Hacking search to use Duck Duck Go? - Windows Phone 7 General

Bing often yields poor results at least for me here in Europe. So I was wondering whether anyone has yet modified / tried to modify their phone to use the Duck Duck Go search engine API as a backend?
In theory this should be quite straight forward:
Catch the traffic sent to Bing and reverse engineer the protocol used (I would imagine it's quite simple)
Create a proxy script to map those queries to Duck Duck Go API ( duckduckgo com / api.html - no links yet, sorry) and then back to the native format
Install the script to a public server visible from the Internet
Modify the OS registry (URL change, host file hack, etc.) to use your faux Bing back-end
Profit
Thoughts?
P.S. Sure you could this for Google too, but that's so Android

why not just pin it to the start screen?

Related

[Q] Reading value from registry

Hello,
I'm new to prgramming with C# and wanted to know how I can read a value from the phone's registry and display its data in a TextBox on WP7?
Thanks
The problem isn't C# per se, but the public phone API doesn't allow registry access. If you only need read support, there's a library out there that will give you read capability on most of the registry, though you won't get write (permissions issue). Write surrport is also available on some devices, though that gets... tricky.
One place you can find this library, along with an example of how to use it, is in my IE Search Switcher app, located on this site. The short version is you include the native.dll library, enable some optional application capabilities, use the phone's interop library to get COM import into C#, and import the nativle library using COM. You can then call them from the managed (C#/.NET) code.
The Homebrew library comments and and included readme should explain enough to get you started. Be aware that any app doing this will fail Marketplace certification; you'll only be able to distribute it to people who have developer-unlocked phones.

