In this question, I find that using system('start http://www.google.com') is OK. If the file is in local disk, though, using system('start file:///c:/temp/a.html') doesn't work. How do I have Ruby get the default browser to open a local file?
What do you get when you double click a .html file in Windows Explorer? If it isn't the browser then that is your problem. The 'start' keyword pushes the path through the ShellExecute function, for http:// URLs is knows to open that in a browser, if it is a file it depends on the extension of the file, if your system has .html pointing to notepad for example (because in the past you have set it to notepad) it is always going to open it in that program unless you go and specifically change it.
From a generic work around point of view there is not much you can do, if you can access the Windows registry under Ruby then you can query the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\http\shell\open\command default value which contains a command line for the current browser bound to the HTTP protocol, you could use that to construct a full path (replace the %1 with the URL string).
Related
my goal is to launch a .vnc file from html, i have now figured out how to open it directly via cmd.
C:\Program Files\TightVNC>start tvnviewer.exe -optionsfile=C:\Users\user\Desktop\Links\test.vnc
so this works, but now i need to figure out how to make a regedit so that i can make URL links for all the files saved on our intranet, ideally i would have just the file name as a variable in the URL and the rest be done by the regedit value, so that whenever a link in our html file is pressed, cmd is launched and executes the command and replacing the variable by the name of the file.
I imagine it like this customurl://testfile
and it should automatically launch my vnc application stated above, with the -optionsfile being at the same address as i specified, only the name would now be testfile.vnc.
edit: forgot to mention that i already do have a regedit entry for the custom url protocol and keys such as customurl>shell>open>command
Creating a bat file with:
start http://www.google.com/search?q=test
Does just what I would want it to do, it opens my default web browser (Chrome in my case) and browses to the URL http://www.google.com/search?q=test.
However, a bat file with:
start file:///C:/Users/d92495j/Desktop/OracleCDs/WebLogic/template.html?wbt=1
Only opens my default browser and browses to file:///C:/Users/d92495j/Desktop/OracleCDs/WebLogic/template.html
Note the lack of ?wbt=1. In order to fix this I've tried:
URL encoding the question mark
Running the start command parameters "window name" "file path in quotes"
Putting the file path in
variable and passing the variable to start
But none of those work. How can I get this to work?
I tested this and got the same result. I'm not really sure, but I guess this belongs to the question mark. The local file system of Windows can never have file names with ?, because this is a "wildcard" like *. I think it is possible that the file name is truncated there.
The following codes also doesn't work or produces only error messages:
start "file:///C:/Users/d92495j/Desktop/OracleCDs/WebLogic/template.html?wbt=1"
start file:///"C:/Users/d92495j/Desktop/OracleCDs/WebLogic/template.html?wbt=1"
The best solution I've come up with so far is:
powershell -noprofile -command "[void][System.Diagnostics.Process]::Start('chrome', 'file:///C:/Users/d92495j/Desktop/OracleCDs/WebLogic/template.html?wbt=1')"
This solution has the batch file launch PowerShell and then use the .NET System.Diagnostics.Process.Start method to launch Chrome with the correct parameter. The only downside is that it makes a browser choice for me and I'd prefer it to use my default browser, but I can live with that. I'll accept another answer (that is not much more complex) that uses the default browser.
I need to pass the character # as part of the URL to the browser and open it programatically. When I do the following:
google-chrome path_to_some_file.pdf#view=Fit
The opened page on the browser is path_to_some_file.pdf%23view=Fit, which is not the intended URL. When I manually delete %23 and type # in the address bar of the browser, then it works. How can I pass the character # to a browser programmatically?
You need to specify a fully qualified file:/// URL in order to include ? query or # hash strings.
More details:
The following approach works in IE10, Firefox 28, and Chrome 36.
If you are doing this from a batch file in Windows with any of those browsers, you can use backward slashes in the path as long as you prefix with file:///. E.g., file:///C:/blah/blah/file.pdf#etc is the proper URL, but if yours ends up formatted file:///C:\blah\blah\file.pdf#etc, that will work too.
Here is how you can get the full path using a batch file.
file:///%CD%/file.pdf#blah
will resolve to a file relative to the working directory (usually the batch file's directory unlike explicitly changed via command prompt or programmatically).
file:///%~dp0/file.pdf#blah
will resolve to a file relative to the batch file's directory. I usually go with this.
You can use ../ to navigate up relative to the batch file's directory. The resulting URL should still work fine.
If you are using something a bit more robust than batch files, you can translate all the \s into /s to create a proper URL.
E.g., in .NET, I think you can do new Uri("C:\blah\file.pdf"), and it'll give you a file URI (I think, not sure), which you can then grab and append the hash onto it.
I'm implementing a custom URL handler in .NET. To test this, I have created a few different .url files and put them on my Desktop. This generally works fine, but behaves oddly if I change the file's contents, specifically the URL= line. Doing so has no effect — the old URL continues to be opened. Renaming the file, however, works. The file looks like this:
[{000214A0-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
Prop3=19,0
[InternetShortcut]
URL=myCustomScheme://some/url/pointing/somewhere
IDList=
All shortcuts I create through New → Shortcut receive the same UUID, so changing that probably won't help.
