För alla som vill kunna styra och ställa in i det minsta i systemet så krävs det ofta att man kommunicerar med systemet självt genom API:er.
Nu har Microsoft gjort ett litet ryck och fixat ihop ett källkodsbibliotek för att just kunna göra detta i .Net. Här får vi alltså färdiga definitioner och kod för att hantera nya saker i Windows 7 och i existerande OS, som t.ex. XP.
Detta är en guldgruva! Vill man kunna använda befintliga dialogrutor, modifiera beteende hos befintliga kontroller, hooka in lite djupare i eventkedjan i systemet, så är det just det här man behöver.
Biblioteket finns att hämta här:
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/WindowsAPICodePack/Wiki/View.aspx
Beskrivning från sidan:
The Windows® API Code Pack for Microsoft® .NET Framework provides a source code library that can be used to access some new Windows 7 features (and some existing features of older versions of Windows operating system) from managed code. These Windows features are not available to developers today in the .NET Framework.
The individual features supported in this version (v1.0) of the library are:
- Windows 7 Taskbar Jump Lists, Icon Overlay, Progress Bar, Tabbed Thumbnails, and Thumbnail Toolbars.
- Windows 7 Libraries, Known Folders, non-file system containers.
- Windows Shell Search API support, a hierarchy of Shell Namespace entities, and Drag and Drop functionality for Shell Objects.
- Explorer Browser Control.
- Shell property system.
- Windows Vista and Windows 7 Common File Dialogs, including custom controls.
- Windows Vista and Windows 7 Task Dialogs.
- Direct3D 11.0, Direct3D 10.1/10.0, DXGI 1.0/1.1, Direct2D 1.0, DirectWrite, Windows Imaging Component (WIC) APIs. (DirectWrite and WIC have partial support)
- Sensor Platform APIs
- Extended Linguistic Services APIs
- Power Management APIs
- Application Restart and Recovery APIs
- Network List Manager APIs
- Command Link control and System defined Shell icons.
What’s New in this update (v1.0):
The new features added in this update of code pack are:
- Shell Search API support.
- Drag and Drop functionality for Shell objects.
- Support for Direct3D and Direct2D interoperability.
- Support for Typography and Font enumeration DirectWrite APIs.
Other enhancements done in this update are:
- Bug fixes in all areas.
- Performance optimizations.
- Some improved and new samples (esp. for the new features in this release).
- Improved API reference documentation.