The Great Flying Tortoise

Having trouble getting your property handler working with the indexer? Here are some troubleshooting tips. 1. Verify that your propdesc file(s) are in a global location 2. Verify that you registered your propdesc file(s) using absolute paths ...

A reader asked: I've been reading up the issues with using .NET for property handlers. I know you can't using .NET Interop to create a property handler without getting into issues with the version of the .NET framework. I discovered though that...

Viewed as a data flow component , a property handler has a single file stream input and outputs a one or more properties. Unfortunately, writing one requires making many decisions before you even set eyes on the code. Let's look at a few of these preparations...

Knowing what you are trying to accomplish is the first step to using the property system. Property handlers provide a specific set of services which support specific behaviors in the Windows shell. So let's delve into the role of a property handler and...

In this series, I will be presenting Windows Vista functionality with a focus on the the file system namespace. Feel free to ask questions, especially if you want to know how things work on XP or in other namespaces, since I'll otherwise ignore those...

A property handler is the piece of code that enables you to see the properties about your files as in the picture below. Don't worry about the ambiguity in this sentence; I will be much more specific concerning what component does what in later posts...

Graduate level courses are surreal. Professors assign nearly impossible homework assignments and projects. The exams make you break out in sweat just thinking about them. At the same time, you are often able to just sketch out solutions since it is assumed...

I can't bring myself to click the "compile" button on my property handler project yet... so here's a little piece of geeky joy: Viruwormy . -Ben Karas

A coworker recently turned me onto Pandora.com , a new music service backed by the Music Genome Project. The concept is to create a radio station tailored to your exact likes and dislikes. You tell it an artist you enjoy and it decodes what makes you...

Someone asked if I had a copy of the code I've been using in my blog so far. Well, I didn't as of 5pm today, so I went back and collected the code into 3 projects: propreader.exe <file> - Prints a list of all properties we know about the file...

It is time that I talk a little about what to do if you want your application to run on XP. There are three sets of APIs, each with subtle differences and caveats, and ultimately your choice requires deciding what platform your application must run on...

Personally, I have trouble using the "I liked it" scale ala Netflix. A movie that garners 5 stars one week only finds 4 another week. In a way, this arises from ambiguity present even within the "I liked it" scale. Did I like it because I was in the mood...

The 5 star rating control is misused in most applications today. How can I say that? What's more natural than selecting 5 stars for a movie or song? Actually, the intuitive nature of the rating star control is the cause of this subtle usability issue...

I will be on vacation until mid-December, so it is unlikely that I will make any more posts until then, or even maybe January. -Ben Karas

Coding to the Windows SDK Reading properties #7 - Summary Writing properties #1 - Simple beginnings Writing properties #2 - Filetype support? Writing properties #3 - Which properties are writable? Writing properties #4 - Which properties are writable...

Today started out nice. But midday it started raining heavily and the wind trashed around a lot. Our building had several brown-outs and reset our computers. Seeing how windy it was, I checked online for any potential bridge closures. Fortunately, none...

There's one last topic I want to touch on before I close this series: Canonical values. So far I've talked about how to determine when the property itself is writable. But once you decide to write a property, how do you figure out what type the value...

Have you ever felt this before? It's the day after you send your product to manufacturing . You step back, look at the big picture, and start to see minor flaws. A dread sinks in when you realize you just blogged about it too! That was Monday morning...

[Edit: 2006/11/13 - My original post got this topic entirely backwards. I've fixed the title and will provide details about this tomorrow. ] -Ben Karas

You'll recall that there are multiple layers in the property system . In particular, the GPS_DEFAULT property system stack for files in the filesystem namespace looks like this: [ Application using GPS_DEFAULT ] [ Coercion Layer ] [ Shell Item Layer...

In explorer, the bottom portion of an explorer window changed names late in the development cycle of Windows Vista. It was called the "preview pane" for the longest time. The old name snuck into our property naming and our APIs. Later, the name was...

So if a property handler doesn't enumerate which properties it supports writing , then how does the explorer pick which properties to show? Well, the shell namespace extension containing the item specifies the list of properties it wants to show in a...

I'm going to make a first stab at printing out a list of properties that are writable for a given file. I'll spoil the fun and let you know that my attempt today will not fully succeed. I'll explain later. For now, let's see some code! You'll recall...

I'm really sorry to let this blog go dark. I've been moving apartments and have been remiss in writing entries (or even an explanation!!). I'll get back to regular postings next week.

While we don't have a table of properties and filetypes that are writable, there is a programmatic method to determine if a given property can be written to a given property handler. Here's how it works: First, properties can be designated innate ...