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I have a SharePoint 2019 document library wherein I have a custom JavaScript code to open the MS documents (Word, Excel, Ppt, Visio) in the client application. I am using Office URI schemes for opening the documents in client apps. However, if there is no client application installed on the computer, the Office URI scheme fails without throwing up any error. I want to know if there is a way to check from the browser (IE and Chrome) if a particular MS application (Visio, Word, etc.) is installed on the computer.
P.S. I have tried the ActiveXObject approach, but for some reason, it didn't work for me and, also I want a solution that will be cross-browser compatible and afaik ActiveXObject is supported only on IE.
(Current MSFT employee in Office here. On the team that owns the link invocation handling for the native client side but not the SharePoint or JS side)
The root problem is that the browser object model doesn't give you a result for navigating to the ms-word/etc links. As I understand it that is why the built-in SharePoint open UX has 2 options. One to open in the browser and another to open in the native client. And there is interstitial UX to prompt the user if the file did not successfully open in the native client.
(And, correct, the ActiveX solution will not work even with modern Edge on windows either and is a dead-end technology wise.)
You can try using ActiveX technology to instantiate Office application as described on the detect microsoft office version using javascript thread. But Chrome is not aware of COM technology. So, any code for creating an Office application instance will fail.
In our web application, we using a Java applet to invoke MS.Word application by jacob jar e.g. Word to open, edit, and when it saves automatically it uploaded to the server.
Google Chrome will no longer support NPAPI, so soon we can not run our applet in Chrome anymore.
So, any suggestions for an alternative for the Java applet. We want to make the same experience for the user, just like before.
We have the same problem. With Webstart is not longer possible to do that communication. We are going to use Websockets between webstart application and browser. Our first attempt is to start a websockets server in the webstart and make browser connect to localhosts. If this is not possible for security limitations in the browsers then we are going to do it through the webserver, browser and webstart application connecting to the webserver and exchanging messages.
I can see 2 distinct possibilities.
Create a standalone application that "wraps" your web application using a technology such as electron. You can then do your browser to desktop integration as you like. This will require an install on the client.
Launch a webstart application (or it could really be any installation that happens on the client). It will need to start a webserver, or connect to a webserver and communicate via http.
I'm saddened by the loss of the Applet. It is a technology not easily replaced. And another methods seem somewhat like 'workarounds'. There is no easy, cross-browser way to break out of the browser sandbox and access the system.
For myself, the loss of the Applet has simply meant that automating some of these processes has become too difficult and it is just better to find an alternative way of achieving a similar end result.
A small note: If you are starting a local webserver, be mindful of security. It can be accessed by other processes on the system. Wouldn't it be fun to open word on anyone's system by sending a request to a port!
I'm writing an application to show the uploaded documents using python3-django-1.8.1. We also want to allow user to scan a document.
As you know that, there is a print dialog in javascript.
window.print()
Is there any support in the browser to scan a document?
Is it possible to launch a scanner application on clients machine, using javascript/python?
like:
"Windows Fax and Scan" on Windows machines
"Simple Scan" on linux, etc. OR
Whatever the default scanner application on respective os of the client.
Any third party python application/js plugin allow to scan a document?
I am not too familiar with a image scanning feature, but I had faced a similar issue with a barcode scanner.
You cannot actually expect something similar to printing, as printing is a browser-enabled feature whereas scanning is something a typical browser does not do.
Moreover, JS has no capability of accessing peripherals directly. What would happen if this page would be browsed by a mobile? (A scan from the camera would be fantastic but never heard of anything like it).
Having said that, there is a scanner.js SDK:
scanner.js enables any web page to acquire images from scanners using JavaScript in most desktop browsers like IE, Chrome, Firefox and more. In most cases, software install is not required and the user can enjoy a great scanning experience.
Also there is a Twain SDK:
Dynamic Web TWAIN is a TWAIN-based scanning SDK software specifically designed for web applications.
These are supposingly dealing with your issue but I haven't used them. Scanner.js demo is not even working now on my Ubuntu machine. My guess is that they are not entirely JS-based anyway (com objects and stuff).
Other things to do is to have a small Firefox plugin developed if your case is specific (such as Intranet) so to control the users' browsers.
Last, but not least, another option would be to develop and provide a small desktop app to handle scanning and uploading.
If there is any other recommendation I would love to see it.
