[Mono-dev] Windows Shell

[Charlie Poole]

HI Steve,
 
Good point about porting. If I'm using the Shell api then I'd like my app to
actually work on Mono, with graceful
degradation when a particluar folder or item doesn't exist on the platform.
 
And of course, I also see things on my desktop that look like they might be
construed as analogues of the
virtual folders that exist in Windows. Windows programmers would probably
want them to work. Those
coming from Linux may prefer some other API.
 
Actually, when I first saw your post, my mind went immediately to Shell
extensions, which seem to be pretty
much Windows-only, unless you want to invent something equally arcane for
Linux. :-)

BTW, do you think of the shlwapi assembly stuff as part of this?
 
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 1:49 PM
To: Charlie Poole
Cc: mono-devel-list at lists.ximian.com
Subject: Re: [Mono-dev] Windows Shell


Hi Charlie,

Like you I am more familiar with Windows, but it appears to me that many of
the virtual folders on Windows have analogues in the *nix world. For
example, looking at Nautilus on my Ubuntu system, there is a Computer and a
Desktop entry. 

As for the usefulness of the library, I cannot say: as I understand it,
there seemed to be from the moma results a need to access the WIndows Shell.
Providing a manner to do this in a cross-platform manner would certainly
make porting to non-Windows system easier. The question is whether there are
already ways to access the needed functionality in Mono, using
Icon.ExtractAssociatedIcon etc.

It would be useful to hear from the people who are using the Windows Shell
API under .NET to find out what they are using it for; it could be that this
library is overkill.

Cheers 
Steve


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

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


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