[Mono-dev] Windows Shell

[Charlie Poole]

Hi Steve,
 
>From your comments below, it sounds as if you envision the non-Windows
implementations as only
applying to the file system. That's what I was thinking too, so I was
questioning /why/ one would want
a non-windows implementation, not whether it was possible.
 
Bear with me, as I'm more of a Windows guy, but are there any non-filesystem
items or folders
to access in Linux desktops? Would Linux programmers want to access them
this way?
 
This is not to rain on your parade... the library sounds quite useful. But
it seems to me that knowing 
whether this has value on other platforms might be pertinent to how you
approach it.
 
Charlie


  _____  

From: mono-devel-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com
[mailto:mono-devel-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com] On Behalf Of Steve K
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 12:22 PM
To: Charlie Poole
Cc: mono-devel-list at lists.ximian.com
Subject: Re: [Mono-dev] Windows Shell


As far as I can tell, the interface exposed by the API I attached earlier
would be trivially implemented in a cross platform manner.

Here are the methods/properties exposed:

IShellItem:
- string DisplayName: usually just the filename of the file. 
- bool IsFolder: returns 'true' when the item is a folder.
- Icon LargeIcon: the large icon for the item
- ShellFolder Parent: the item's parent folder
- Path: the item's full filesystem path. If the folder is virtual, throws an
exception. 
- Icon SmallIcon: the small icon for the item

ShellFolder:
- Implements IShellItem
- Can be constructed from a filesystem path, or from an
Environment.SpecialFolder. 
- IsImmediateParentOf(): tests to see if a folder is an immediate parent of
another folder. 
- IsParentOf(): tests to see if a folder is a parent of another folder at
any level.
- HasFileSystemChildren: if the folder is a virtual folder, but it has
filesystem children, returns 'true'. Would probably always return 'true' on
non-Windows platforms. 
- IsFileSystem: if the folder is a virtual folder, returns 'false'. Would
probably always return 'true' on non-Windows platforms.

ShellItem:
- Implements IShellItem
- Can be constructed from a filesystem path or by iterating over a
ShellFolder.
- ToShellFolder(): Returns a ShellFolder representing this item if the item
is a folder. If the item is not a folder, throws an exception. 

There are obvious missing pieces here, such as finding an item in a folder.
But I can't see anything that would cause problems on other platforms.

Thoughts?

Cheers
Steve


On 11/30/06, Charlie Poole <charlie at nunit.com> wrote: 

Would it be useful to first have a hypothetical common interface, with a
definition of what the
semantics would be under different desktops?
 
I've done a lot of Shell programming, so maybe I'm thinking at too detailed
a level, but is sounds
to me like a Windows-specific thing to start out with. That's OK, but it
would be good to know
what parts are likely to be cross-platform, since you might want to package
them separately.
 
Just a thought :-)

Charlie


  _____  

From: mono-devel-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com
[mailto:mono-devel-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com] On Behalf Of Steve K
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 6:37 AM
To: Miguel de Icaza
Cc: mono-devel-list at lists.ximian.com
Subject: Re: [Mono-dev] Windows Shell



I have created a first iteration of the windows implementation, attached. I
have not integrated this into the mono build system, or indeed tried
compiling it with mcs yet, as I am having difficulty building mono under
cygwin. 

Here's a brief overview of the API:

interface IShellItem - 
This acts as a common interface for ShellFolder and ShellItem. It exposes
properties such as DisplayName, SmallIcon, LargeIcon, Parent, Path.

class ShellFolder - 
Represents a folder in the Windows Shell Namepsace. ShellFolder can be
constructed with an Environment.SpecialFolder value, or from a path. It
implements IEnumerable, which allows a user to iterate over the folder's
ShellItems. 

class ShellItem - 
Represents an item in a ShellFolder. If the item is itself a folder,
ToShellFolder() will create a ShellFolder representation of the item.

I have used the namespace Mono.WindowsShell for the moment. 

An example of a program using the API:

        static void Main(string[] args) {
            ShellFolder folder = 
                new ShellFolder(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop);

            foreach (ShellItem item in folder) { 
                if (item.IsFolder) Console.Write("d ");
                Console.WriteLine(item.DisplayName);
            }

            ShellItem windows = new ShellItem(@"c:\progra~1"); 
            Console.WriteLine();
            Console.WriteLine(windows.DisplayName);
            Console.WriteLine(windows.LargeIcon.Width);
        }

Comments welcome!

Cheers
Steve


On 11/29/06, Miguel de Icaza <miguel at ximian.com> wrote: 

Hello,

> Yes, I agree with your assesment.
>
> As for duplicating the Windows Shell API, it would need to be
> abstracted quite significantly, as it is the single worst API I have
> used, and very much tied to the win32 implementation. 

I would create an abstraction for what you are trying to solve, and have
one implementation call into the Windows space, and another that we do
to map into the Linux world.

This is what we have in mind. 

Miguel.




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