I am looking for options to download, Install and run a custom plugin/add-on(an exe or an installer) from my Flash Movie similar to how the connectnow does that?
When we initiate the screen sharing for the first time, connectnow prompts us for mandatory add-in by showing the message "To use this application, you need the Adobe ConnectNow Add-in.Would you like to install it now?". Once we agree, it downloads and installs acaddin.exe at the location %USERPROFILE%\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\www.macromedia.com\bin\acaddin on our local machine. Then automatically launches the acaddin.exe and allows the user to close the browser window from where the acaddin.exe was launched.
From the next time onwards, when we login to connectnow, it launches the exe directly.
In this context:
If I were to load my own exe/add-in from flash, How can I acheive that?
How does connectnow application/flash determine whether an add-in was already installed or not?
Connect, and I assume ConnectNow, use hidden, undocumented, private APIs for much of their functionality.
You will not be able to do this.
The best you can hope for is to pass the location of your executable to the browser as a local URL and let the browser handle it. I assume in most cases the browser will reject its' execution. Can you imagine the potential for abuse of such a feature?
Instead of using a browser based app, you may want to investigate using AIR and Native Process.
Related
I used an evaluated jxbrowser, which version is 6.14, I write an demo to use it. but i have a problem with it.
Use the demo app to start an application, which can show web UI, keep this applciation with opened, but then I start demo app again, system will throw below exception:
chromium profile directory is already/used by another BrowserContext instance or process
jxbrwowser cannot start two clients in one PC? if can, how to resolve it?
We strongly recommend that you don't use several BrowserContext instances with the same profile directory. Chromium engine wasn't designed for such usage and doesn't support it. Even if you don't see any issues right now, the issues will appear later in end user environments. For example, in macOS environment you will get the Chromium's error message dialog every time when you run your application instance developed in such way.
Since it's a critical requirement in the Chromium engine, I don't think we will make it configurable in next versions. This is how Chromium engine works. These is a recommendation we have to follow when working with the Chromium engine.
I've been asked to launch a Console App from a WebPage. Sounds hairy, but there is sound logic for it.
Basically, the page is a Dashboard page which only super admins can access. We have a Console app which needs to run on the client machine. It cannot run headlessly on the server.
I figured I'd have some kind of small file which is downloaded upon the button click. Then that file could be run from the resulting dialog which would launch the exe.
I know apple does something like that with podcasts. You can subscribe by downloading a small link that would behave as I described and open iTunes.
I had a quick go using ClickOnce, publishing the application to IISExpress where I had my site up and running, but had no success with that.
Is ClickOnce the way to go, or is there some other easier approach?
I've also tried just adding a shortcut with a link to that shortcut nd adding .lnk as a mime type in IIS with mimeType="application/octet-stream". I had no luck there and received a 404 error which I have not been able to resolve yet.
Edit
I should also mention that the Console application is not just a single exe assembly. It has dependencies on a bunch of other 3rd party dlls.
I am assuming here that this desktop application needs to be executed at client side. Thus it will be installed by you or someone in your department i.e available to download.
If it is the case then what you need is to register URI - just like skype URI where href="skype:28347839" lanuches skype automatically.
For reference please click here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/aa767914(v=vs.85).aspx
otherwise, get clickonce - -choice is yours.
As you say, just put the console application (an .exe file) on the server, and link to it in a webpage. When the user clicks on the link the exe file will be downloaded. The user can then run the exe file on their own computer.
There will be some warning dialogs about security issues, but if your users trust your exe then they can accept those warnings.
If you get the console application signed, and/or maybe use Group Policy on your LAN you might be able to reduce or eliminate those warnings.
I'm new to web development so please, could you help me to understand if I'm working in the right direction?
There will be a webpage intended for our customers (not intranet) from where they can print labels. Some of the larger customers will have special label printers where configuration and printing using COM-port is the only acceptable option. Basically we have very limited knowledge and control over their environment.
The web-page itself will be a pretty simple html-page or more complex AJAX.
After the customer inputs all the data and happens to chose this type of printing we have following tasks:
1) get data about the printers on the customer's system installed to a comport and if possible get printer settings (like paper size and orientation). Ideally would like to be able to adjust the settings, but if it is a pain can just put into requirements that your printer must be installed to COM1 and configured correctly.
2) send commands and read answers and send PCL code to the selected com port
As I understand I'll need to install something on the customer's machine to be able to talk to com port and get any settings. Just HTML+Javascript are not capable of doing that. Right?
I found RXTX library which seems to communicate to com port on most platforms. Can it be called from JavaScript or I still need to do a Java plugin? Are there technologies other than Java plugin that would solve the task?
The web-page will be used in different environment - platforms and web-browsers. We would like to minimize the number of customized solutions. Will Java allow us to do the same plugin for all environments with minimal customization?
If we require the user to install a plugin will the user be prompted with our credentials to confirm the installation? Will our web-site require higher trust settings?
Thanks for you help!
