Displaying a picture from any directory on a Windows machine

Solar2D Win32 Desktop
#1

I would like to be able to display an image from any arbitrary directory on the Windows machine.  I am reading a complete filepath from a text file and using that in display.newImage, but I keep getting a warning telling me that my program could not find the image at that location.  I know that display.newImage can only load images from specific locations which are contained in directory constants (system.ResourceDirectory, system.CacheDirectory, system.DocumentsDirectory, etc.), so I was wondering if there was anyway for me to reference the absolute root folder of the system using standard Lua and Corona SDK API’s.

An alternate solution I think could work is to create a temporary directory constant to use for a particular instance.  If anyone knows the structure of a directory constant, I might be able to work this out using that.

#2

Like I’m sure you’ve already noticed, display.newImage() and other similar functions are limited to loading files from Corona’s “sandboxed” directories:  ResourceDirectory, CachesDirectory, TemporaryDirectory, and DocumentsDirectory.  Absolute paths will not work.

The only other solution that I can think of that will work *today* is to copy the file to one of these sandboxed directories yourself via our file io APIs.

#3

Thanks Joshua.  So is there no way to create a new directory constant on the fly?

#4

Unfortunately no.  This is a limitation in Corona to make it compatible on sandboxed platforms such as iOS.

If it’ll help you any, the following guide shows you how to copy a file in Lua.  The standard Lua io.* APIs will accept paths outside of Corona’s sandboxed directories.

   https://docs.coronalabs.com/guide/data/readWriteFiles/index.html#copying-files-to-subfolders

#5

Like I’m sure you’ve already noticed, display.newImage() and other similar functions are limited to loading files from Corona’s “sandboxed” directories:  ResourceDirectory, CachesDirectory, TemporaryDirectory, and DocumentsDirectory.  Absolute paths will not work.

The only other solution that I can think of that will work *today* is to copy the file to one of these sandboxed directories yourself via our file io APIs.

#6

Thanks Joshua.  So is there no way to create a new directory constant on the fly?

#7

Unfortunately no.  This is a limitation in Corona to make it compatible on sandboxed platforms such as iOS.

If it’ll help you any, the following guide shows you how to copy a file in Lua.  The standard Lua io.* APIs will accept paths outside of Corona’s sandboxed directories.

   https://docs.coronalabs.com/guide/data/readWriteFiles/index.html#copying-files-to-subfolders