Is there some internal .url file / URL mapping cache in Windows?
I have a reason to believe that URL files are interpreted by some Internet Explorer component at the time of creation (not biblical). They are only interpreted initially, the first time the file is created. Any modifications to the URL file later on will not be committed. This is because the shortcut is not stored in the file. This is why the file can be modified later on so that it becomes empty, as a 0 byte file and the URL file will appear to be working anyway. The shortcut data is stored in the "Web Document" field as a file property in the NTFS file system. The file merely serves the purpose of pointing to it. You might be able to modify these property fields programmatically, which would supposedly "edit the file". It's a painful exercise just to edit what appears to be a simple text file.
Additionally, once a file name has been used for a URL file, it cannot be reused for new files, no matter what disk or path you save it to. So you have to keep assigning unique file names, never used previously, for each new URL file you create. This has to do with how Internet Explorer caches web content. It remembers what file names have been used already and maps those names to previously defined URL addresses. To reuse a name (or when you run out of ideas for new and unique file names) you have to clear Temporary Internet Files.
Windows 7: %localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files
Windows 8: %localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache
To directly answer your question: yes, it does.
Windows 7 Caches your Filenames and sometimes, as you said, the filenames in specific locations.
Start regedit and search for the following
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-x-x-x-x\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\MuiCache
where S-1-5-21-x-x-x-x is your currently logged in User.
There you can see that most (or all?) files have been cached which you have ever accessed.
Maybe you can also deactivate the MUICaching programatically. Maybe this site helps you: Disable Caching
I had a similar issue, and it turns out the culprit was Firefox.
If by chance your web browser is Firefox, your cache directories may be corrupted.
You can either create a new Profile, or take your chances cleaning things out of C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>\
I've found my desktop .url shortcut contents cached in %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Caches.
There are a few (several?) files with filenames like {<SOME_GUID>}.<x>.ver0x<XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX>.db. Two of them had the .url files cached.
Unfortunately, I've found no information on what they are or how to refresh them. Everybody just deletes them as part of some cache clean-up operation.
On a Website for our internal use i show links to local files and folders. the links are like this:
href="file://C:/example/"
href="file://C:/example/test.odt"
The Problem is now that the link to the directory does open in firefox itself with a useless directory listing. Useless because you can just see the files or open them but not copy, insert, delete...
The link to the file work normal and the file is opend by OpenOffice.
By changing the configuration of firefox and setting the following key to false I can open the directory in with explorer.exe but for the file I have to choose the right application.
network.protocol-handler.expose.file
Does someone know a way to get both to work like i want? Means that the Directory is shown by explorer.exe and all files are opened by the right application.
This can be by configuring Firefox or windows, changing the links, or even by writing a small program which opens all the file protocol correctly and will be used as protocol handler for the file protocol in firefox.
Thanks
Raffael
I did the above with small changes in Firefox 14.0.1, which works for me:
Create new boolean value network.protocol-handler.expose.file and set it to false
Create new boolean value network.protocol-handler.external.file and set it to true
Click on a link to a local folder.
In the following prompt, link to the explorer.exe in: C:\Windows\explorer.exe
Files are now open with the default application, folders are open with the Windows Explorer!
I know this is not quite what you want, but you might take a look at the "launchy" addon for firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/81/
Using this addon you can right click on a file link, go to "launchy" sub-menu, and tell it to open in explorer. This will browse directly to the folder as you want.
I want the same feature you want, however this "works" for now. I have asked the author of launchy to allow it to override the left-click behavior for certain protocols (so it would launch explorer with one click), but I don't have a response yet.
edit: Years later, I will post the solution I started using instead of Launchy:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/local-filesystem-links/
https://github.com/feinstaub/firefox_addon_local_filesystem_links
This scans for file:// links and makes them clickable. It does inject some HTML which can mess with formatting if you aren't careful, but it does the job.
In about:config You need to add a boolean value with the name network.protocol-handler.expose.file and set it to false and also create a string value with the name capability.policy.default.checkloaduri.enabled and set it to allAccess.
Now you will be able to choose C:\Windows\explorer.exe to open file links.
Tested in FF 19.0.2 in Windows 7.
Try this:
Create new boolean value with the name
network.protocol-handler.expose.file and set it to false
Create new boolean value with the name
network.protocol-handler.external.file and set it to true
Open link to a local directory and on the now appearing box, register the "file"-protocol permanently with the "file"-programm (1st entry).
There should now open the windows explorer.
You can deassociate the type "file" in the Firefox-settings (applications-tab).
After that, a link to a document (i.e. file:///x:\dir\file.doc) worked automatically for me (FF8.0).
Or You can use the Plugin "Local Filesystem Links" (DE version of the page) now.
--
edit:
Link for EN version: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/local-filesystem-links/?src=search