Whilst Windows 8.1 applications are sandboxed from other applications, the operating system provides the ‘Share’ charm as a mechanism to transfer data between applications. There are two players in this interaction, the share source (with the data that is to be shared) and the share target (which accepts and processes the data), both of which are easy to implement using the Okra App Framework.
Detailed below are the steps required to implement a share target. Implementing a share source is discussed here.
The Okra App Framework Visual Studio extension provides a dedicated template for creating share targets. From the Visual Studio Add New Item dialog select the Share Target Contract (MVVM) item. This will create a default XAML file along with an associated view-model, as well as update the application manifest to enable sharing. You may wish to further modify the application manifest to configure the types of data that you can share.
Whilst the resulting view-model is fairly complex, all that is required to enable basic sharing support is to implement the missing code in the Share() method. In this method you can access the shared data via the this._shareOperation.Data property as well as any properties of the view-model that are bound to the UI such as the this.Comment property.
public async void Share()
{
...
string text = await _shareOperation.Data.GetTextAsync();
string[] comments = string.IsNullOrEmpty(Comment) ? new string[] { } : new string[] { Comment };
await todoDataStore.AddTodoItemAsync(text, comments);
...
}One other task is required to enable your application as a share target, and that is to import an Okra.Sharing.IShareTargetManager as part of you application bootstrapper and configure the page name for the share target UI.
public class AppBootstrapper : OkraBootstrapper
{
[Import]
public Okra.Sharing.IShareTargetManager ShareTargetManager { get; set; }
...
protected override void SetupServices()
{
...
ShareTargetManager.ShareTargetPageName = "ShareTarget";
}
}