Change File Association 1

[webmigit]

Quick question...

I'm writing a tool for notepad, or more specifically making notepad a tool of my program.. I want to give people the option to make my program the default text editor.. But don't want to explain how to change it manually.. The old saying is true...

Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day,
Teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime.

And my addition...

But remember, he's gonna come after you the first time he smacks himself with the pole.

Tony Hicks

 

[CBrianA]

Here's some code that does exactly what you want:

http://www.vbcodemagician.dk/tips/files_association.htm

 

[webmigit]

Thanks!! Exactly what I wanted!!

 

[webmigit]

Brian.. uh... maybe you can help.. I emailed the code author the same question but no response...

If app.path has a space in it... it stops at the space... IE

My program is in:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\.....\Notepadthing.exe

And it set the executable location to be:

C:\Documents.exe

Can you help please?

Thanks,
Tony Hicks

 

[CBrianA]

Strange. I just tested this on my system (Windows XP) and it seemed to work. A few questions:

- Is the program compiled?
- Which OS version are you using, and which version of VB? (5 or 6)
- Could you post the call you are making?

If you want to e-mail me directly, remove the 'C' from the front of my username, and add "@att.net"

 

[webmigit]

Ah... I found out a few minutes ago.. the uncompiled version is the one that trips...

Anyway since you've helped so much on this can you tell me how I might "shell()" files... You can shell(program) and shell("Explorer " + file) but this opens directly in IE if it can.. and that's really annoying with text files.

Thanks,
Tony Hicks

 

[CBrianA]

So, I take it you want to display a text file to the screen? You've almost got it anyway. You can execute virtually any .EXE from the SHELL command, and pass it a parameter (assuming, of course, that the program understands command line parms).

shell "notepad " & "C:\TEMP\Myfile.txt",vbNormalFocus

This will start notepad asynchronously, leaving your program running in the background.

 

[webmigit]

I know that... I guess I said it wrong.. I want to basically shell a file and let Windows decide how to open it.. Any ideas?

 

[CBrianA]

Once it is associated in the registry, Windows should be able to open it with the proper file; but you may have to reboot before the association actually takes effect.

You can use the FindExecutable API call to see what the association is for a particular filetype.

 

[webmigit]

Hehe... this is almost funny...

One more time....

Suppose I want to open file1.txt...

I could shell("Notepad " + "file1.txt&quot

And I know how to shell for a bmp file.. and many other extensions...

But what if someone changes ".txt" default editor to another program, to be user friendly I want to open the file with that program... so now...

shell("file1.txt&quot is basically what I want except that doesn't work, shell only shells programs and programs + command lines.

Get me now?

Thanks,
Tony Hicks

 

[andylec]

Try ShellExecute to open any file with its default application. Search this forum for examples of usage.

rgds
Andy

 

[CBrianA]

Sheesh! That's what I get for staying late at the PC. I don't know what I was thinking. You need to call the SHELLEXECUTE API. Here's some sample code:

http://216.26.161.91/vbapi/ref/s/shellexecute.html

 

[nomi2000]

dear webmigit
here is the code to open the associted application
hope it will help you
Regards
Nouman


Option Explicit

Private Declare Function ShellExecute Lib "shell32.dll" Alias _
"ShellExecuteA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal lpszOp As _
String, ByVal lpszFile As String, ByVal lpszParams As String, _
ByVal lpszDir As String, ByVal FsShowCmd As Long) As Long

Private Declare Function GetDesktopWindow Lib "user32" () As Long

Const SW_SHOWNORMAL = 1

Const SE_ERR_FNF = 2&
Const SE_ERR_PNF = 3&
Const SE_ERR_ACCESSDENIED = 5&
Const SE_ERR_OOM = 8&
Const SE_ERR_DLLNOTFOUND = 32&
Const SE_ERR_SHARE = 26&
Const SE_ERR_ASSOCINCOMPLETE = 27&
Const SE_ERR_DDETIMEOUT = 28&
Const SE_ERR_DDEFAIL = 29&
Const SE_ERR_DDEBUSY = 30&
Const SE_ERR_NOASSOC = 31&
Const ERROR_BAD_FORMAT = 11&

Function StartDoc(DocName As String) As Long
Dim Scr_hDC As Long
Scr_hDC = GetDesktopWindow()
StartDoc = ShellExecute(Scr_hDC, "Open", DocName, _
"", "C:\", SW_SHOWNORMAL)
End Function

Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim r As Long, msg As String
r = StartDoc("C:\WINDOWS\ARCADE.BMP&quot
If r <= 32 Then
'There was an error
Select Case r
Case SE_ERR_FNF
msg = &quot;File not found&quot;
Case SE_ERR_PNF
msg = &quot;Path not found&quot;
Case SE_ERR_ACCESSDENIED
msg = &quot;Access denied&quot;
Case SE_ERR_OOM
msg = &quot;Out of memory&quot;
Case SE_ERR_DLLNOTFOUND
msg = &quot;DLL not found&quot;
Case SE_ERR_SHARE
msg = &quot;A sharing violation occurred&quot;
Case SE_ERR_ASSOCINCOMPLETE
msg = &quot;Incomplete or invalid file association&quot;
Case SE_ERR_DDETIMEOUT
msg = &quot;DDE Time out&quot;
Case SE_ERR_DDEFAIL
msg = &quot;DDE transaction failed&quot;
Case SE_ERR_DDEBUSY
msg = &quot;DDE busy&quot;
Case SE_ERR_NOASSOC
msg = &quot;No association for file extension&quot;
Case ERROR_BAD_FORMAT
msg = &quot;Invalid EXE file or error in EXE image&quot;
Case Else
msg = &quot;Unknown error&quot;
End Select
MsgBox msg
End If
End Sub