Nodo with SQL

Hello there,
I am developing a game for wp7, and I want to have a user login with skills an level. This users and levels I want toread and write from an SQL database.
But until now I found no API to connect. Is there any free solution to implement a database in wp7 (not linq)?
Thank you
Sent from my HD7 T9292 using Board Express
Nope, not in Nodo. You have to use linq-To-XML. This should be perfectly fine for small amounts of data.
If you can wait for Mango you can use a SQL CE database, but you still need to use Linq-to-SQL:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh202860(v=VS.92).aspx
Sent from my 7 Pro T7576 using Board Express
I know linq as a local database.
If I understand right linq-to-SQL is a one time sync? So I have to sync linq and SQL in the beginning and end of game.
So I would create for each user a linq db and then all linq dbs would be synced in SQL?
Sounds difficult, but I will give it a try this we
Sent from my HD2 with NoDo using Board Express
win98 said:
I know linq as a local database.
If I understand right linq-to-SQL is a one time sync? So I have to sync linq and SQL in the beginning and end of game.
So I would create for each user a linq db and then all linq dbs would be synced in SQL?
Sounds difficult, but I will give it a try this we
Sent from my HD2 with NoDo using Board Express
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, do you want to connect to a remote SQL database on a webserver, or a just store a database on the phone itself? If on the phone itself, you can create on database for each user (Mango only).
If you want to sync with a remote server, you will need to interact with the server using some sort of Web Services. Then the Web Services do the reading/writing to/from the SQL sevrer and send the information back to the phone (you can currently do this in Nodo).
It should not be local, if its possible.
I want to subscribe on a free SQL host like I've of these: http://www.free-webhosts.com/free-mysql-database.php
Then I want to do the user management there and want do update the level and skills of the user who is logged in. A bit like a windows live account with the gamer points.
I would be glad if I can use SQL commands with c#.
I hope it become more easier to understand . Thank you for helping.
Do you got any sample code or tutorial how to use SQL in wp7? I failed :-D
Sent from my HD2 with NoDo using Board Express
With NoDo, you can't directly access an SQL server.
And even with Mango, I'd be careful doing such a thing, it can really be dangerous on many levels.
The best solution would be to use a web service, which could be accessed from your phone (via the WebClient class) and would handle the dirty work of connecting to the database and executing SQL queries (eg. inserting or retrieving data and outputting in XML format). This way even if you alter the structure of your database you don't have to change a single line of code in the app (that means you'll avoid resubmission), but only the web service code.
As a general suggestion, handle the more things you can server-side.
SQL Protocols are not really designed to work over slow/unreliable connections like the Internet, especially when it comes to 3G and so on. So it really would be best to encapsulate everything into a WebService to which you then send the Nickname, Game and Score and which allows to get the top rankings as well as a given players rankings.
I guess we won't see the ability to connect to remote SQL Servers through ADO.Net as it most likely would lead to bad user experience anyhow.
StevieBallz said:
SQL Protocols are not really designed to work over slow/unreliable connections like the Internet, especially when it comes to 3G and so on. So it really would be best to encapsulate everything into a WebService to which you then send the Nickname, Game and Score and which allows to get the top rankings as well as a given players rankings.
I guess we won't see the ability to connect to remote SQL Servers through ADO.Net as it most likely would lead to bad user experience anyhow.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i am good in sql and there are free sql hosters, thats why i wanted to try it with sql.
so, the webservice, is this kind of php? can i also get some free hosters for these services?
i found in google some sample code, but i dont understand where the data will be "stored". Is this going to be like a "cloud app"
edit: grrr looking for "free webservices" in goog but i just find free homepage hosting sites
I find this topic really interesting because it tackles something I just can't wrap my head around: getting Windows Phone 7 to interact with a SQL database just doesn't seem like it's been explained in a straightforward enough manner.
For instance, my case is one where I need my app to extract info from a MySQL db stored on my website, parse that data and display each entry as an item in a pivot control. Turns out that no, SQL is not supported natively so I must go out of my way and recode my data into something that WP7 can understand; I read it's XML and that makes sense, so I have designed an auto-updating XML file on my website with data I want fed into the WP7 app. This is a workaround to connecting directly to a SQL database, as it only requires there to be a PHP file periodically creating an XML file with the info I need and it won't expose any SQL connection credentials, etc. I do not manage users on my site, so maybe win98 needs to find a way for WP7 to call a PHP page, send it a user ID or something and then retrieve that user's info. But any way, I think XML can work perfectly as a means to communicate between SQL and WP7 apps.
But, I don't know how to make this XML file populate the pages of my app. In Expression Blend I can import the XML as sample data, but it does this during design time and not at run time. This means that Blend can see my data and display it how I want it displayed, but I can't take this to runtime and have it displayed like that on the phone. So far, I haven't seen a single easy to follow step by step tutorial on how to parse information coming from an XML file on a WP7 app.
Any suggestions on how to overcome this hurdle we both face? I am familiar with web programming, but I know jack sh*t about C#, so Linq is greek to me.
Ok so I really got this wrong, that with Mango you get SQL and ports support so that you can remotely interact with an SQL server, with sql commands pretty much like you would do on a desktop and how you could do with WinMo ??
Best practices aside, You still get to do that with webservices ?

