Friday, December 3, 2010

Windows API Code Pack for Microsoft .NET Framework


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Windows API Code Pack for Microsoft .NET Framework 


This provides a source code library that can be used to access some features of Windows 7 and Windows Vista from managed code. These Windows features are not available to developers today in the .NET Framework.

The features of the library includes:

  • Windows 7 Taskbar
    • Jump Lists, Icon Overlay, Progress Bar, Tabbed Thumbnails, and Thumbnail Toolbars
  • Windows Shell
    • Windows 7 Libraries
    • Windows Shell Search API support
    • Explorer Browser Control
    • A hierarchy of Shell Namespace entities
    • Windows Shell property system
    • Drag and Drop for Shell Objects
    • Windows Vista and Windows 7 Common File Dialogs, including custom controls
    • Known Folders and non-file system containers
    • Shell Object Watcher
    • Shell Extensions API support
  • DirectX
    • Direct3D 11.0, Direct3D 10.1/10.0, DXGI 1.0/1.1, Direct2D 1.0, DirectWrite, Windows Imaging Component (WIC) APIs
  • Windows Vista and Windows 7 Task Dialogs
  • 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
  • Visual Studio 2010 compliance
  • Initial xUnit test coverage
  • String localization
  • Signed assemblies

Requirements:
  • Minimum .NET Framework version required to use this library is 3.5 SP1.
    The APIs for Shell Extensions require .NET 4.
  • This library targets the Windows 7, though many of the features will work on Windows Vista as well.

Building and using the Library:
  • To build the library (except the DirectX related features) in Visual Studio 2008, execute 'Windows API Code Pack Self Extractor.exe' and extract the contents of the ‘Windows API Code Pack 1.1.zip’ file. Build the included ‘WindowsAPICodePack.sln’ file located in the 'WindowsAPICodePack' directory (within the 'source' directory).
  • To build the DirectX features, build the 'DirectX.sln' file inside the DirectX directory. Additional information on using the DirectX features of the Code Pack can be found in the 'DirectXCodePack_Requirements.htm' document available as a separate download.


Some relevant blogs:

Videos:
Two minute videos demonstrating some features are available here:

Download the API code-pack here:


Posted by Sumit Pranav at 10:07 AM

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