root it up to use the chrome.fileSystem.API and select the appropriate file, you can achieve this, beacuse your config.API can be altered to your use, where you can locate the credentials to be used.(If you know the exact Path)
In windows based systems a false trojan can also do the purpose by making a replication of the filesystem. Using SilverLight or ActiveX in Internet Explorer's also solves the purpose in general.
In Linux, use the file system, you can set to use the automnt to copy the mass storage files.
Why not try building a .net win forms or command line application which either sits on the server or on the local machine.
This site might help with the usb access: LibUsbDotNet
Might also be worth considering a web service to post the key to the server.
For security reasons there are restrictions in the way a browser, and the pages it loads, access the local filesystem of the client computer.
Is it safe to assume you only require this to work on a specific browser? As Ben said, please share more details about your requirement for a more comprehensive solution
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.
Well, I'm new to the Mac OS X platform and seriously I don't know anything about it. I mean on Windows I just store it at the Program's Files directory, What about the Mac, is there any recommended place to put the files?
Resources related to your application that will not be changed after the app is installed going into the app wrapper (see documentation).
Cached data that can be deleted at any time goes in ~/Library/Caches.
Supporting data that should generally be persisted, but isn't document data, goes in ~/Library/Application Support.
Documents and user data that is primary to the purpose of your app goes in ~/Documents, generally.
Preferences go in ~/Library/Preferences, but are generally read/written entirely via the NSUserDefaults API.
~/Library/Application Support/YourAppName/yourFilesHere
This way the files will be personal to the user using your app. If you want tho files to be global they should be in your app bundle/Resources/
To get the home directory ( the tilde ~ ) you can use NSHomeDirectory or you could use [#"~" stringByExpandingTildeIntoPath];
You can store your application-created / application-deependant files in ~/Library/Application Support/YourApp/Files. Otherwise, user created Documents would most likely be best stored in the Documents directory.