offlnie webapps

I'm not sure why this works on the KIN (because it doesn't work on the wp7), but it does. The browser on the KIN supports the HTML5 cache manifest command, info here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_cache_manifest_in_HTML5). To prove this here is a working offline tetris game I have on my KIN (tetris.alexkessinger.net), the only problem is I can't actually play it because there are no arrow keys on the phone, but it is fully functioning (I get to watch the pieces fall).
So here is my idea... I see we do have developers in this forum so maybe they can try to either create some javascript webapps designed to run on the KIN that use the manifest to cache the needed files.
OR maybe we could use the cache manifest to cache an executable file and then have that filed executed through another website that gives the command to run it. I'm sure that is just wishful thinking and more than likely won't work, but I thought I would throw that out there.
Nice suggestion, but unfortunately it will not work. Just because the game is available offline doesn't mean the browser supports the HTML5 cache manifest. Pretty well every browser that I know of does and always has had a cache to store some webpage files. The KIN browser is no different. The KIN is just storing the javascript from that webpage in the cache. The tetris game is not the type of web application the HTML5 cache manifest wiki describes. Furthermore, to cache anything from the KIN browser, the 'anything' must be supported by the browser--such as the javascript used to run the tetris game. Executable files are not supported by the KIN browser.
Thanks
Thanks for clearing that up for me, like I've said before I'm not a programmer (at least not in the last 10 years). However, this game is successfully cached and able to run hours after visiting the page. So maybe there is a way to duplicate it so that other javascript games can be made available to use offline. I just don't know how this game is caching the coding along with the images needed to run it. I thought it was the cache manifest because when I view the page source it says "<html manifest="tetris.manifest">".
Let me know your thoughts, I plan to try and duplicate it next week with a blackjack game, but I am in the middle of finals so I don't have time until the middle of next week. Also, like I said I'm not a programmer so I will be trying to reteach myself, so it's gonna take a while and probably not work.
I may have posted the wrong wiki link, but the cache manifest comand does work. Below is a link to a game, with needed images, that will cahe on the phone. it is available around 12 hours after opening it. So if you put it as an "app" it is almost the same thing. Just visit it before you leave wifi and youll be good until you are in wifi again.
http://192.168.1.22/webapps/bubbles/bubbles.html
kintwofan said:
http://192.168.1.22/webapps/bubbles/bubbles.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was a worthy try, man, but that link is to an address on your local network. Do you have someone on the internet we can access? Or can you port forward port 80 through your router, to that system, to allow external access?
It is a router problem. I tried to open port 80 last night, but it still is not working. I am going to play with it some and see if it is a firewall problem OR if I just messed up when setting up the port forwarding. Sorry, like I've said I am not an expert.
It's a bad address, cause he's giving out the LAN address asigned by the router.
For you to be able to use it, you would need to be in his lan or in an VPN to his lan.
To real test what you got externaly, you need to give the external (to world) ip which is given by your own router admin panel, and/or websites like whatismyip.com.
then you need to do Nat from your external Ip to your local ip, specifying so in the router.
Or else, just share the website in a zip, and save time to do stuff like eat an ice cream, drink a soda/beer and have fun.
Thanks John
Thanks for the advice because this was my first time trying to make it available to everyone and clearly I couldn't do it. However, here is the file folder below. I have also done a couple of simple java apps that don't have any images (tic tac toe, blackjack, and the scientific calculator that was created by gsearle) I didn't include any of them because this bubbles one has images and shows the cache manifest works better. Also I don't have gsearle's permission so I wouldn't redistribute his work.
RE : Offline webapp.
Here is mine : a QR-Code Generator. No flash, java, php, ...just HTML5 & JavaScript. Works offline too!

