I'm using Eclipse IDE on Ubuntu. My app offers encryption services and I want to integrate it into the client OS. My question is:
Is there a way to put my app programmatically into the context menu (right-click options) of the file manager, irrespective of the file manager a person is using? I would also like to know if there is any way I could do this on Windows explorer as well. But my guess is that it involves adding values to the registry and can be easily achieved.
So, is there a general solution to adding context-menu support on linux file managers, and also please correct me if I'm wrong about doing it in the windows system.
Please inform me if the question is unclear.
If you target vanilla ubuntu, you can assume that the file manager is Gnome Nautilus.
You can write an extension (probably in Vala/C/python) to nautilus :
http://developer.gnome.org/libnautilus-extension/stable/
Or you could re-use existing extensions, like nautilus-action or nautilus-script which allow you to bind scripts to contextual-menu entries.
If you want to support all file managers out there, you have to look at dolphin(for KDE), thunar(for xcfe), and maybe pcmanfm...
Edit :
If you want to write your plugin in java, you might want to look at Gobject Introspection. Don't know if it works yet.
Related
I'm trying to set a custom process name for a jar application I am using, so that in the Task Manager, instead of it being shown as Java (TM) Platform SE Binary, it will display the application name and chosen icon.
Have tried to wrap the jar as an exe file with launch4j, but cannot seem to find a way to change the process name with this. From what I can tell from google searches, it seems like it may no longer be supported, however, the posts I have found a quite dated, so it could have changed.
Anyone know if there is a way to archieve this with launch4j, or perhaps with another free tool?
I have an application that has an applet that does two simple things:
Download an executable jar file from our server (if the user doesn't already have it) to an specific folder in the user's PC
Execute the jar file with the corresponding parameters
This jar file monitors an Office file for changes and send it back to our server.
The problem is the war Chrome is creating with Java with this NPAPI thing. So I have until September to think of an alternate technology or stop the Chrome support.
Do you think of some other way to achieve the same result? Just download and execute. Doesn't seem that hard =(. Can HTML 5 do that?
EDIT
I was looking into Java Web Start and became a little happy. It appears that it can do what I want: executing a up to date jar file passing parameters. But I never worked with JWS, so I have some doubts:
Is it possible to pass parameters to it? I read about some JSP files that you can configure to do that, but I'm still unsure.
Theoretically, it should start automatically from a browser link, am I right? I tried this site:
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/deployment/webstart/running.html
and it didn't work that way. I had to mark "always open files of that type" on Google Chrome. Is there a way for automatize it?
Thanks again!!
From what I know there are at least two things that allow you to stick with Java.
Webstart
Install4
Webstart is provided by Oracle and allows you to download Java program from the web and execute them. Update mechanisms exist, so you can always provide a current version.
Install4J (or any other installer for Java applications that offers an update mechanism) provides an installer which enables your customer to install an application which afterwards will be kept up to date by the integrated update mechanism. But Install4J comes at a price, there might be freeware / open source alternatives. Install4J and its alternatives are often discussed here on SO, you might want to check here.
I think the FileAPI of HTML5 is limited and can not access arbitrary files because a sandbox prevents this. You might check SO again for details about that.
I want to distribute a swing app to my client. In that application two property file are there, which should be visible to client so that they can edit, I can not give it as runnable jar. Also I want something like apache-tomcat zip file which once you extract it will arrange folder structure also will give property file to edit and on next run it reads that property. Also apache-tomcat starts with startup.bat or startup.sh like that I also want.
Use Java Web Start to install and update the application.
User editable properties
Put them in (a properties file in) the Jar
When you go to check for the properties, do so using the PersistenceService. If they do not exist, read them from the text file in the Jar, and put them there. Here is a demo. of the service.
When the user wants to see/edit the properties, show them via a JOptionPane.
Desktop integration
JWS offers desktop shortcuts and menu items to launch apps., when supported by the platform, as well as an API to install and remove them (see the IntegrationService). Much slicker than batch files!
Currently we are using GetDown to handle distribution of our swing applications. We use Tomcat to distribute updates and GetDown to download those updates. It's really flexible and powerful, and much better than java WebStart.
A good tutorial : http://www.hascode.com/2012/05/creating-updatable-java-applications-using-getdown-and-the-getdown-maven-plugin/
Project website : http://code.google.com/p/getdown/
If I understand you correctly you want a tool to make distribution package for your application. That generates folder structure and unpacks application and data files to this structure.
There are many free and commercial setup builders. I think you would prefer multi-platform builder, so look for java setup builder.
Check this thread, this question was discussed there.
I have a program, written in Java, which originally used its directory in Program Files to write files accessible to all users of this program. This required our users to run as administrator all the time. In an effort to alleviate that, we decided to move files which needed to be written during regular usage to the ProgramData folder using the %ALLUSERSPROFILE% environment variable. Using a subfolder in this directory for our application works great if it is designated as writable during the installation process, which works fine using NSIS.
The problem comes with upgrading existing users. The Java File API provides setWritable but this does not appear to work after testing on development machines. It looks as though the new file API with Java 7 would solve this problem, but with no release date on the horizon I would rather not wait.
It seems the simplest solution would be to use JNA to call the appropriate Windows API call to set this directory writable. Since upgrading the software necessitates admin rights, similar to installing, it should let this change go through fine. However, I'm unsure where to start, having never used JNA before or the Windows API. Suggestions as to which Windows library to load and what functions to call would be appreciated, especially if someone has encountered a similar problem before.
Well, I'm glad you gave some background...You could use JNA, but the easier way would be to execute a call to the command-line utility cacls. It's included by default in Windows XP installations, I believe, so it should do the trick for you. Try Runtime.getRuntime().exec("C:\\Windows\\System32\\cacls.exe"+options)
Check out the documentation here -> http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490872.aspx
I use the follow line:
Runtime.getRuntime().exec( "C:\\Windows\\System32\\icacls.exe \"%ProgramData%\my application" /grant *S-1-5-32-545:(OI)(CI)(W,M)" );
S-1-5-32-545 is the SID for BUILTIN\Users because the name work only on English systems. https://support.microsoft.com/de-de/kb/163846
This give the BUILTIN\Users write access to all files in the given directory independent which user has create it.
I took the advice I've been given here to look at IzPack to create a JNLP based one click installation for computer illiterate clients who are using a Java desktop application I've created.
Java Web Start Driven Installation
However, I can't seem to find my way around it.
I don't know where to begin and seems the online tutorials are basic "look at the examples" which are themselves pre compiled and not sourced.
I want to create a simple form - be it in JSP or the JNLP install app (preferably JSP and the JNLP should get arguments from the JSP that launches it).
Then when the users click Install, the program installs to the default directory of userappdata with no questions (except for the UAC).
But IzPack seems to be forcing me to use panels and stuff... Not sure I want all of that.
Or maybe....
Hmmm, writing this just gave me an idea, but I'd still like some feedback.
Thanks.
Another approach perhaps?
If all what you need is to allow the user invoke a JAR, then consider using JSmooth to wrap it in an exe file. The exe file knows how to invoke java correctly and prompt the user to download if not present.
We also have used one-jar to wrap multiple jars in a single jar for exactly this purpose.