ToastNotificationManager: Packaging Project to create the App ID only works within VS, not in published EXE

[Emil]

Hello and thanks in advance,

i have a problem with a WPF Application using the ToastNotificationManager class:
The ToastNotificationManager class needs an App Identity.
I found this solution which seemed to work fine at the beginning:

Calling Windows 10 APIs From Your WPF Application

Did you know that you can call Windows 10 WinRT APIs from your WPF and WinForms apps? In this blog post I'll show you how to display toast messages from a WPF application by using the Windows 10 ToastNotificationManager. In the previous blog post you…

www.thomasclaudiushuber.com

In the section "Create an Identity for Your WPF App" Thomas described detailed how to add a Windows Application Packaging Project to my solution and set it as startup-project to have an Identity for my app.
This worked very well.
But only in the development Environment - if i start and test my application out of the Visual Studio 2019 environment.
As soon as i publish the app (using the produce-single-file option), it does not work anymore.

The errors pointed exactly in the direction that the App Identity was missing. The error occurred after calling the method "ToastNotificationManager.CreateToastNotifier ()".

Does anyone have an idea why the solution with setting the app id with the additional Application packaging project as start project does only work when calling the app from the Visual Studio Environment? And how i could solve it so that it runs even as published exe file ?

I have two ideas - but i'm a very beginner in C#, so i assume you have better ideas ;-)
1. Create an app ID manually. But i cannot find a good solution, how i can create such an id manually, seems to be rather complex
2. Maybe i could try to transform my app into an UWP application - then i would have no problem with the app ID. But i started with UWP and reached limits, so that i switched over to WPF. So maybe other parts of my applicatoin won't work if i switch back to UWP...

Thank you very much for your advice !

Best regards
Emanuel

 

[Skydiver]

How exactly did you publish the app as a single file? Did you embed the required manifest that is needed into that single file?

 

[Emil]

Thank you!
Good question...
I have two projects in my solution. The main project named "RebootNotifier". And then the project "AppIdentity" for getting the ID. The start project is "AppIdentity". It has a reference to "RebootNotifier".
I click with the right mouse button on "RebootNotifier" and select "Publish".
Then the publishing dialog opens. I can edit the profile settings and in "File publish options" i check "Produce single file".

But i think since i selected "Publish" in the project context i lost the connection to the "AppIdentity" project - is this right?
Would there be a way to publish without loosing the interaction to the "AppIdentity" project ?

When i right-click the entire solution there is no "publish" menu item...

 

[Emil]

If i right-click the AppIdentity project, the publishing options are different - i don't see a way to create a single file. And i need a single exe file.

 

[Skydiver]

Why not move your WPF code into your "AppIdentity" project?

 

[Emil]

To set the Application Identity you need a special type of project.
As described in the link i mentioned in the initial post:

Calling Windows 10 APIs From Your WPF Application

Did you know that you can call Windows 10 WinRT APIs from your WPF and WinForms apps? In this blog post I'll show you how to display toast messages from a WPF application by using the Windows 10 ToastNotificationManager. In the previous blog post you…

www.thomasclaudiushuber.com

Section "Create an Identity for Your WPF App"

Here an abstract of the important instructions:
"You can easily create an identity for your WPF app by packaging it as MSIX. To do this, just add a Windows Application Packaging Project to your solution. In the previous blog post we used the Windows Application Packaging Project already to target a specific windows version with WPF. This time we need that Packaging Project to get an identity"

So as far as i understand, both cannot be included in one project.

 

[Skydiver]

Ah. Forgive me. I thought that your AppIdentiy project was some special app that was not only n application, but also registered itself. I didn't realize that it was a simple MSIX package project. You will have to build the MSIX project and distribute the results of that, not your WPF project being compiled as a single executable.

 

[Emil]

Thank you! Yes, i think i got it now ;-)
So i have to go a completely different way.
Because i have to deliver one EXE that can be distributed to each user of our company. It is not an option that each user is installing the app manually. It has to be automatically distributed...

So i have a different idea:
The ToastNotificationManager.CreateToastNotifier() method (Windows.UI.Notifications) has a an overload:
CreateToastNotifier(String)
Where the parameter is the applicationId.
I thought it could not be very difficult to provide this parameter. But i found it is.
Do you have an idea how i can get - or maybe set - the correct application id and hand it over here to the .CreateToastNotifier() method?

I tried e.g.
Guid g = Guid.NewGuid();
and used g.toString()
But it doesn't work.

 

[JohnH]

Have a look at this: Handle shortcut with AppUserModelID in C#

In the docs link you posted last there is also a link further to an article about AppUserModelID.

 

[Skydiver]

Because i have to deliver one EXE that can be distributed to each user of our company. It is not an option that each user is installing the app manually. It has to be automatically distributed...

I believe that an MSIX can be pushed by your IT department to all desktops and it will install automatically.

Distribute your MSIX in an enterprise environment - MSIX

This article provides all the details you need to manage deploying you MSIX applications in an enterprise environment. This article is targeted at enterprise and IT Pros.

docs.microsoft.com