[Q] WP7 and native for beginner

Hello everybody,
I got a WP7 Samsung Focus and I want to port my old application to this device and join native forces for WP7
My plan is simple: I'll convert my app into a dll, rewrite new gui in C# (or whatever the way to do it on WP7). I saw multiple posts about calling native code (original from Cris Walsh: http://goo.gl/2Tjks). Then I saw a few posts mentioning that it's impossible etc etc.
So, a few questions:
0) can I do it for my app (I don't need marketplace exams etc, I don't care for that)? I know that some WinAPI could be unavailable/broken, all I ask at this point if it's possible to load and run native dll without changing or re-flashing ROM.
1) ms wants 100$ out of my pocket to be able to deploy to my own device (WTF?!). What can I do to deploy to my phone without paying the crooks? (VS2010 tell me to register there and registration askes for 100$).
2) Is there a sample project I could D/L and run, I have zero experience in C# and I have no idea how to load and call native DLL from managed code in WP7? All these half broken samples are totally useless to me, I simply wanted to working HelloWorld app that loads and runs simple dll.
thanks
0) Yes, what you describe is possible. There are lots of limits, though - WP7 applications have very low permissions, and calling native code doesn't fix that. Unless you need to edit something outside the app's own iolated storage, though, you're probably OK.
1) Aside from the official marketplace account ($100), there are a few options:
a) if you've got an LG phone, they come with a built-in registry editor that can be used to dev-unlock your phone. I forget the exact key you need, though.
b) if you've got a student email address (ends in .edu) you can try registering through DreamSpark. This is free.
c) if you don't mind rolling back to pre-NoDo (7004 or 7008) you can use ChevronWP7 Unlock (instructions available on this forum). If you don't have a restore point that far back you can flash an official ROM for that version.
d) if you don't mind waiting, ChevronWP7 Labs will be available at some point (no ETA that I've seen, but it's been talked about for months) and will provide dev-unlock (but not marketplace account) for a nominal fee.
2) There are lots of apps distributed with source, and most of them will use some native code. You could do a search on this forum for subject lines including the tag "[SOURCE]" and find several (I release source for all my apps). However, I suspect what you'd find most useful is Heathcliff74's guide to WP7 apps that use native code, which is on this forum at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1299134. It includes step-by-step instructions.
Hope that helps! I look forward to seeing your app. Also, don't hesitate to ask for help with the actual development; I suck at GUIs and Silverlight but am fairly proficient at C# if you need somebody who knows that language, for example.
There is an ETA for the new ChevronWP7 unlocker:only a few weeks away from launch!
Hi GoodDayToDie
GoodDayToDie said:
0) Yes, what you describe is possible. There are lots of limits, though - WP7 applications have very low permissions, and calling native code doesn't fix that. Unless you need to edit something outside the app's own iolated storage, though, you're probably OK.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At this point I want to make a DLL from my simple app and call a few functions that interact with filesystem and network. FS is needed only for simple stuff (loading config file etc) from installation folder and creating some temporary files for local storage. Network is tcp/udp, I guess network should be available.
GoodDayToDie said:
1) Aside from the official marketplace account ($100), there are a few options:
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did some search, it seem that I've done that part. Chevron dev unlock was pulled out from their site, but the old version remains scattered all over the board. There is a good thread a good thread on how to do it. It happens that my phone is 7004. Where can I get old ROM in case if something goes bad and I need to re-flash? Is it easy, am I risking to brick and loose my phone?
I just tried to run sample phone app and it runs on the phone. Initially it said that it was revoked by MS, I run dev-unlock one more time and now it works.
GoodDayToDie said:
2) There are lots of apps distributed with source, and most of them will use some native code. You could do a search on this forum for subject lines including the tag "[SOURCE]" and find several (I release source for all my apps). However, I suspect what you'd find most useful is Heathcliff74's guide to WP7 apps that use native code, which is on this forum at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1299134. It includes step-by-step instructions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll try to search, hope I'll be up and running soon. Too bad WP7 is DOA. They always had much better tools than all these ghetto Symbian/Android/Xcode crapware tools... WTF is wrong with these guys, at the point when they were surpassed at speed of light by newbies iPhone and Android they made some backward steps to cut off most of the devs (but they added all these 500K Silverlight newbie devs...). I'm so disappointed with Android, seems like they hired all these retards who were fired at symbian: same **** tools
I downloaded a few samples and it seems that all of them contain prebuild dll's and all of them are COM dlls or something like that.
What I'd like to find is simple sample that contains src code to native WinMo dll and C# project that it uses.
As far as I know native dll cannot be build with latest tools (am I right?), but I can use cegcc or VS2008 to build native DLL's.
stuff like:
Code:
if (ComBridge.RegisterComDll("ComFileRw.dll", new Guid("EEA7F43B-A32D-4767-9AE7-9E53DA197455")) != 0)
is totally unknown to me. I would really like to avoid to even elarning anything about COM related stuff. I prefer not to mess up with code that isn't portable.
HI mtlgui,
