Load PDFs to your Windows Phone

[Disclaimer :  You need to have a Developer Unlocked Phone with you for this to work  -  which means you need to have an account @ App Hub  ]

Hi people.

    I was trying to load a few of my PDF files into my windows phone.  The first obvious thing i tried was to upload them to Sky Drive and access them from there , but i realized that each time i opened the document, it was downloading from there.
 What ! My file was like 20 Mb in size, full of images and stuff that i created,  so it was taking time to download and load each time.  My next thought was like .... Write a Windows Phone App  that would contain a PDF file which i could try to access somehow.  But before i started, I thought I'll look it up on the internet instead.

To my HUGE relief, I found a damn useful tool called Windows Phone Manager Tool ,  (http://wpmanagertool.codeplex.com/releases/view/82533 )

Try it yourself.  I was able to load my Pdf files, as well as a few doc files .  I had an issue with the click once version,  so i tried the non click once  file  (which is a rar file in that codeplex site i mentioned earlier)

 So all you have to do to get a PDF loaded from your PC :

1) Get a Developer Account (Hey,come on. You need to have an unlocked phone )
2) Install WP Manager Tool (non click once version)
3) Upload files from your PC .

By the way, i developer unlocked my Phone using the Windows Phone Toolkit . I also installed the 5 apps i created . (more on Windows Phone soon) . I am so in Love with my Lumia 710 .  (Will do for now, till i get to participate in the next Contest )

P.s : Just a side note.  If you have a developer unlocked phone , and still getting the message
"Please ensure your device is PIN-unlocked and press any key to continue..."
Then all you need to do is .. wait for it. ...  remove the lock screen  on your phone  : D

Hope you found the tid bit useful !

Accessing local HTML files inside Silverlight OOB application

Hi Guys,
    I have been actively participating in Silverlight.net,  so i couldn't post here in the last 2 weeks.  Well the forums are amazing, you get to learn a whole lot of things there.   But first, let me tell you scenario .

A guy developed a  Html 5 application,  but he also wanted a standalone desktop application also. 
He didnt want to recode everything, so he wanted to make an OOB application that shows the HTML.
This is really a big advantage if you dont want to have internet connectivity , but still want to access that app.
After a bit of work, i finally came up with a solution that worked.    

1)  I added the Html page to my project  and changed its Build Action to "Embedded Resource".
2) Next, i tried to access that resource file path through code.
3) This is an out of browser application, so that i could use the Web Browser control.
4) I used Streams to read the data from the html resource and display it in the browser control.

It looks pretty straightforward, right :)   Here the code for the thing...

            Assembly thisAssembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();  
            string[] resNames = thisAssembly.GetManifestResourceNames(); 
            foreach (string resName in resNames)
            {
                if (resName.ToLower().EndsWith("hello.html"))  
                {
                    // To get only the file name
                    int j = resName.IndexOf('.');
                    string myres = resName.Substring(j+1);
                    
                    
                    // To get the folder where that file is present.
                    string str = Application.Current.Host.Source.LocalPath.ToString();
                    int i = str.LastIndexOf('\\');
                    str = str.Substring(0, i+1);
                    str += myres;

                    //Open the html in the browser
                    FileStream fs = new FileStream(str, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
                    StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(fs);
                    string s = sr.ReadToEnd();
                    sr.Close();
                    fs.Close();
                    webBrowser1.NavigateToString(s);
                    break;

                }
            } 
 

And so, all of you who want ot create desktop versions of Html pages can happily do so :)   

P.S :   I love the forums because you are faced with fascinating scenarios and challenges.  You could never have encountered all of them on your own . You also brush up with the basics , and more importantly , you get to know what to use in specific scenarios.

P.P.S :  I havent forgotten my agenda. I am currently working on the Silverlight Social Networking site.  Will start posting the content soon :)