Basically I'm looking for something that will allow users to open and modify dwf files in their browser (like the Autodesk Design Review allows users to open files in IE). But is there such a probgram that will run from a server, without the user having to install anything on their computer?
That may be impossible. You can use VRML, supported by asp.net.
Related
Currently I'm building a local serach engine for network drives that is going to be used in our company.
The search engine is build on top of Solr and Tika. I've build an indexer that indexes Samba-shares over the network which works great and indexes all the directories that are given in a configuration file. However that is not really relevant.
The current problem we have is that the web interface that connects to Solr and delivers the search results will try to serve local file:// files that are links to the files with a absolute or Samba path. But serving file://'s are of course disallowed by browsers like Google Chrome. The error that Chrome gives is:
Not allowed to load local resource: file:///name/to/file.pdf
Which is obvious and logical, however I want to work around that issue and serve 'local' files to our users. Or at least open an Explorer window with the given path.
I was wondering if this is even possible or if there is a workaround available? The server that is going to serve these files is running on Apache or Tomcat (doesn't matter).
Alhtough opening file://'s seems pretty much impossible without the use of browser-specific plugins, I created a workaround by specifying a custom URI-handler combined with a Windows specific application that will open explorer.exe with the given directory.
This is by far not the ideal answer to my question, but I think it is a decent workaround for an intranet search application.
Streaming the file from your application to the browser is a much better idea from a usability and security perspective.
By assigning a MIME type to the stream, the user's browser can decide how best to open and display the file to the user.
By streaming from you application, control of the data can be maintained. The location of the file on you server is not revealed and proper authentication, authorization and auditing are easily achieved.
Assuming Java based upon your use of Solr and Tika:
http://www.java-forums.org/blogs/servlet/668-how-write-servlet-sends-file-user-download.html
I looked into very many Google Chrome extensions and apps in order to find one that matches the following requirements:
runs in a Google Chrome tab
editor for any code, PHP, CSS, HTML
can load and save files (on my computer) and create new ones
works with local files on my computer
Is there any? kodingen, cloud9, shiftedit does not seem to make it on the localhost.
Maybe SourceKit will do?
SourceKit is an extension to your Google Chrome browser which runs in a separate tab. The files are stored in your Dropbox account, so not only can you access the files from your computer - you can access them from anywhere! It uses syntax highlighting like Notepad++ for a limited number of languages (you said php, css, and html - they are all supported). It can load, save, and edit text files locally on your computer if you install the Dropbox Desktop Application. This will also synchronize the files with your online account and thereby make them accessible from anywhere in the world.
That sounded more like a salesman's advertisement than intended.
Both Dropbox and SourceKit are free.
There are four catches as far as I can see:
Dropbox "only" offers 2GB for free, however, you can upgrade at any time if you're willing to pay.
Dropbox Desktop will only synchronize one folder (and all of its contents), but that's really not any different from a web site.
SourceKit will not debug your code, but will it highlight wrong syntax(only for certain languages).
EDIT Does not work offline.
I've tried it out, and it works well.
Sympathy Editor
Sympathy uses the npapi-file-io plugin mentioned in an answer above to allow you to edit local files.
Pros
Allows you to edit local files
Full syntax highlighting
Bookmark local files for easy access
Cons
Uses npapi plugin to read files, which means it has access to all your data
Unavailable on Chrome Webstore
Still under development
Only works on linux/windows as of the moment (not in mac)
If you are interested, you can see the README, or Manual on github.
Disclosure: I'm the primary developer of the extension.
Don't any of these extensions you have mentioned work with the file:/// protocol? They will work for the http:// protocol only if you are going to edit files inside your local webserver.
Instead of writing http://localhost/(...) you write file:///(...), where (...) is the full path.
In UNIX systems it is file:///home/jens/file.txt. In Windows it should be file:///C:\(...).
#Berk Demirkir may be right.
Here are the resources I found that may be of use;
32 Google Chrome Extensions For Smart Designers
Chrome Web Developer Tools No. 7 on the above list
There's no extension for editing local files.
But you can write one!
Acesses to local filesystem cannot be done using Chrome's Extension API.
But you can use HTML5's File API (which is draft) or Local Storage. If none of these storage methods sufficient for you, you can build a NPAPI Plugin. Chrome supports NPAPI Plugins. There's also a project called npapi-file-io in Google Code which aims to access local files from Google Chrome Extension context.
Edit:
Now, there's one usable editor, Symphaty. You can use Capt.Nemo's Symphaty editor.
Edit 2:
NPAPI plugins are phased out from Chrome since version 42. The only alternative would be to use a wrapper native app and communicate using Native Messaging API.
