wfassoc/README.md

# WFAssoc

**W**indows **F**ile **Assoc**iation Library

**Work In Progress**

## Preface

The final goal of this repository is making a viable solution for programmer,
who is familiar with GUI application development on POSIX system
and want to find a workable way to setup file associations on Windows for their developed software
without learning too much Win32 knowledge.

So considering this premise, this library will NOT assist those professional Windows developer
for setting up those complex Windows shell functions, such as the interaction with Explorer preview panel,
or adding extra entries in menu.

In brief words, this library only do one thing. Setup and check file associations for your application,
and make it at least works.

## Introduction

* `wfassoc`: Core Rust library. Rust programmer can directly utilize it.
* `wfassoc-cdylib`: A dynamic library exposed for C/C++ and other languages users.
* `wfassoc-exec`: A executable configuring file assocation according to user given profile and request.

If you are a programmer who just want to silently set your file associations for user, 
`wfassoc-exec` would be your best choice.
The only thing you need to do is that write a manifest TOML file,
and provide it and `wfassoc-exec` with your executable.
By executing `wfassoc-exec` with this TOML file in your executable,
you can simply achieve this goal, by analyse its return value to check whether it success.

However, if you are prefering that let user decide which file associations should be created,
even have an UI displaying all current file associations related with this program (like 7-Zip File Manager does),
you can choose `wfassoc-cdylib` as your solution.
`wfassoc-cdylib` exposes all essential functions for this task.
And you can build it with your own program.

At last, if all scenarios above can not cover your requirements,
you can utilize `wfassoc` directly in Rust, change all essential code in your favor,
and finally produce the artifact which only works for your requirements.

For the usage of these projects, please browse their README respectively.