14 DAY TRIAL // One of the enhancements that Microsoft’s SkyDrive cloud service has seen recently was meant to provide app developers with the possibility to easily integrate it in their apps, be they native for Windows or web apps.
The feature was made available courtesy of a SkyDrive API, which actually proved a bit difficult to use for integration purposes in some cases, and which, based on feedback received from web developers, evolved into a SkyDrive file picker for web apps.
Through it, website builders should find it easier to design their products with the ability to open and save files to SkyDrive, all with only a few lines of JavaScript code.
“Instantiating the SkyDrive file picker is done using either the WL.ui or WL.fileDialog methods from the JavaScript library,” Microsoft explains in a blog post.
It all depends on whether the app will make use of a standard SkyDrive file picker button as the one shown in the second photo to the left, or whether the file picker is launched based on an action performed on the website, such as the clicking on a link or a button.
Either way, it should be very simple to implement the feature in web apps, Microsoft notes. Web developers can come up with SkyDrive file picker buttons to enable users to save files to the storage service, or can create standard HTML buttons to launch the Save dialog.
In the aforementioned blog post, Microsoft even provides sample codes that developers can use to build these buttons, should they choose to implement the feature on their websites.
Moreover, the Redmond-based software giant came up with an interactive SDK that provides devs with the possibility to have a closer look at the file picker.
For those out of the loop, we should also note that Microsoft also lifted restrictions related to the type of files that can currently be saved to its cloud storage service.
“With our most recent release, there’s no longer any restriction on the types of files that can be uploaded to SkyDrive via our API. As part of this change, we’ve also changed our policies to allow apps to back up a user’s data to SkyDrive,” the company explains.
In order for ensure that app backups don’t end up cluttering up a user’s SkyDrive, Microsoft recommends a specific folder hierarchy for apps to store data.
“The application name should be provided as a human readable name that the end user understands, while the publisher name should be included in parenthesis in the folder name to disambiguate your app from another app that may have the same name,” the company concluded.
