How to access the "Assets" folder from C# code

[DJRM2021]

Hi Windows App SDK Team!

According to this: link
I can use Windows.ApplicationModel.Package.Current.InstalledPath property. However, this is a WinRT API defined only in UWP. Will this work in WASDK? Is there an official WASDK alternative? Thank you.

[ghost1372]

Working fine but only in packaged apps and you can not use it in UnPackagaed apps

[whiskhub]

If your Windows App SDK app is packaged (MSIX), then it will work with Windows.ApplicationModel.Package.Current.InstalledPath, yes.

For unpackaged apps, it will just be the folder next to your EXE. So you can use System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location; or GetModuleFileNameW to get the EXE path, and then get the directory using Path.GetDirectoryName or similar.

Within XAML or other WinRT APIs, you can also use Uris like ms-appx:///Assets. There is also Microsoft.Windows.ApplicationModel.Resources.ResourceManager within WinAppSDK, with which you can access any Content resources with a path like Assets/MyFile.jpg.. It should also work in unpackages apps afaik.

[ghost1372]

Using assembly is not a solution, there is some situation like Self-contained or Single Exe which assembly method does not garanty to works fine.
Instead we can use Process and AppContext which is working fine in both packaged and unpackaged

https://github.com/WinUICommunity/WinUICommunity/blob/wasdk1.6/dev/Core/Helpers/ProcessInfoHelper.cs

And

public static string GetFullPathToAsset(string assetName)
    {
        return Path.Combine(AppContext.BaseDirectory, "Assets", assetName);
    }

[DarranRowe]

Even though it is a bit sketchy at times, most WinRT/UWP runtime classes are documented to work in desktop applications.

The major issues with that documentation is around the requires package identity. But in general, you can assume that most will work.

[DJRM2021]

Thank you all for your answers.