Professional Windows 7 Development Guide

Chapter 15. Using the Windows 7 Libraries

WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Interacting with known Windows 7 folders

• Working with non-filesystem containers

• Creating user-defined collections

• Adding the Explorer browser control to an application

Windows 7 comes with a number of new features that are loosely called Libraries. From the user's perspective, the Library feature offers a way to centralize document management. The user accesses all documents from a central location without regard to the document's actual location. Of course, if you stuffed all the user's documents into one huge folder, finding any one item would be a nightmare, so the library relies on a set of known folders, such as Documents, Music, Pictures, Downloads, and Videos to organize the information. Known folders also include system folders, such as the Recycle Bin. Of course, each of these known folders can have subfolders. The idea is that the user accesses everything from a central organized location. Your application can also place items in the Library to make them easier to access. The Library concept makes it possible for you to add items the user should access without revealing each item's true location, which is a form of data hiding.

It's also possible to create collections of items that don't exist as part of the filesystem. For example, the Library can contain a list of printers or a list of security certificates. All these items are registered in the registry, just like filesystem objects, but they don't belong to ...