Regarding user settings - whats the purpose of the assets folder? - win-universal-app

I want to find the correct place to save my user settings for my uwp app. I know there exists:
local: Data that exists on the current device and is backed up in the cloud
roaming: Data that exists on all devices on which the user has installed the app
temporary: Data that could be removed by the system any time the app isn't running
-localcache: Persistent data that
exists only on the current device
I can access the above places with ApplicationData.Current. Which are located somewhere in C:\Users\bla\AppData\Local\Packages\1e7e-94a6-4235-a0c5-9b143f8b_8webbwe
The project also contains a Asset folder, and I can't find a good source which tells me where the folder is located when the app is installed (not in developer mode).
Some developers place there settings into the asset folder. Why? What's the advantage? Is there also a file size limit like for ApplicationData.Current ? When deploying a settings folder into the asset folder will it be available for all user which installed my app? Any background informations regarding the asset folder are appreciated.

Settings files are most appropriate in the ApplicationData folders or ApplicationData.LocalSettings or .RoamingSettings See Store and retrieve settings and other app data
The assets folder is purely a convention. The "assets" name is not special other than to suggest what types of files go in the folder. It is just a useful way to organize the application package to have a place for assets (images, etc.) that are used in the app.
When the app is installed the assets will be in the Package.InstalledLocation directory and can be addressed with an ms-appx:///assets/ URI. Typically this will end up somewhere in \Program Files\WindowsApps\.
Putting a settings file in assets would be a bad idea as the InstalledLocation is read-only and as settings are user data.
There is no hard size limit for files in ApplicationData folders, although if too much data is stored in RoamingFolder then it won't roam. The files will still be available locally.

Related

Possible to set local folder for automatic file uploads

Bit of a loose question so if it gets marked down I'll remove it.. but..
I'm using Primefaces/Spring/Hibernate for Java server.
My application knows a load of file names I need to upload. Those files are on my local computer. Is it possible to tell the application the root directory of these files, for it to then setup uploads for each of these files without me needing to browse for each file individually?
I assume this is a browser security issue, i.e. the user needs to explicitly state which file the application is allowed to know about etc?
If not I'll have to do it in a local application but I was hoping there was a way a mass upload could be kicked off from the browser by just setting the local directory of the files.
I decided to use the Primefaces uploader, upload all the files in the directory and let the application sort them out once it has them on the server.

Node Webkit Desktop App - Browser default caching of PDF files

I have built a desktop app using node webkit and need to cache PDF files that are viewed via the App when online so that they are also available offline. I haven't found a solution yet but during testing I noticed that files that I had previously viewed online were available offline even though I haven't written any code for this yet. Therefore these must already be cached automatically. I did a search to find where the files are being saved exactly but couldn't find anything.
Can anyone explain this or point me in the direction of information on this so that I understand how it works and ensure my App can utilise the default behaviour of the browser caching?
********UPDATE***********
I have found a solution to store the PDFs locally, however this isn't my query. I am looking for an explanation as to HOW the PDFs are available when offline without this code I have written. The files must be automatically be stored somewhere otherwise how would they display?
The default caching behavior of node-webkit is controlled by the page-cache property in package.json :
"webkit": {
"page-cache": true
},
Only typical web resources can be cached this way (scripts, style sheets, etc.). To be able to view PDF files offline, you can store them manually.
There are several ways to do that :
Save a file directly to disk (the simple solution, just store the files in App.dataPath)
Use a database
Use Web Storage
Use the application cache
All of these are documented here : Save persistent data in app
The default location to cache your app files is mentioned in your package.json manifest file.When the app is initialized the settings in your manifest files are loaded by default.Since cached files cannot be accessed programmatically,you can overwrite the default files manually.
To get the application’s data path in user’s directory for windows,you can write it in Jason format in your package :
Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%/
You can read about other cache menthods in node webkit's documentation :
http://docs.nwjs.io/en/latest/References/App/#appclearcache

access certain folder in azure cloud service

In my code (which has worker role) I need to specify a path to a directory (third party library requires it). Locally I've included folder into project and just give full path to it. However after deployment of course I need a new path. How do I confirm that whole folder has been deployed and how do I determine a new path to it?
Edit:
I added folder to the role node in visual studio and accessed it like this: Path.Combine(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("RoleRoot"), "my_folder");
Will this directory be used for reading and writing? If yes, you should use a LocalStorage resource. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/cloud-services-configure-local-storage-resources/ shows how to use this.
If the directory is only for reading (ie. you have binaries or config files there), then you can use the %RoleRoot% environment variable to identify the path where your package was deployed to, then just append whatever folder you refernced in your project (ie. %RoleRoot%\Myfiles).
I'd take a slightly different approach. Place the 3rd party package into Windows Azure blob storage, then during role startup, you can download/extract it and place the files into the available Local storage (giving it whatever permissions the app needs). Then leverage that location from your application via the same local storage configuration entry.
This should help you reduce the size of your deployment package as well as give you the ability to update the 3rd party components without completely redeploying your solution. And by leveraging it on startup, you can guarantee that the files will be there in case the role instance gets torn down and rebuilt.

Force sharepoint to save files in directory

I'd like to force sharepoint to save files in directory. Is there a way to do that?
I think about this scenario: users upload files to some list / library in sharepoint and automatically or by pushing "publish" the files are copied to some local server's directory.
Edit:
In other words i would like to connect sharepoint library with physical directory in server that runs IIS, so that files uploaded to library were seen in that folder.
I'm new to sharepoint.
Are you talking about Remote BLOB Storage? I have not tried this and assume that RBS can be enabled for a Site level only and not for individual document libraries. If you want this for a particular doc library, you can write an event handler to save the uploaded documents to file system and then remove the uploaded file.
Most likely you don't want to do this. If you're doing it in order to access the files from other applications, or having them show up in a users home directory or something, you can just map the document library as a network drive/web folder.

IIS Config file in virtual directory

I have multiple websites that all have the same code, but different app settings.
I want to place my app settings in a separate configuration file that is located in a virtual directory. This will allow me to have a single copy of all of the code shared across all of the sites with a different virtual directory for each site.
Unfortunately, when I try to configure this, IIS doesn't process the config file when it is in a virtual directory.
If you have a solution to this, I would appreciate your help.
Maybe using the machine.config file on your web server would be a suitable alternative? Otherwise you could create a web.config file in a global folder somewhere and open it using the WebConfigurationManager.OpenMappedWebConfiguration() method.
It's not possible to use a virtual directory (or even files outside of the current website; only the current folder, or a sub-folder).
One possible way to share setting across projects would be to do it at build-time - either by coping it in, or using a Linked File in VS to have it copied to the folder on publish.
If you really need this functionality on the server, you could try (though I can't say how well it would work) a Junction.

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