unless Heathcliff finishes his WP7 Root Tools SDK, you don't have any other way to access native c++ code besides using COM. DFT (The DarkForcesTeam) released a firmware loader, that allows you to flash customized unsigned firmware. They were also able to do some native c++ coding with the WM API. However the used firmware for that is not public and it is limited to HTC devices.
Did you already consider to write your application in c#? Mango has now TCP/UDP socket support for outgoing connections. Incoming connections or services running on the phone aren't possible without using native code, at least for the moment.
Hi rudelm,
if the only way to use native is to build COM dll, then I'm OK with that. My app code is old and I'd rather throw my WP7 device to trash can than trying to rewrite my app in C#.
Eventually, down the road while hacking maybe I'll learn c# well enough to do anything with it other than GUI and calling native/COM dlls.
So, just to confirm my understanding. I need to write COM dlls that access native API (socket, filesystem, wavein/waveout etc) and then load these COM dlls and call their functions from C# (or whatever is the closest lang to c/c++ in the WP7 world).
@mtlgui:
You've pretty much got it. A few thoughts, though:
There is a webserver project available on this site. It includes source for its C++ native component (the library is called NativeIO; I can probably send you the source if you can't find it). It exposes registry, filesystem, and TCP server and client sockets to COM. Note that because this library was built for pre-Mango phones, just compiling it and shipping it may not work on Mango phones as many deprecated libraries were removed in Mango and if the DLL contains any references to them, it won't load.
Generally speaking, what you're asking for with TCP/UDP is possible, though you may have to code against the winsock API directly. It sounds like you're doing as little as possible with C#, so even if the Socket API that is available with Mango were sufficient for your app's needs, you wouldn't be using it.
Filesystem access... even if you have read access to your app's install folder (I haven't checked, though you should), you almost certainly won't have write access. Each app does have a writable "isolated storage" though, under \Applications\Data\{GUID}\Data\IsolatedStore\. I've only ever tried writing to it using C# though, so I don't know for sure if it's writable using the native APIs directly (should be, though).
It's probably perfectly OK to write your app as one big native DLL (hell, it *might* work to just change the build type from Application to Library, then rename main() or something like that). You will need to expose the library to COM, but that's easy. You can then write a very simple C#/Silverlight app (see Heathcliff's instructions, or just post the COM interface and soembody could write it for you). All the C# app needs to do is use ComBridge to access the native DLL, and call a "run()" function or something similarly simple.
For what it's worth, C# is very close to a superset of C++, at least on the desktop. The phone version is crippled a little by not allowing the use of pointers - everything has to be done with strongly-typed references instead, which can make network code a little annoying but is otherwise rarely a problem - but with a little experimentation you may find your disdain for C# to be misguided. It's a useful language to know it today's job market, if nothing else.
Why is your phone still on 7004? That's the launch retail build, something like eight months out of date. On the plus side, this means that things like ChevronWP7 Unlocker still work for you, as you found. On the minu side, it means you're putting up with bugs and missing features that you needn't be. Have you tried updating at all? If/when you do update, make sure to back up the restore points that the Zune software generates (they got in %localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows Phone Update\). That way, if you ever need to roll back to 7004, you can do it. Normally, only the most recent restore point is kept.
Flashing ROMs is safe so long as you don't try something like flashing the wrong one for your device. Unless your bootloader is unlocked (only possible on HTC), you can only flash official ROMs anyhow, which saves you from most of the risks. On the other hand, you're already on as old a ROM as you will find, and so long as you keep your restore points, you can return to it any time you want to, easily.
I'm googling now the board to find NativeIO and that webserver app. So far only references to it, but no src code.
I'm ok with isolated read/write access. All I care is persistent fs storage.
My phone is still 7004 because I just bought it so I can do some WP7 development. I don't want to mess up with updates at the moment.
As I understand from another post ComBridge is C#->COM->native c++ dll or any other dll that can be used, right? I'm just learning some COM to learn enough to start actually programming for the phone. I see that I can pass whatever data I want, but I don't seem to be able to see a way to register callbacks so that native/COM could call back to C#
mtlgui said:
I'm googling now the board to find NativeIO and that webserver app. So far only references to it, but no src code.
I'm ok with isolated read/write access. All I care is persistent fs storage.
My phone is still 7004 because I just bought it so I can do some WP7 development. I don't want to mess up with updates at the moment.
As I understand from another post ComBridge is C#->COM->native c++ dll or any other dll that can be used, right? I'm just learning some COM to learn enough to start actually programming for the phone. I see that I can pass whatever data I want, but I don't seem to be able to see a way to register callbacks so that native/COM could call back to C#
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Basic introduction to native code and COM, including references to more background info: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1299134.
Callback from C++ -> COM -> C# can be done. Decompile the WP7 Acrobat Reader app. You'll see how it works.
Ciao,
Heathcliff74

