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October 2006 - Posts

Writing properties #3 - Which properties are writable?

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 . This Read More...
Posted Thursday, October 19, 2006 12:00 PM by benkaras | 3 Comments

Writing properties #2 - Filetype support?

The first question people ask at this point is "What properties can I write to what filetypes?". They usually expect a concise answer at this point, too. The short answer is that "It depends on the filetype." Not all filetypes support writing properties. Read More...
Posted Tuesday, October 17, 2006 12:00 PM by benkaras | 1 Comments

Writing properties #1 - Simple beginnings

I'm going to be talking about writable properties over the next few days. I know that some of you are itching to try this out yourselves, so here is an overly simplistic program that will write a single property to a file. I have omitted a lot of diagnostic Read More...
Posted Monday, October 16, 2006 12:00 PM by benkaras | 2 Comments

Gotcha: You must release property stores quickly

The general rule is that you should minimize the length of time you have a property store open. It is best to acquire the data you need and then release the store. Read-only property stores lock files for reading using a filesystem oplock . An oplock Read More...
Posted Friday, October 13, 2006 12:00 PM by benkaras | 0 Comments
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Properties coding expedition #7 - The final output

This coding expedition has developed a tool that can dump out all the properties on a file. If you are curious about the property system, I highly recommend you build this tool and run it on various file types. Coding to the Windows SDK Part 1 - Binding Read More...
Posted Thursday, October 12, 2006 12:00 PM by benkaras | 2 Comments
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Properties coding expedition #6 - Developer friendly output

Using the tool I developed in this series, I know that my test photo has " Rating: 5 Stars ". But how is this value actually represented in the JPG itself? Let's answer that by adding some developer friendly output. Here's what I did: First, I need a Read More...
Posted Wednesday, October 11, 2006 12:00 PM by benkaras | 1 Comments
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Properties coding expedition #5 - Stripping characters

In Part 4 , I discovered that WideCharToMultiByte converts certain invisible non-spacing Unicode characters to ?. This makes the output look really silly in a command line application. I want to keep this as a command line application, so I need to strip Read More...
Posted Tuesday, October 10, 2006 12:00 PM by benkaras | 1 Comments
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Save the World... of Warcraft

Yup, I'm one of "those" people. I play World of Warcraft to pass the time if I don't have anything else scheduled to do. It's the only game I play right now, so it weighed heavily in my decision to upgrade to Vista . At the time, I was very happy to find Read More...
Posted Monday, October 09, 2006 12:00 PM by benkaras | 2 Comments

Properties coding expedition #4 - The output

The program itself is provided in parts 1 , 2 , and 3 . So I compiled my program and ran it from the command line. Here's a snippet of what I got back: Properties for 'scan0010.jpg' Folder name: propshow Type: JPEG Image Name: scan0010.jpg Size: 638 KB Read More...
Posted Friday, October 06, 2006 5:00 PM by benkaras | 1 Comments
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Properties coding expedition #3 - Printing a value

In parts one and two , I started writing a program to print out the properties on an item. But I saved the best for last -- printing a value. Discussion follows the code. HRESULT _PrintPropertyValue(__in REFPROPERTYKEY key, __in REFPROPVARIANT propvar) Read More...
Posted Thursday, October 05, 2006 5:00 PM by benkaras | 1 Comments
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Properties coding expedition #2 - printing the IPropertyStore

Last time we saw how to bind to a shell item and get its property store. Today, we loop through the store printing out known properties. HRESULT _PrintPropertyStore(IPropertyStore *pps) { DWORD cProps; HRESULT hr = pps-> GetCount (&cProps); for Read More...
Posted Wednesday, October 04, 2006 5:00 PM by benkaras | 1 Comments
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Properties coding expedition #1 - Binding to an item

The goal of this first expedition is to print lists of properties from items. This will give insight into the origins and capabilities of these different properties. Feel free to follow along and try out different things. There's a lot to explore. I am Read More...
Posted Tuesday, October 03, 2006 5:00 PM by benkaras | 3 Comments
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Attachment(s): goatpicture.png

Coding to the Windows SDK

In the near future I'll be posting code examples that compile and run. In case you'd like to follow along, here's my personal setup. My code should compile on RC1 also, so go ahead and use RC1 if that's what you can get a hold of. Windows Vista Sept CTP Read More...
Posted Monday, October 02, 2006 5:00 PM by benkaras | 3 Comments
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