My program can use a network protocol to query remote filesystem information (like directory contents). I would like to use the GTK file chooser widget or something similar to allow my users to pick files on the remote server.
However, the GTK file picker handles the interaction with the filesystem itself. I don't see a way to stick my own code in, so although I could write some functions that "pretended" to be a filesystem interface, I don't see a way to get the file chooser to use them. Are there any options for me other than creating my own version of the file picker widget?
Also: I happen to be writing this in Rust. That may or may not be relevant, depending on what your suggestions are. ;)
Related
I'm trying to use a software library to run some computations. These computations can be customized using a few configuration files in its share directory. Unfortunately this library only provides hard coded paths to specific files in its (read-only) share directory which store these default configurations. Thus right now only a super-user or administrator could modify them. The library doesn't search for any user-local versions of these configuration files. I'd like to develop a wrapper tool which additionally takes a path to an alternate version of one of these configuration files in the users home directory and have that file somehow appear to "mask" the original file on the file system for the duration of process execution without actually modifying the original file in any way (since it can't). Is there a Linux tool I could use to do this sort of thing?
For a future project, I need to track user activity to record their productivity time. I want to detect which file is currently open in apps like Adobe Photoshop for example and detect when the user switches to other app or another file/tab.
To make my desktop app, I wish to use electron JS
Can you just give me some tracks to follow ?I don't find any nodejs library that allow me to do that, but I know that is possible because it already done with electron apps like:
Chronos https://electronjs.org/apps/chronos-timetracker
Paymo https://electronjs.org/apps/paymo-time-tracker
ScreenAware https://electronjs.org/apps/screenaware
And an other App which not seems to be built with electron :
https://desktime.com/features
Thanks for your help
node.js doesn't have the capabilities you require, however it can call external programs to get the job done. The way I see it, you would need to have a PowerShell script (or C# program) to get the active window from the operating system, and find all open file handles for the process behind that window. You would invoke this script from node, and build your gui around it.
A good starting point is this module active-window which works exacty as I described: a nodejs process calls some external scripts (in bash/PowerShell) that use OS specific primitives to get the active window.
To get the list of files opened by a process, you could use the handle utility from Sysinternals. However you may run into a small problem: apps like Photoshop usually don't keep the file handle open, they just open it when saving the file. This means that you won't always be able to detect open files. I guess trial and error is your friend here.
To find open tabs, it's more complicated. Tabs usually indicate the internal state of an app, and this information is held in memory. Some apps might offer an API, but that's not guaranteed. I guess screenshots are the way to go here.
I am creating a file explorer in NodeJS.
My question is, how do I find or get the icon for a file, like they do in Windows File Explorer.
I understand that this may be different for each OS, so a separate answer for each OS would be ideal (or just Windows would also be fine for now).
I'm sure it's possible from this: How to get the default system icon for a drive, a device or a file
However, that uses delphi and I am finding very confusing to understand their code.
For part of a large university project I have built a large java based application. To make "installation" cleaner I am aiming to write a script to copy the jar to a hidden file in the users home directory then add a menu &/Or desktop launcher.
Since I do not know what platform the markers shall be using it seems sensible to make this generic so I was going to build a shell script and a batch file.
The shell script starts off simple, check the directory doesnt already exist, make it and copy the file accross.
Then it comes to making a launcher of some kind. I presume each desktop environment shall do things differently.
After 10 minutes with google it seems everything suggested is autotools but since I have no knowledge of this it seems a bit overkill.
Is there an easy way to achieve what i need?
Thanks
These days, basically all of the desktop environments uses desktop files. For the specification for those files, see the Desktop Entry Specification.
Normally, they're put in /usr/share/applications on the system. Those files are then read and used to construct the menu.
If you have the ability to write to the system /usr/share/applications directory, that's obviously simplest, but if you had that, you would probably be putting the JAR file somewhere other than a hidden directory in the user's home directory.
If not, the path that's supposed to be honored is ~/.local/share/applications. If you drop a desktop file in there, it should show up for the user. (This is somewhat newer; I don't think GNOME 2 supports, it for example. Older desktop environments had various special places for these files.)
Then, the problem basically reduces to figuring out what to write for the Exec line in the desktop file. (See the desktop files on your system in /usr/share/applications for some examples.) If you're lucky, you can get away with just sticking a java command in there, but the details will depend on your application.
For me, compact discs and these customized auto-start dialogs are somewhat outdated and waste...
However, I have to create such a dialog as an index for a CD consisting of a few PDF files. Making one to work on Microsoft Windows is quite easy. As there might be users from different platforms (Unix, Apple,...), the question raises how to offer them such a (auto-starting) dialog as well.
Java is of course an option, but I think it's overloaded and naturally too slow for this purpose.
Now, I think of a single webpage that will appear in the local browser. Using all these web standards this could a very creative, light-weight approach working on most systems.
Do you see any problems that might occur here? Probably, there is a different and more elegant solution to this issue?
I can't really recommend something precisely but I've seen lots of CD open a Adobe Flash dialog. It's also been a long time I've played around with flash but I think they're a setting in File > Publish that allows you to export to a dialog.
The CD auto-start is an autorun.ini file added to the root of the CD. You could create a folder on the CD named autorun or something. Insert all your Flash/HTML files then point the open parameter of the autorun.ini file to an HTML/Flash file.
Some documentation below (or Google “autorun.ini”).
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/818804
Notice however not all computer will have Flash installed by default.