Include local JavaScript within PhoneGap on Windows Phone 7

I have a PhoneGap application designed to work on multiple mobile platforms. I'm loading a dynamic HTML content from an external page on the Internet using jQuery Mobile. The problematic system is Windows Phone 7.
This is what I get from the external page, with the URL of the script tag already replaced to load from the phone instead of from the net to save bandwidth:
HTML:
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="x-wmapp1:/app/www/test.js"></script>
This works fine on Android, iPhone and even BlackBerry when I replaced the x-wmapp1: part by a respective counterpart (e.g. file:///android_asset/www/ on Android). However, on Windows Phone 7 it doesn't seem to work at all.
When I try to load the same URL via $.getScript function, it always returns a 404 eror, even if I try and load it with a relative path only.
Any suggestions?
First of all, this type of question may be better suited to the Software Development or Apps and Games sub-forums, as a lot of the people who hang out here are more familiar with homebrew hacks. I'll give it a shot, though.
First of all, what kind of path are you trying to use? I haven't tried loading scripts or images in HTML or JS, but to dynamically load content within the app itself typically requires some care with regard to the path. For example, is the JS file being built into the assembly (as a resource) or included alongside it (as content)? How about the HTML page?
This is a kind of lame approach, but one option that's sure to work is just inlining the scripts in the page, directly. That won't increase the total app size or load time at all, although it might make maintaining the app take a little bit more effort.
Thanks for the reply, I will try to post this into the more appropriate forum.
With regards to paths - you can see the path in the HTML snippet I provided in the original question. It's all a bit specific and we cannot afford to load JS directly from page, since that does increase the size of the resulting HTML, sent from an external PHP page, thus increasing bandwidth. This is the first reason why we chose to have all JS and CSS files directly bundled with the application and load them internally rather than from Internet.
Also, all of JS files are included alongside the application as content. I'm using the same approach for all images, since if they were included as a resource, they would not show in the application.
GoodDayToDie said:
First of all, this type of question may be better suited to the Software Development or Apps and Games sub-forums, as a lot of the people who hang out here are more familiar with homebrew hacks. I'll give it a shot, though.
First of all, what kind of path are you trying to use? I haven't tried loading scripts or images in HTML or JS, but to dynamically load content within the app itself typically requires some care with regard to the path. For example, is the JS file being built into the assembly (as a resource) or included alongside it (as content)? How about the HTML page?
This is a kind of lame approach, but one option that's sure to work is just inlining the scripts in the page, directly. That won't increase the total app size or load time at all, although it might make maintaining the app take a little bit more effort.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First question: have you set the IsScriptEnabled proerty on the control to True? It defaults to False, preventing scripting within the control. Also, changing it only takes effect
on navigation, so if you already loaded the page and then set this property, it still won't work.
Anyhow, I missed that your HTML was coming externally, and only the scripts and stylesheets were local. That's... interesting, and seems reasonable enough, and I can't find any info online that exactly matches your use case. The way you're structuring the script src URI looks weird to me, but I haven't messed with the WebBrowserControl very much at all.
One solution, though a bit hacky:
Use the WebBrowserControl's InvokeScript function to dynamically load scripts into your pages. To do this, you would first need to load the script file content into a .NET String object. The GetResourceStream function is probably your best friend here, combined with ReadToEnd(). Then, just invoke the eval() JS function, which should be built-in, and pass it the JS file content. That will load the JS into the web page, creating objects (including functions) and executing instructions as the files are eval()ed.
Of course, you'd need to do this on every page navigation, but you can actually automate it such that the page itself requests that the app load those scripts. In your app, bind the script-loading function to the ScriptNotify event handler, probably with some parameter such as the name of the script to load. Then, on each page served from your server to the app, instead of including standard <script src=...> tags, use <script>window.external.notify('load localscript1.js')</script> and so on; this will trigger the app's ScriptNotify function for you.
