I am an WPF developer with little knowledge for the way "mobile" apps work but in general I believe that they work in some sort of sandbox way (meaning they should not be able to access each others process, info etc., I might be totally incorrect on this one). So I am wondering if such "limitations" are applied to the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps?
The reasoning for my question is that I would like to write and app that checks if another Universal App is in process and use some of its information. In WPF there are ways of doing just that but in UWP apps I am not sure if it is/should/will be possible.
Thanks.
There are a couple of solutions in Windows 10. Firstly, if you are building an enterprise app and can also side-load normal Desktop apps, you can use this technique to build your UI as a UWP but also be able to break out of the sandbox and do other things on the desktop.
Secondly, if the app you want to read from is cooperative (ie, is designed to provide information; you're not just grabbing it without permission) then you can use App to App services to send and receive information between two consenting applications.
Both links are to //build videos but you can download the slides too that should contain code samples.
Related
I am working on creating a Windows 10 Universal app. My goal is to have the app run in the background and periodically display a status notification to the user.
I've seen a few articles that talk about creating a background task within the app (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/launch-resume/run-a-background-task-on-a-timer-), is this the best design pattern I can follow? I'm fairly new to Windows Universal apps and any recommendations on how to do this would be appreciated.
Look at the IBackgroundTask docs. In addition, you can easily implement notifications via the OS with Adaptive Toasts
Since the story around notifications can get complex depending on how you want to control UX, don't be afraid to research building an RT component if you can't find a UWP API that meets your needs. For instance, you can package an RT component with your UWP app that calls into native C++ libraries or more low-level Windows APIs to curate the notification experience for your user.
We have this application written in Visual Basic (Windows Form Application) and I am tasked to convert it to Universal App (UWP). the said application uses a dll that is specific to .Net Framework so in order to convert it into a Universal App, I need to have a dll that is targeting .Net Core.
Is there a way to do it?
I know nothing in dll stuffs, can someone enlighten me up? Any help will be appreciated.
Your best bet in this case is the Desktop App Converter.
In summary, what that does is takes your existing .exe application and converts it to an Universal Store appx. In most cases this can happen without any code changes, and the resulting app can be deployed to the Windows Store or other UWP deployment channels (MDM solutions). It also lets you add some of the UWP features such as Live Tiles or Push Notifications, while others won't be possible with this (Adaptive Layouts). The application, though running under the new Application Model will still run with the same permissions as the original .exe (not sandboxed).
So, if you are being asked to convert the app for (some of) those reasons, it might be your best solution.
If this does not work for you, there is no other choice than a complete rewrite at this point since UWP does not support Forms, you will need to use XAML, so your entire UI stack needs to be redone at which point, a complete refresh usually makes more sense.
I am about to start development on an UWP Application. One of the last minute requirements was to be able to support white-labeling the application for our partners. Does anyone have any experience doing this using the Universal Windows Platform that would be willing to give me some insight on resources I should be looking at?
Some basic questions I have is:
Is it possible? I read about it being done with iOS and Android.
How do you create the AppPackage for each partner?
Localization differences? Where one localization may refer to it as one product, but another refers to it as the other product.
Or is this something where I would bundle everything up and send it to the partner to create their own upload? If this is the case, is there a how-to on that?
Some of these might be basic questions, but this is the first time I have created a white-label application, so it is all new to me.
Have just replied to another one topic and looks that screenshot is still needed)
When you submit App to store you can find option:
This way you can make your app visible only to your partners. And you can also register as many apps as you like (each one for separate partner)
Or you can distribute your app thrue Windows Store for Business.
Take a look also at this link, it might be helpful for you
Distribute LOB apps to enterprises
I was given the following to consider:
Develop desktop application using Nodeweb kit.
Also develop web application using the same code base.
Applications should look identical.
Both apps must use the same code base. The reason for this is to cut down development expenses.
If it was up to me I would not even consider using node-webkit for desktop. There are far better desktop solutions for Win platforms. For web application using Node is certanly viable.
But people who plan the project somehow think Node is a way to go for both apps.
After lots of thinking, I came to the conclusion that doing what they want will only increase dev and maintenance costs.
I consider using express (maybe even Sails.js) for web application. I made some tests where I used express on node-webkit and it run just fine.
Certanly NW is powerfull platform (popcorn). Just in my case I fail to see how can it cut down the dev expense
Am I right to be against this solution? Is this a plausible decision and I am not seeing another solution?
Any opinion is very welcome
I have actually done exactly this, and it worked very well. The trick was to write some Node Webkit code that will "detect" that it's running as a desktop application, instead of a web app, and thus integrate with desktop notifications etc.
Yes, it was more work than just writing a web app, but it was also less work (and maintenance) than developing separate applications. You get to use a lot of common code, because of the fact that you are running in a browser already, that I feel the project saved a lot of time.
In fact, I am currently working on another application that requires some desktop features (file access, notifications) but the same functionality as the web application, and I'm proposing that the development happens in Node Webkit.
The important criteria here for me is that both applications are 90% the same, the desktop just adds things you don't normally have on the web. So the core of the application is exactly the same AngularJS application, with some JavaScript injected by the Node Webkit startup page to add the required desktop behaviour.
You haven't presented reasons why you think node-webkit is not a suitable option for desktop application.
On the other hand I think client's opinion that development in node and node-webkit will be able to cut down costs is not ungrounded.
nw.js (formerly node-webkit) is basically a Chromium browser with intergrated node.js engine. So if you develop a web-application using node.js (and any of its frameworks) then you will be able to reuse it in nw.js fairly easy.
Does anyone know of any article/publication on the security architecture of Metro app?
For example, can the metro app call an external service. If it can,
under what condition. Will it prompt the user first? And if so will
they be able to change their restriction later and how?
Cross domain scripting in a website is usually considered a big
no-no. But if I were to turn the same code into a metro app (since
presumably they're both written in Html 5 + js), does it mean I can
make ajax calls to any server irrespective of their domain? Is it
even possible to port a website into an app? If so how easy is that?
What about accessing local file system? Or does it have to go
through the contracts to do so?
And this is kind of related but if I were to write a website (not an
app). And the site was opened using Metro IE10, can it subscribe
into the metro specific js events? I guess I'm trying to figure out
how to save cost by doing as little development as possible. I
prefer a website that can target multiple platforms and only target
specific platform for the features that absolutely require it - also
not to thrilled with the idea of having to go through microsoft in
order to publish my app.
Any help appreciated.
Metro applications can call into web services located on other machines, but their ability to interact with the local machine is severely limited.
Similarly, accessing arbitrary parts of the local filesystem is not permitted. If your application has the documents (or music or photos) library permission, it can access the files in those libraries.