I want to be able to create an offline program that can use the browser as GUI. I'm not particularly good at GUI programming in general, and overall it seems that using HTML and CSS to structure a GUI would be the easiest.
Cross browser method is preferred, but I will most likely use Google Chrome
I need to be able to open an external program, possibly with command line arguments
Javascript seems like the best language for this, however as far as I know it isn't possible to launch programs with it.
This is on Windows 7.
That's a good idea and is done by a several popular softwares.
The best way is to make your offline program run a web server that the browser will be able to access.
ie: Your program starts a web server on localhost:5555 and then you'll be able to request http://localhost:5555/users in Javascript, from your browser.
Another approach could be using a UI framework like AngularJS + local storage. I'm working on an app right now that will be used online (connected to the web), online locally (connected to a local server that is not connected to the web), and offline.
You could build a single-page web app and let Angular manage all the "urls".
Let's say I've got a website that works better if a client has installed and logged into a desktop application. I'd like to be able to do 2 things:
Alter the website if they haven't installed the app (to make it easy for them to find a link to the installer)
If they've installed the app on a couple of machines, determine which machine they are browsing from
I'd like something that works on Windows and OSX, on any of the major browsers. Linux is a bonus.
A few thoughts:
Websites can detect if you've got Flash installed. How does that work and could it be used for both of my goals?
Could I just let the client serve HTTP on localhost and do some javascript requests to fetch a local ID? I know google desktop search did something like this at one point. Is this a standard practice?
Thanks!
You can register a protocol from your desktop application (see this). This can be used, for example, to open your desktop application with arbitrary data from the website. You could then have your desktop app send a HTTP request to your webserver, telling it what machine you are on.
You can have a browser plugin (activex for IE or Netscape plugin for the rest of the browsers) that can communicate with the application. When the webpage is loaded, it can try to instantiate the plugin and if it succeeded, it can use it as a proxy to the application. If it fails, then either the app is not installed or the plugin was explictly disabled by the user. Either way, your website should degrade its functionality accordingly.
Update: Forgot to answer your questions:
Flash does it exactly this way. Flash is a browser plugin that is created by the web pages.
You can have a machine ID generated at the application/plugin install time and your plugin can pass that machine ID to the webpage when it is created.
On the topic of using local webserver:
I would stay away from having a local webserver, mainly because of security considerations. It takes quite a lot of work to make sure your local webserver is locked down sufficiently and there are no XSS vulnerabilities that other malicious websites can exploit to make it do stuff on their behalf.
Plus, having a webserver means that either it has to run as a system-wide process, or if it runs as the user, you can have the website interact with only one user's instance of the application, even though multiple users can be logged on and running it at the same time.
Google Desktop Search suffered from both the XSS security vulnerability (though they fixed it) and the limitation of only one user being able to use it on a machine (I don't know if they fixed this one yet, though chances are they did).
Websites can detect if you've got Flash installed.
Actually, I believe a browser can detect if you have the Flash plugin for the browser installed, and webpages can offer "installed" and "uninstalled" option that the browser can choose.
Otherwise, you are asking for a means, by putting some code in a webpage, of being able to analyze a user's home computer, and report what it learned to you website.
Can you say Major Security Hole?
If you can pick a development environment for the desktop app, then check out AIR from Adobe. It lets you develop desktop applications using either html/javascript, Flash, or Flex.
It has API calls you can use from a browser based flash app to see if the desktop based AIR app is installed, what version, etc. You can even launch it and pass parameters from the web app to the desktop app.
http://www.rogue-development.com/blog2/2008/03/interacting-with-an-air-app-from-a-browser-based-app/
Websites can detect if you've got Flash installed. How does that work and could it be used for both of my goals?
it's quite a bit simple, your browser tries to render some additional files, with some specific formats such as flash .swf and I the browser doesn't find installation, then will be start downloading, or you will get the option to download that program.
Flash also uses AC_RunActiveContent.js please take a look at this js, people usually put this on their webpages
if (AC_FL_RunContent == 0) {
alert("This page requires AC_RunActiveContent.js.");
} else {
AC_FL_RunContent( 'codebase','http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave cabs/flash swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0','width','981','height','635','id','build5','align','middle','src','build5','quality','high','bgcolor','#ffffff','name','build5','allowscriptaccess','sameDomain','allowfullscreen','false','pluginspage','http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer','movie','build5' ); //end AC code
}