i was wondering if anyone knew a quick solution to my problem. I want to be able to open a folder on users screen pretty much the same as but just opening up the my computer folder so a user can drag a file onto the browser screen. anyone know how?
You can't. They even gave this bug a name: "security".
The closest you can get without using Flash, proprietary browser stuff or Java is something like this.
You have to use a java applet.
Javascript has no access to the file system for security reason.
Every page would be able to see the files on your local machine and might display: "According to the files on your disk you might be interested in some of our special movies ;)"
Incidentally, there are custom extensions in IE and Firefox that let you load and save files; it's the reason TiddlyWiki can work as it does. It does degrade a Java applet for other browsers.
A new jQuery plugin has been extracted out of TiddlyWiki to give Javascript authors the ability to load and save, and it's portable across all browsers:
twFile - http://jquery.tiddlywiki.org/twFile.html
It's quite possibly not what you're after as it will only work off a file:/// URL.
Related
I want print PDF files from usb flash.
Now I decide do this with Mozilla Firefox and Plugin R-kiosk trought open libruary PDF.js
But still have a problem: how read folders and files to build tree without <_input /> cause it allow user get in system.
Any idea? Thx
May be you can give advice the best way to realise idea without browser... But I don't work with pdf libruaries, output and rendering of pages I have simply understanding, but I can't say this about silent printing of document
I don't believe this is possible. Browsers like Firefox generally won't let you have access to the local file system / disk structure for security reasons. Even if you knew the local path of the PDF, it wouldn't be of much help.
I'm looking to play AVI files in a web browser however I can't seem to find a decent tool to do so.
The basic WMP object embed is what I'm using right now but it doesn't really do what I'd like it to do, and I can't really implement JavaScript into it. (AFAIK I can't. I done a little digging and that's the conclusion I came to)
I've also tried DivX though I don't really like it. It has adverts, and I've no idea if JavaScript can be included either.
AFAIK Flash doesn't support AVI playback at all.
Does anyone know of any player at all that can play AVI files on the web, which I could possibly integrate some kind of JavaScript in (or has an API)?
Just a thought too, but would Java itself have anything like this?
The player also needs to be able to source the files like this:
file:\\Network-PC-Name\avi\avifile.avi
What you're looking for is WebChimera, there's no doubt about it. It has the most complex JS API ever made for web video, and it supports all file types.. it also supports "file:///" (for links like file:///C:/avi/avifile.avi).
It is open source and has no advertising. And the best part is that everything inside the player is editable, so you can skin it, add buttons and even add entirely new features to it with mostly just JavaScript. :)
Update
As you mentioned you need it to connect to file:///Network-PC-Name/avi/avifile.avi, this tells me you need this for some Local / Private / LAN use.
In this case, I think the best solution for you is to use WebChimera with Node-Webkit, as it will also give you a JS API based server environment.
WebChimera Player is already ported to NW for Windows and Mac:
https://github.com/jaruba/WebChimeraPlayerNW
On Windows, just download the package, and run nw.exe. To customize just edit the html pages. For Mac, just follow the instructions in the Readme.md.
The great part about using it like this, is that it already has the plugin embedded in the app, so you won't even need to install the plugin for the player to work.
The only thing I can't be fully sure of, is if Network-PC-Name can even be accessed through the file:/// protocol in it's normal usage. But this would still be possible anyway as you could map the network drive, and you can even map it programatically (with only JavaScript!) by using the child process exec to run the necessary command. (child_process is built in node-webkit natively)
flowplayer is recommended by this post:
Flash video player for AVI files (free for commercial use)
not sure about the file:\ source, as that's on your local machine and could be refused by the browser for security reasons
Is there any way I can use HTML5 and JavaScript to modify a file on my system? I'm OK with running Chrome or Firefox with specific options or opening permissions in some other way.
Ideally I would like test this by having my browser rename a file on my desktop.
Yes, you can do this, this link details some of the available functionality:
http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/file/filesystem/
Just remember, it's not supported in the major browsers yet, and it's likely when it is many of your visitors will not upgrade for quite some time.
No, as this would be a security vulnerability. As pointed out there are sandboxed file systems, or local database storage in HTML5, but not access to the whole file system.
You could achieve it with a certified Java applet, if you really wanted to achieve it through the browser. To be honest the browser is not the best place to be trying such things.
VBScript should be appropriate in your case. You will have to lower your internet zone security level though.
Once it's done just use ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") and its MoveFile method.
I'm busy experimenting with TiddlyWiki and trying to get it to run on my Nokia E51, which uses S60v3. The browser is based on webkit, which should mean that I'd be able to get it to work, but no luck so far.
Does anyone have any experience with saving files locally on this platform?
I skimmed through the source of TiddlyWiki. For its file operations it is using the jQuery.twFile plugin which in turn uses a custom Java applet on Webkit-based browsers. The S60 browser does not support java applets so I'm afraid you're out of luck.
I may be wrong here but a quick look at the widget training course on forum Nokia makes it seem like file system access from JavaScript isn't available on S60.
http://www.forum.nokia.com/Tools_Docs_and_Code/Documentation/Web_Technologies/
It really look like you're supposed to retrieve persistent data from the network.
I would hope the web browser cache allows you to query remote data several times while only transfering it once.
On my E51 I am able do download files the old-fashion way: A simple link to a file with a fitting mimetype.
I have a number of users with multi-megabyte files that need to be processed before they can be uploaded. I am trying to find a way to do this without having to install any executable software on their machines.
If every machine shipped with, say, Python it would be easy. I could have a Python script do everything. The only scripting language I can think of that's on every machine is JavaScript. However I know there are security restrictions that prevent reading and writing local files from web browsers.
Is there any way to use this extremely pervasive scripting language for general purpose computing tasks?
EDIT: To clarify the requirements, this needs to be a cross platform, cross browser solution. I believe that HTA is an Internet Explorer only technology (or that the Firefox equivalent is broken).
Would Google Gears work here? Yes, users have to install something, but I think the experience is fairly frictionless. And once it's installed, no more worries.
The application that I maintain and develop for work is an HTML Application or HTA, linked with a SQL Server 2005 backend. This allows various security restrictions to be "avoided". All the client-side components in the application are done with javascript, including writing files to locally mapped network drives and loading data into screens/pages in an AJAXy way.
Perhaps HTA could be helpful for your situation.
For an example of javascript accessing a local file, you might try taking a look at the source of TiddlyWiki, specifically the saveFile, mozillaSaveFile, and ieSaveFile functions. Just click the download link, open the html file it sends you, and search for those functions.
Of course, tiddlywiki is supposed to be used as a local file, not served over the web, so the methods it uses may only work locally.. But it might be a start.
Why not use a flash uploader? http://swfupload.org/
Adobe Flex 4 lets you to open and process a file on a local machine:
http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/langref/flash/net/FileReference.html#load()
It's not exactly JavaScript, but hope that helps.
I believe you can accomplish this using the HTML5 File API.
It is supported in Opera, IE, Safari, Firefox, and Chrome.
you can use fs module from nodeJS to manipulate with filesystem nowadays!