Mimic Sharepoint edit Office file download - sharepoint

Question

When you browse a list of files in Sharepoint using IE and attempt to download the file, you get the option of opening it in read-only or edit mode. When you open the document, Office knows that the file exists in Sharepoint so when you save, it is updated in Sharepoint without the user having to re-upload the file.
I'd like to have this same functionality in a custom website. I have access to Sharepoint and the file list so I'm using the same URL that Sharepoint is to download the file but there's something else happening in Sharepoint that tells the computer to not download a copy of the file but to open it in Office from the Sharepoint URL.
Does anyone know how to mimic this same behavior so I can get a file to be opened in Office from Sharepoint to it can save directly back to Sharepoint?

Answer 1

The special thing about this, is the link:
It's not just http://example.com/document.docx . It's ms-word:ofe|u|http://example.com/document.docx .
Just add ms-word:ofe|u| in front of the link for letting the browser know to open the link with an other Application.
There are other strings for other links.
Open a OneNote-File with:
onenote:http://example.com/document.one
And Excel-Files with
ms-excel:ofv|u|http://example.com/document.xlsx
And just for fun a TeamSpeak Link:
ts3server://example.com

Answer 2

Create URL for MS Office 2010 (and higher) to:
open document in view mode:
ms-excel:ofv|u|http://server.com/path/filename.xlsx
open document in edit mode:
ms-excel:ofe|u|http://server.com/path/filename.xlsx
List of MS Office apps URL scheme names:
ms-word:
ms-powerpoint:
ms-excel:
ms-visio:
ms-access:
ms-project:
ms-publisher:
ms-spd:
ms-infopath:
MS has a good page with explanation:
MS Office Dev Center > Office URI Schemes