Well, I've had to do this in the past. Here is what I did and the circumstances
1) I knew that our customers were in a windows environment so I wrote win32 software to handle the printing.
2) I created a file format to be read by the win32 software that allowed me to specify print parameters and the label data. XML works ok for things like this.
3) My web app created a file in the format used by the win32 software and returned it to the user when they clicked on the "Print Labels" button. The file extension on the file returned was registered by the installer of the win32 software. That means when their browser looked for a default app handler for that file, it found my win32 software.
Bottom line is that the browser is handing off the printer communications to a native application instead of talking directly to the printer.
Obviously you need to be able to dictate your end user's are using a windows machine (or mac or whatever you can write native code). Associating a file extension with my program and returning that file to the user was the key to making the process work for me.
Whether your native code sends pcl directly to the printer or translates into a print api (like the win32 api as mine does) is another consideration.
Another approach you could consider is instead of sending PCL codes, you could create a PDF of the document. Format the document to the size and orientation of the label printer. The user will still have to hit the print button, but that might work. I have done this for printing to bar code printers and it works fine. Sometimes getting the margin and orientation correct is a little tricky, but that can be figured out.
I'm trying to use Adobe AIR 2's NativeProcess API to emulate the ApplicationUpdater but I'm encountering problems when I try to run the downloaded AppUpdater.exe file on computers with UAC (User Account Control) enabled.
When run without UAC enabled, the AppUpdater opens as usual and displays the standard Adobe replace dialog box. With UAC enabled, nothing happens at all.
Having run a few traces, it seems the problem arises when I call NativeProcess.start() - the code seems to stop running at this point, and does not run the following lines which exit the application in preparation for the AppUpdater to run.
I have added listeners for all of the possible events and error events that can be thrown, and added logging in each of them, but none of these are producing any output.
This issue only seems to affect installation executables (ones which windows warns will change settings on your computer). Calling java.exe -jar .... on the same computers in the same application works correctly.
I'm at a loss, so any help would be amazing!
After speaking to Adobe directly, I discovered that NativeProcess uses a windows API which is unable to elevate privileges which is why the installers wouldn't work. The workaround was to use File.openWithDefaultApplication which uses a different API that can elevate privileges, but this only works in a native-packaged AIR app (which was just fine for our app since it was already packaged in a native installer :))
adobe answer was http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404888.html
but for real steps you should determine the application user privileges and determine UAC enabled, if yes - then warn end-user about it.
I'm expecting that you could do nothing with windows-thing from Adobe Air.
I have to make an application that will do the following:
Open a video file embedded in the application
Open some pdf files, preferably embedded in the application, but if it will have to open externally, it's no problem.
Work in fullscreen on the user computer, with a minimum resolution of 1024x768. I'm thinking about a resolution of 1024x768, centered on a black background.
I was thinking of using Flash, but I don't have much experience, so if there is another easier IDE that creates a Flash application, I would prefer that.
So, if anyone knows any Flash component to do this, I'll be very thankful.
Creating a Flash CDROM takes a little bit of care, but from my experience it's well worth it. From your requirements, the Flash IDE is well up to the task. The common requirements are as follows:
Windows / Mac platform
Flash Projector file
Autorun file (For the Windows platform)
Net access or all local
If your client is happy with creating the CDROM just for Windows, there will be very few dramas - but if they want to create a Mac-friendly version, you can do that too and I will explain afterwards.
Your Flash should preferably be an .exe projector file - the reason for this is so that the Windows user can open your app without downloading a Flash player (If the client wants a CDROM, they probably have limited net access, so this is a good thing!)
Within Flash, you can perform all your standard fs commands including full-screen.
You will likely need an Autorun file so that the user sees your application as soon as you put in the CDROM - simply create a file named 'autorun.inf' in notepad and enter the following:
[autorun]
open=yourProjector.exe
Where 'yourProjector.exe' is the name and path of your projector file.
It sounds like you're going to embed your videos and content in the CDROM - this is usually the ideal case, since your client won't receive annoying security messages, but this can also be a bad thing if you want to correct your content later (spotting errors after a thousand CDROMS have been distributed can be a PAIN).
You can serve some of your content online to avoid this, but it would give your user some ugly messages, so as long as you triple-check your content and embed everything, it would be the best scenario.
Now for a Mac, Apple has done away with autorun features years ago - there is a way to turn it on through Quicktime, but this is off by default for almost all Mac users, and turning it on is not recommended because it makes the Mac vulnerable to the 'Hong Kong Virus', one of the few Mac viruses around.
You can make your CDROM mac-friendly by creating a Mac Projector and adding instructions for how to use it by changing the background image of the CDROM window. I haven't had to do it before, but I hear that it's not too difficult.
You can use the Flash Projector. Here is a tutorial to get you started. Now, you won't be able to embed the PDF files but you can open them easily enough using fscommand("exec","foo.pdf")
You can create an Adobe AIR Application; however it won't run off the CD ROM; it'll need to be installed locally.
If creating a projector from Flash Pro doesn't work; look at a tool like Janus or Zinc