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Yesterday I was once again reminded that it's often easier to solve a problem if you remove yourself from your work environment, as that forces you to think in a clear and unbiased manner.
For the past couple of days I've been stymied by a code smell re: the need to include Interop.Shell32.dll with a custom installer I'm writing for one of my freeware apps. The emphasis is on ease of use by a complete novice, and I wanted the user to be able to run a single standalone .exe that had no dependencies, other than the presence of .NET. Anyway, I figured I'd come up with a solution (that honestly seemed hackish at best).
Last night, I walked to the kitchen to turn out the light and found myself (involuntarily) drawn to a container of chocolate icecream. Several minutes and several more spoonfuls later, a ridiculously simple (and much more elegant) solution hit me. All this while I was no nowhere near my PC or Google.
Moral of the story: eat more icecream.
/ravi
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What was the solution?
I've made a .Net WPF app a single exe by embedding the required dlls as resources in a post build event and then using OnAssemblyResolve (or something like that) to load them when needed.
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Jacquers wrote: What was the solution?
Ice cream man. Don't you read? 
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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Jacquers wrote: embedding the required dlls as resources in a post build event and then using OnAssemblyResolve
That was the smell.
I decided to instead keep the installer brain-dead simple (i.e. it just downloads the app and deposits it in a user-specified folder). After downloading, the app is started and instructed to delete the installer and create a shortcut in the Startup folder. That way, the interop .dll is one of the app's components and lives with it. The .dll is also required at run-time, because the app has a "Start with Windows" preference that can be toggled at any time.
/ravi
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That's nothing new. Chocolate Driven Development.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
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CDP1802 wrote: Chocolate Driven Development.
/ravi
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Glad you found your solution.
I had a similar deal (sans the ice cream) go on with a need for shell functionality.
I found a way to add what I wanted simply by adding a registry key so that the menu item shows up in File Explorer and user can select my functionality from File Explorer. At first I thought I had to have shell interop, but no. I was very happy.
YOu can see details in my CP article.
FileDestroyer: Annihilate Files (overwrite multiple times, then delete) With This Utility[^]
Don't focus on the destroy files thing, but just the way I call the functionality via the shell menu. Very easy to implement.
Thanks for sharing.
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My apps are (now) exclusively portable with no impact on the OS. In fact, a requirement is that they be able to run entirely off a USB stick. The OS just provides the host execution environment.
/ravi
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Ravi Bhavnani wrote: no impact on the OS
Very good. However, you mean a self-contained exe, right? They're still dependent upon the OS as in they will only run on windows, right? I mean they're not cross-platform are they?
Just curious.
Self-contained exes are always best. Great stuff. 
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Yes, sorry I didn't mean x-platform. They're Windows apps that are simply xcopy "installed" and can run entirely off a USB stick without writing any data to the host PC.
/ravi
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Some version of Serendipity.
Don't want to provide a link. Search, and you'll find ... Chocolate.
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Is there nothing chocolate can't do? 
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Chocolate is all powerful. Chocolate can even whup Chuck Norris.
/ravi
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Only because Chuck would be like.... "I'm gonna kick your... Oh! you have chocolate! well then
that's different now..."
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*OR* take up smoking. That's removes you in a similar way, but also makes you look cool in front of your friends.
Regards,
Rob Philpott.
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Quote: makes you look cool in front of your [too dumb to know any better] friends [with death wishes]
FTFY
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Thank goodness you pointed that out. People might have taken it seriously, otherwise.
Regards,
Rob Philpott.
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The surgeon general has determined that you need a surgeon general message included.
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I like it Ice Cream driven development.
New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.0
My goal in life is to have a psychiatric disorder named after me.
I'm currently unsupervised, I know it freaks me out too but the possibilities are endless.
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Ice cream cools the brain down after all that thinkin' heating up the brain. And the ice cream tastes really good.
That was one of the things I liked about VB6, create the exe and throw the necessary dll's in the same folder (if you used any external ones that is) and the darn thing would run. No JIT!
It was broke, so I fixed it.
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Been waiting for this name to become available for some time now.
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Why do I get the feeling that we'll have a P0mpey4, any time now?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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If I change in den2k95 can I rejuvenate to the age of 20?
Geek code v 3.12
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- r++>+++ y+++*
Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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Only if your real-world surname is "Who"
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Oh, come on! Only Roy Castle[^] ever used "Who" as the surname, and even that doesn't count because the film isn't part of the official canon. (Hence why Peter Cushing didn't count as a regeneration.)
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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