ShiftEdit can be used to work locally, you will need to have XAMPP or equivalent installed.
I am thinking about having the following use-case:
User installs application on local machine.
User goes to our website, and are presented with many links (choices).
User clicks on a link.
Application starts, with some information contained within the link passed to the application.
Step 4 is obviously a security minefield. The end goal is that the user makes a choice, and if the application is installed, it starts with some information passed to it (ie command line parameters, or perhaps a temp file somewhere on the user's machine)
Can I/ Should I access the registry from javascript? Are there any ideas about how I might go about this? Do you have an alternative suggestion?
Assuming the applications the user installs are also developed by you.
Register a file extension for use by the specific application - then your web links can be links to a file that is downloaded and auto-run by your app. The file could contain details on the defaults for your app to use.
Sort of like how clicking on a .pdf file opens your pdf reader.
As an alternative to the file-extension solution you may want to know about Custom Application Protocol feature. Link is for Windows but there are nearly same techniques on other systems. I can't say if this approach works in every browser but you may want to try it out.
Accessing the registry from JavaScript inside a browser is nigh on impossible for the security implications. To access the registry from the web, I'd imagine you'd have to use a binary (C++ or others) program that can read the registry, but also has an HTTP module to communicate with your server.
Sounds like you might need the Click Once deployement feature for your app. I think once it's installed over http there should be a pretty easy way to launch an executable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClickOnce
Is there any good browser based WebDAV client? If not, is it possible to make one?
Look at the AjaxFileBrowser from ITHit. Pretty slick, and has FireFox & Chrome PUT support for uploading. IE, drag-and-drop from your desktop to the browser. They have a fully functional demo site up at http://www.ajaxbrowser.com.
There's a plugin for Firefox which handles WebDAV.
Webfolders is a firefox extension that gives you the ability to view the contents of WebDAV
servers in the browser and use the full functionality of the WebDAV protocol.
Depends on what you expect the client to do, and whether you're looking for a cross-browser "web application", or a browser extension.
The main issue with doing this in a "web application" (as opposed to a browser extension) is (1) the lack of binary data support in Javascript, and (2) the lack of access to the local file system (which of course is a security feature).
There is webdav-js which can be enabled as a bookmarklet or served by the WebDAV server itself as an HTML page.
It supports the regular listing of files and directories, file upload, directory creation, renaming, as well as in-page display of images and other media.
If by browser based you mean that it runs in html (ie you don't want your users to install a plugin) then the answer is partly yes and mostly no.
Partly yes, because I have built and used one. It uses the jquery jtree plugin to display folders, and selecting a folder node populates a file list in the right hand panel. Panels are done with another jquery plugin, and the file list is made dynamic with the jquery datatables plugin.
But I think for you the answer is probably "no". Thats because for the browser to use webdav is must user webdav "methods" like PROPFIND and MKCOL. These methods just arent supported in most browsers, so your javascript can't use them directly. I have a server-side mapping in my webdav server project which allows my javascript to use normal GET and POST methods, and these requests are transformed on the server to webdav methods.
I said "probably no" for you since this serve side mapping isnt standard, its a part of milton. But if you happen to use milton, or you can use milton, then its all good.
Try SMEStorage.com. They turn any WebDav back-end into a personal cloud file solution. As well as a rich browser desktop and mobile client, there are clients for Mac,Windows, Linux and Mobile clients for Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry.
Question: Is it possible to construct a web page that has a script to turn off XML data-binding in MSIE? The ideal approach would be to code an HTML page and instruct all people in the office to visit the page with a button that says "turn off data-binding".
Rationale: The desktop sysadmin is not available at this time and the goal is to create a brain-dead simple way to let people turn this feature off without having to walk them through a bunch of MSIE configuration menus.
I'm assuming you're talking about Microsoft Security Advisory (961051).
If you could disable XML data-binding using client-side script, then someone could enable it with client-side script and expose the vulnerability again. So that isn't possible.
However, if everyone is running the same version of Windows and the same bitness flavor, then just send them to a page where they can copy and paste this into Start > Run:
Regsvr32.exe /u "Program Files\Common Files\System\Ole DB\oledb32.dll"
Note that this will protect against current attacks but to comprehensively protect against the vulnerability they recommend applying another workaround. More on that here.
And encouraging your employees to go to a website in an E-mail and run something they've been told to run is probably a bad idea as it opens them up to various phishing attacks since most people won't be able to distinguish between an E-mail from their own company IT department and an E-mail sent by a malicious person.
More about the available workarounds here.
In the end, the best practice would be to push out one of the workarounds as described in the above KB article.