This is probably a bad idea or whatever you wan't to call it. Nevertheless, curious to know if Air can write inside it's own installed package. I'm referring to the OSX '.app' files found in great numbers in the applications folder. Since every one of these can be opened as a regular folder, i'm guessing that's what they are.
What other fancy filewriting tricks am i missing out on?
It's definitely a bad idea. That said, it looks like it's probably possible. Something like (untested):
var appDir:File = File.applicationDirectory; // uses app: URI, can't be written to
var appPath:String = appDir.nativePath;
var writeableAppDir:File = new File(appPath);
var newFile:File = writeableAppDir.resolvePath("writeme.txt");
The nativePath and applicationDirectory documentation in the File class are full of warnings against this. Follow them.
From the docs:
Modifying content in the application
directory is a bad practice, for
security reasons. If you want to store
application-specific data, consider
using the application storage
directory
(File.applicationStorageDirectory). If
you want any of the content in the
application storage directory to have
access to the application-priveleged
functionality (AIR APIs), you can
expose that functionality by using a
sandbox bridge.
Related
I am looking for a way to handle this challenge: we are a geographically dispersed dev team using ASP.NET Web API and Angular to build a web app.
The thing that causes the grief is the fact that not all team members use the same database setup for their dev work. Yes, I know - I can use web.config transforms to set the proper connection strings for test, staging and production (and I'm already doing this) - but this is not what I'm talking about.
Due to reasons beyond our control at this time, we have
some developers working on a local SQL Server instance using server=(local);database=OurDB as their connection string
other developers using a central developer SQL Server in their location, using something like server=someserver.mycorp.com;database=OurDB
and a few exotic cases with yet other settings
Now every time someone commits a change to the Git repo, and happens to also change something in the web.config, his connection string is committed to the repo. So when I then go pull that latest commit, my settings to my local DB server are overwritten by this other guy's settings.
I am looking for a way to handle this - I was hoping I might be able to
hook into the Git pull process and automagically update the web.config connection string to my local needs whenever I pull something
somehow reference a connection string (or external config file) based on e.g. my currently logged in user's name or something like that
But I can't seem to find any way of doing this. I was wondering if I need to build a VS extension to handle this - any starters for that? Has anyone done something like this before and could share his code? (or has it up on Github)
The web.config configuration system used in ASP.NET is not flexible enough to support the more advanced scenario you have described. So, why use it? You could store the configuration in files within the repository, one per developer. Or they could be stored outside the repository or otherwise ignored.
The real trick is that most older applications don't have a single root that retrieve the configuration, so you have to refactor your application to utilize a flexible configuration system. For your staging/production environments you probably still want to use the config in web.config. The following code can give you a basic idea of one way to structure it:
public class MyApplicationConfiguration
{
public string MainConnectionString { get; set; }
}
public class ConfigurationRetriever
{
public MyApplicationConfiguration GetConfiguration()
{
// You might look for the absence or presence of an environment variable to determine this
bool isLocalDevelopment = IsApplicationLocalDevelopment();
var config = new MyApplicationConfiguration();
if(isLocalDevelopment)
{
config.MainConnectionString = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("MyApplication_MainConnectionString");
//or get it from a JSON file or XML file or config database
}
else
{
config.MainConnectionString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["MainConnectionString"].ConnectionString;
}
}
}
Rather than rolling your own config building logic, you might refactor your application to leverage Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration. It's not just for .NET Core. It's for .NET Standard. So you can use it even in your legacy ASP.NET applications. For reading the web.config, you could probably use Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.Xml. Or you can write your own adapter that pulls values out of ConfigurationManager. I did a basic test, and this worked as expected.
I usually follow the unofficial Meteor FAQ on how to structure my codebase, but I can't figure out where I should put my global constants.
To give an example: I have some database entries with a constant GUID that I need to reference in many points of my app. So far I just attached the constants to the relevant collection, such that in collections/myCollectionWithGuids.coffee it would say:
#MyCollectionWithGuids = new Meteor.Collection "myCollectionWithGuids"
#MyCollectionWithGuids.CONSTANT_ID = "8e7c2fe3-6644-42ea-b114-df8c5211b842"
This approach worked fine, until I need to use it in the following snippet, located in client/views/myCollectionWithGuidsView.coffee, where it says:
Session.setDefault "selectedOption", MyCollectionWithGuids.CONSTANT_ID
...which is unavailable because the file is being loaded before the Collections are created.
So where should I put my constants then, such that they are always loaded first without hacking in a bunch of subdirectories?
You could rely on the fact that a directory names lib is always treated first when it comes to load order.
So I would probably advise you to organize your code as follow :
lib/collections/collection.js
client/views/view.js
In your particular use case this is going to be okay, but you might find cases when you have to use lib in your client directory as well and as the load order rules stack (subdirectories being loaded first), it will be loaded BEFORE the lib folder residing in your project root.
For the moment, the only way to have full control over the load order is to rely on the package API, so you would have to make your piece of code a local package of your app (living in the packages directory of your project root).
It makes sense because you seem to have a collection and a view somehow related, plus splicing your project into a bunch of collaborative local packages tends to be an elegant design pattern after all.
