I’m building a PHP web application that runs only using Google Chrome. The organization would like to be able to access certain folders via windows explorer. This is easy in IE using the file:/// protocol but I can’t seem to find a good solution using Chrome.
I’ve looked into registering custom protocol handlers but haven’t really found the answer I’m looking for there. This requirement is grained in stone; they do not want to access the files via web browser.
Does anyone know if there’s a way to launch windows explorer from google chrome either through a special protocol handler or by temporarily launching IE to get the file path to open? A simple method or example would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance.
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I have an application with web interface. Unfortunately, it has all disadvantages of being a web page:
It doesn't have a standalone window, so users cannot manage it via the taskbar.
Users see the address line with something like 'http://localhost:8080' that is not a good idea for home users.
If users click on a tray icon, there is no way to activate the tab in a browser, which contain the application interface.
So, it would be nice to have a wrapper application with a browser within.
In case of IE I know it's possible to create a window with Trident ActiveX component. But what if it's Windows XP with IE6 but installed latest Chrome? I'd like to prefer Chrome since it supports a lot more features which the user will never see.
So, is there a way to wrap a page into Chrome/Firefox and make it look like a standalone application, if one of them is presented in the user's system? (The application shouldn't install anything large, so Chromium build is not an option).
P.S. I'm not interested in supporting other platforms than Windows.
Regards,
Take a look at Chrome Apps.
I hope helps you.
On chrome, extensions can exchange messages with native applications with the help of native messaging APIs How can we achieve this on IE?
use-case : We have our own desktop application which users can download and install from our site. Next time when they revisit, we should be able to detect if the native application is installed and launch if its available.
We were able to build a solution on chrome with the help of an extension which makes use of chrome native messaging APIs to connect to native application.
Need something similar on IE browsers or a generic solution which will work across all major browsers.
You might want to have a look at URL handlers, they are supported for Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer.
Basically it enables you to register for example myapp:// for the browser and then you can have the browser call the application that is registered to this handler.
This is a technique which for example uTorrent uses to open trackers for torrent:// and magnet://.
You can check these links for details or search for solutions here on SO:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web-based_protocol_handlers
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa767914(v=vs.85).aspx
https://developer.chrome.com/apps/manifest/url_handlers
If you have the desktop application installed, you can just install the BHO in the IE. This BHO should handle Navigate events from the browser, then, when user navigates to your site, BHO will indicate to the site, that the your app is present on the system. For example, BHO can inject some "marker" node on the page or call some predefined JS function on the your site's page. Also this BHO can perform some additional communication with you desktop app via the COM (or you can emulate manually int the BHO the protocol used in Chrome native messaging) and use the same approach as for Chrome.
I managed to create a Chrome extension pretty easy and the main application is hosted on my server allowing me to provide updates to the app itself without having to update the whole extension. I like the idea and I just want to know if it's possible to create a similar extension for Firefox where the main application is hosted on a live server.
In creating my Chrome extension, I followed a tutorial. The code for Chrome is included on the linked page.
It's possible to create a simple extension that loads a web app either in a panel or a tab. You should read up on the Addon SDK documentation, including the panel, tabs and getting started docs.
There is nothing wrong with this, as the web app would not have direct access to internal Firefox APIs. If you read the Addon guidelines closely that #makyen links to above, none of it covers this implementation detail. In their defence, they seem to have misinterpreted what you want to do. It looks to me like you just want to integrate / launch your web app from the browser UI?
Web application:
After finding the tutorial (please provide a link next time) I surmise you are referring to in your question, I suspect that what you are actually attempting to convey is different than how I initially interpreted your question. I have edited the question to make this more clear to people reading it in the future.
That tutorial is explaining how to place a link to a web application into the Chrome user interface. Such is, to a large extent, just a bookmark that is able to be placed within other areas of the user interface than the bookmarks bar.
If that is what you are wanting to do, then, yes, you can easily do so in Firefox. Given that the extension is not running external content in the security context of an extension (you are effectively just navigating to and displaying a website), then that should be fine as a Firefox extension. Note that you need to be sure that you are not granting elevated permissions when you launch the web application.
If running a web application is what you are wanting to do, then I suggest you might want to use different semantics to refer to what you are doing. The above is not a "Firefox extension app hosted on server". Saying it that way strongly implies that you are hosting the actual extension code on your own server. The rest of your question implies that the extension dynamically loads external code and runs it. I would suggest that you refer to it as something like: a web application that is launched (navigated to) by a Firefox extension allowing the web application to be started from an icon in the toolbar.
Extension running web sourced code:
However, if what you are wanting to do is have external content running as a Firefox extension, then implementing that functionality is a large security hole for anyone installing the extension. Even assuming that your intentions are totally benign, there is a huge security hole for anyone who is intercepting your traffic, or gains control of your server to inject code into Firefox that runs at the level of an extension (i.e. the malware can have full control of the browser and then of the computer).
Yes, it is currently possible for you to write this for Firefox.
However, given that the extension pulls code from something not packaged within the extension, the extension will never be permitted to be hosted on AMO.
In addition, the plan is that later this year there will be mandatory signing of Firefox extensions through Mozilla. I doubt that an extension like this will be permitted at that time.
You can read a set of Add-on guidelines on MDN.
I'm currently working on a project that renders emails in HTML format to a Silverlight 5 app. The app is intended to be viewed via a web browser and not an 'Out of browser' app. The WebBrowser control was initially used, but I'm having issues with it. A message stating that IE needs elevated permissions and such. After reading how to properly implement the WebBrowser control by signing the .xap file and installing certificates it seems to work when I run it locally, but when I publish to the server (Windows Server 2008), it doesn't seem to work.
I tried to implement an alternative I found -> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/delay/archive/2007/09/10/bringing-a-bit-of-html-to-silverlight-htmltextblock-makes-rich-text-display-easy.aspx, but that didn't seem to work as the HTML I'm trying to render has many tags not supported in that example.
I also took a look at the Frame control http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.controls.frame(v=vs.95).aspx but not sure if that would solve my problem either.
So if anyone can guide me into the right direction of either how I can get the WebBrowser control to work when pushed to the server or perhaps another alternative it would be greatly appreciated.
I know you can't open/link local resources from the browsers for security reasons, but i wonder how google does that.
If you ever used Google Desktop, you know you can search your computer from a web page, and yes, you can open files, folders etc. How is that?
Anyone?