CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptgoogle-chromegoogle-chrome-app
Tharaka Deshan
Tharaka Deshan

Reputation: 1396

Save a file without the save dialog box in Chrome Apps

In my chrome app, I am writing some data to a file. I used the following code available in the official website under Storage APIs 

chrome.fileSystem.chooseEntry({type: 'saveFile'}, function(writableFileEntry) {
writableFileEntry.createWriter(function(writer) {
  writer.onerror = errorHandler;
  writer.onwriteend = function(e) {
    console.log('write complete');
  };
  writer.write(new Blob(['1234567890'], {type: 'text/plain'}));  
}, errorHandler);
});

Now I need to avoid popping up the save dialog box, and save this file in a predefined location.

Is this possible to do?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1957

Answers (1)

sowbug
sowbug

Reputation: 4672

If you want persistent data but don't want to bother the user with the location of the data on the local machine, you have several options:

None of these will give you real files that the user can access. If the user (in addition to your own app) needs to be able to access the file that you've written, then the user needs to be asked where to put the file. As Cerbrus said in the comment to your question, silently putting a file somewhere on the user's machine would be a security issue.

A new feature in Chrome 31 is chrome.fileSystem.retainEntry. Using this API, your app will keep the ability to retain a number of fileEntries, including directories, across app restarts, so that you won't have to keep bugging the user to choose the file location. It's my understanding that there are restrictions in which locations the user is allowed to pick, so that a malicious app can't direct the user to instruct Chrome to overwrite system files.

Upvotes: 5

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