Creating a local package is really easy now that Meteor 0.9 provide documentation for the package.js API.
http://docs.meteor.com/#packagejs
I would put your collection definitions in a lib directory. File structure documentation explains that all files under the lib directory get loaded before any other files, which means your variable would be defined when you attempt to access it in your client-side code.
Generally speaking, you always want your collections to be defined before anything else in your application is loaded or executed, since your application will most likely heavily depend upon the use of the collection's cursor.
I'm developing a webapp for firefox aurora (android). And i have an file input.
But when users click on the input they can't choose files from sdcard or filesystem only pictures, music or videos.
I search at MOZILLA DEVELOPER NETWORK, but couldn't find anything helpful.
In my manifest.webbapp i have device-storage permission:
"permissions": {
"device-storage:sdcard":{ "access": "readonly" }
},
I assume you are currently simply using the markup ?
The device-storage:sdcard is for a very different set of use cases really. And we don't have that implemented on Firefox for Android yet.
The list of applications being shown is just the set of applications that we're getting from the Android Intents system. I would imagine that if the user has some sort of filebrowser app installed it might respond to that intent and it'd pop up there.
But of course that's not something you can rely on in your app.
I'm honestly somewhat surprised that there's no default applications on android that provide that functionality, but I guess that's how it is. Or does someone know of a way to also get a filepicker intent that we can hook up to?
Medium term you will be able to use the DeviceStorage API. This will give you direct JS access to the sdcard which will allow you to build your own UI for choosing a file from the SD card. But that extra power comes with quite a few downsides. It's a privileged API which means that you'll have to write the app as a packaged app and you have to use CSP. And you'll have to go through the Firefox marketplace review process (all privileged apps have to go through code review).
So it's a pretty distant second choice.
Other than that there aren't any solutions. The best would of course be if there was a way we could plopp up an Android file picker, but I'm not sure if that's doable. And it's definitely not implemented yet.
According to the source code, this permission is only granted to apps that are packaged and privileged, the latter also means the app has to be signed by the Marketplace.
You can find more about packaged apps and privileged app types here:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Apps/Packaged_apps
Just install an Android file manager app (https://play.google.com/store/search?q=file+manager&c=apps) and you will be able to select files from the SD card. There is no need for specific rights because this is handled automatically by the standard file input.
Accessing the SD Card can only be achieved through a privileged or certified app. Currently to my knowledge, there is no integration the system menus as you are hoping would be the case. Personally, I'm hoping that this will change.
API Documentation: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAPI/Device_Storage
You could create your own menu that mimics the the system one; in this way the user gets a seamless experience and they don't know the difference. It would require a little boilerplate though it's not insurmountable levels of boilerplate.
A quick snippet for browsing/enumerating all photos on the the SDCard:
var storage = navigator.getDeviceStorage("sdcard");
sdcard.browse = function () {
var pics = navigator.getDeviceStorage('pictures');
// Let's browse all the images available
var cursor = pics.enumerate();
cursor.onsuccess = function () {
var file = this.result;
alert("File found: " + file.name);
// Once we found a file we check if there are other results
if (!this.done) {
// Then we move to the next result, which call the cursor
// success with the next file as result.
this.continue();
}
}
cursor.onerror = function () {
alert("No files found: " + this.error);
}
};
If you would like some more details for reading, writing, and caulating available storage, I'm currently working on a little wrapper library in my spare time to work with the SDCard more easily (and handle some callbacks to integrate better with other code) in my spare time and can probably help you out.
I am developing an air application where I have to drop an image and save the Image path, width, height to variables and pass those variables to external swf. I load the swf like this:
var myLoader:SWFLoader = new SWFLoader();
var url:URLRequest = new URLRequest("myExternalMovie.swf");
myLoader.load(url);
I am getting this error: the way I am passing the URL of the swf is incorrect and not supported in AIR.
Haven't encountered this one myself yet but, the first thing that came to mind is well what path should that be. That is if I look at some filename from an application am I concerned with a path relative to the application's current working directory from which it was executed or am I concerned with the application install folder and paths relative to there, looking at the docs it seems Adobe went down the same line of thought and provided the ability (and need) to specify:
http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=url_requests_2.html#1030295
Was going to copy but basically read through the section titled
Using AIR URL schemes in URLs
I want to know a bit more about 'xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml". Generally namespaces acts as the pointers to the component location, but I've always seen them directing resources within local directory structure. When 'xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"' is used than is a new connection is set with adobe server or is it just a convention?
If an actual connection is set then the application should not get compiled without internet connection but in reality we can compile and run our application without internet connection as well !! Plz correct me if I am wring somewhere.
Please help me understanding its significance,
Thanks in advance.
Ashine.
It's just an identifier that with the use of flex-config.xml file (you can find it in your $SDK_HOME/frameworks folder) points to mxml-manifest.xml file which contains definitions of classes that you can use by "importing" specific namespace.
It's just a convention. Try actually following the URI, the page doesn't exist!
Namespaces aren't the same as directory structures btw... The actionscript compiler cheats a lot to make it look that way.
The URL is known as a namespace URL. Not all namespaces are directory structures. But, it takes quite a bit more work to create a namespace URL; whereas directory namespaces are almost automatic.
To create a namespace URL, you need to use a library project and add a manifest.xml file.
The documentation is really light on this topic. But, I demo about this in the last episode of The Flex Show's screencast series on creating custom components and in an episode of the Flextras Friday Lunch.