I think the answer is going to be "not possible" but it doesn't hurt to ask.
I've created a web application for a specific user that in part creates Word Doc documents on the server that they then download to their local machines.
My end user is not an experienced computer user and occasionally "loses" the files they've downloaded. (They're in the default download directory mixed in with other things they've downloaded!). It would be preferred if files downloaded from my web application went to a specific folder.
Is there a way to do this either in the web apps code or as a configuration of their browser?
The web app is built using MS Web API 2/C# for the server and Javascript/JQuery/Knockout on the client side.
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I've just finished a simple game in Adobe Animate using the HTML5 Canvas. I now have .fla, .html and .js files. Can I now put these somewhere on my website to make the game available to play? If so, where? If not, what else do I need? Thanks.
Clicking on the HTML file opens it in a browser, but I can't interact with it.
Thanks.
You're stepping in to a whole new world of hosting and deployments. To have a functioning website you need:
A host server
A domain name
Web files (which you have)
The host server will serve up your web files and allow incoming traffic from the web.
The domain name is optional, but helps with visibility. Without it you'll have to connect directly to the IP address of the host server.
I'd recommend finding a host like HostGator, GoDaddy, or Amazon S3 if you want to host a static website. It can be pretty intimidating at first, but you'll need to put in the time reading documentation to fully understand the process.
Alternatively, if you just want to get it running locally and not on the internet you can install a simple http server on your machine. I use NodeJS so I'll test with http-server alot. Hope this helps!
I face an issue for a client who need to launch an application from a ASP.Net website client side. For the moment the solution is using ActiveX, but we all want to find an other way to do this action.
I read this links to find informations :
Is it possible to run an .exe or .bat file on 'onclick' in HTML
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa767914%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
I know that for security issues, browsers don't allow the launch of client applications, but did someone find a hack to do something like that and have a sample to post ?
Have a good day
The technology exists for YEARS and it's called ClickOnce.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/142dbbz4%28v=vs.90%29.aspx
It requires the .NET Framework at the client side and a support from a browser (some browsers require a plugin to correctly handle ClickOnce apps).
Applications are deployed either in a form of a self-extracting installer (setup.exe) or a link to an XML document, the manifest, that describes location of other components (appname.application). In any case, a client just clicks a link, the app is downloaded and run locally, using local client permissions.
In particular, the app can read/write local files, use certificates from the local store, print documents using local printers, call other services ever if they are cross-domain etc.
And note that such ClickOnce application can run client local processes without any restrictions. We use this feature for years and it sounds like this is exactly your scenario.
Theoretically it could happen if a service was listening on some predefined port and the application simply sent a specific request to that port.
Other than that, I don't think it's possible to directly execute an application on the user's computer.
As I have read, it is not easy for JavaScript to modify files on client PC. I am working on a web based file manager and would need to know the following:
Can JavaScript list files and folder structure on a client PC?
Can JavaScript list files and folder structure on a server?
If your answer is no, that Java Scipt can not list files and folders say on client's or server's C:\ drive, than would CGI script be the only solution?
Browser JS reading client PC's files: Depends
For a security reason, you can't access the files on the user's PC without the user's consent.
That's why the FileReader API is created around the file input box <input type="file"> and a drag-n-drop area since the whole idea is to "access the file with user's consent". Without the user intentionally putting the file for access, you can't access it at all.
Server-side JS reading own server's files: Yes
As for server, if you meant access the server using server-JS (NodeJS or Rhino), yes you can (How else would it serve webpages anyway?).
Browser JS reading own server's files: Depends
Accessing the server from the browser using JS works if you have an API to read files from it.
Browser JS reading other server's files: Yes, with a catch
To access other server's files without some API, you could resort to creating a web scraper or a web-spider that runs server-side (since browser can't cross domains due to the same origin policy) and have an API exposed to your browser.
However:
you can't crawl to all files as some may be restricted from outside access.
the public appearance of the structure could be different from the internal structure, especially if the site uses segmented url scheme
sites using query strings to generate pages cannot be crawled easily due to the number of permutations it could make, thus some pages might be unreacheable.
CGI won't be a solution either, as it only has access to the filesystem of your server, not that of the client visiting your site. The only way to access your client's filesystem from javascript seems to be the File API, which apparently is not implemented by many browsers.
It's a cludge but you could resort to a java applet or the dreaded active-x control.
I have a web page containing a list of pictures urls (can be more then 1000 items) and I want to enable a button for the user to click and download all of the files to the local hard drive.
The download process should ask the user for a directory to save the files in and then go ahead and download all files to that directory (if possible, creating sub directories inside). This should be done with a single user confirmation for the whole download process and avoid display the browser save dialog for each file.
Is there a way doing that? I am aware I can't use the standard HTTP protocol for the downloads and have to write some kind of control to do the job. The page is written in asp.net.
Downloading to the server, packing and sending to the user is not possible. The download has to be originated from the client machine.
You should update your question to include the requirements from your comment, because they make a huge difference. If the server cannot retrieve the files, because he doesn't have the right permissions, your only option is to run the code on the client side. There are several options how to do this, mostly depending on the clients and your coding skill:
Flash (Not sure about the security aspect of writing to the local file system, though)
Java Webstart (Disadvantage: Clients need to have the Java runtime installed)
Browser plugin/extension (Disadvantage: You can only support a subset of browsers and the page will not be immediately usable, as the plugin or extension needs to be installed first)
In all cases, you will have to write a tool, that retrieves the URL list from your server and starts downloading it.
So these days we want things to be on the cloud.
In the desktop area we could use one application to create a file, then another to open that file.
I wonder how you accomplish this file sharing between web applications?
Eg. if I create a web application letting the user create a file, how do I share this file to another web application for opening it? Maybe the user created a PDF file on my web application and when he clicks on it, I want this file to be opened using another web application - but is not mine - so that he doesn't need to download it to open it.
Is there a standard way of sharing files between web applications easily?
Im not asking about pure technologies that could make this possible eg. REST/json, but standard specification/implementation for sharing files between applications. Cause I haven't heard of this kind of implementation, which could be good for cloud services to eliminate the need of having to download everything.
Application A assigns an URL to the file, hands the URL over to application B and application B uses HTTP to retrieve the file via the URL. If both applications are running on the same server, this will be just as efficient as reading from a file from the file system, or from a database.