I hope that helps. I can see your use case, but somewhat surprisingly, I couldn't find anybody else online who had either run into your problem or written a tutorial on doing it your way.
Thank you for your reply, it was very informative. One question though - why do you think the way I'm structuring the SCRIPT URI is wierd? I tried to mess around with relative URIs and the such, however those would load the JavaScript file from Internet rather than from the application itself.
The problem I'm running into with your proposed solutions, however is that:
1. the project is a PhoneGap/Cordova application, using its own components, so I have no idea where I would look for IsScriptEnabled here (although this all worked on an older PhoneGap release, so I'm guessing they have it set up correctly)
2. injecting a script programmatically on each navigation would require me to rewrite much of the code we already use for other platforms, not to mention those custom Cordova components, which I don't even know if they can handle such thing
As for my user case - I was surprised to be the only guy on the internet with this methodology in place as well. So it either works for everyone else or nobody really thought of doing it my way, since it's basically an Internet application (maybe the don't want to disclose their sources, who knows).
CyberGhost636 said:
1. the project is a PhoneGap/Cordova application, using its own components, so I have no idea where I would look for IsScriptEnabled here (although this all worked on an older PhoneGap release, so I'm guessing they have it set up correctly)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In the WebBrowser properties.
CyberGhost636 said:
As for my user case - I was surprised to be the only guy on the internet with this methodology in place as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course you not "the only guy". I've tried to port/run a few HTML java-script based games on WP7 (Digger and couple more) more then year ago; they runs well with one HUGE exception - touch screen events are freezing scripts execution and make games not playable.
The "x-wmapp1:" URI scheme was what I was referring to. Not sure where that comes from, but I haven't done anything really with the WebBrowser control.
I have no knowledge of PhoneGap or Cordova; I assume they're "we write your app for you" frameworks? One would assume that such tools would know to set IsScriptEnabled, but you may have to do so manually. A bit of web searching on that direction may be fruitful - maybe earlier versions enabled scripting by default, and now it's disabled by default so you have to specify an option somewhere?
Injecting the script on navigation really doesn't require any major change to the server-side code. I mean, is sending
<script>window.external.notify('load localscript1.js')</script>
really much different from sending
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="x-wmapp1:/app/www/test.js"></script>
? If that's too different, you could instead send
<script src="http://yourserver.com/LoadLocalScripts.js"></script>
and put "LoadLocalScripts.js" on your server with the following code:
window.external.notify('load localscript1.js');
This has only a trivial increase in server traffic and load time, but lets you continue using external scripts instead of inline ones. Very little server-side change needed at all.
Now, the additional client-side code to support the window.external.notify and call InvokeScript... normally I'd say that's dead easy, because it is if you have any experience with the .NET framework, but in your case I get the feeling that this isn't so? I code to the framework, or to the underlying native code, and I tend to code "raw" (very little auto-generated code), so I'm not going to be able to help you solve the problems with a "make me an app" wizard unless I can see the code it generates for you.
For what it's worth, here's the approximate raw code that I'd use (it's over-simplified, but close enough):
void HandleNotify (String param) {
String[] parts = param.split(" ");
if (parts[0] == "load") LoadScript(parts[1]);
}
void LoadScript (String script) {
String content = Application.GetResourceStream(new Uri(script, UriType.Absolute)).ReadToEnd();
theBrowserControl.InvokeScript("eval", content);
}
void theBrowserControl_Loaded (...event handler args here...) {
theBrowserControl.IsScriptEnabled = true;
theBrowserControl.ScriptNotify += HandleNotify;
theBrowserControl.Navigate("http://yoursite.com");
}
the URI comes from Windows Phone itself, with this code, you can see for yourself:
var a = document.createElement('a');
a.setAttribute('href', '.');
alert(a.href);
also, I've been informed that this works in Cordova 2.0, so it might be a 1.8.1 bug... will try and see how it goes
thanks for your help so far!
Looks like it was a problem with PhoneGap 1.8.1 - after upgading to Cordova 2.0 (PhoneGap got renamed) it all works now... thanks for all the help!

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