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Start Desktop Application

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YerMom

YerMom

Programmer
Joined
Oct 3, 2006
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Location
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I need to start various applications from javascript. I found a solution (see code below), but it has two problems:
-- The javascript uses an activeX object, so when the user opens the page, they receive an ActiveX warning and have to click OK to continue. QUESTION: Is there any way to suppress the warning?

-- If the application's path has spaces in it, then the app won't start. QUESTION: How do I overcome this issue?

Thanks!
Code follows:
Code: 
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">[/URL]
<html>
	<head>
		<title>Testing</title>
		<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
			var shellObject = new ActiveXObject("wscript.Shell");
			function StartThis(CommandToRun)
			{
				shellObject.run(CommandToRun)
			}
		</script>
	</head>
	<body>
		<font face="Arial" size="2">
			<a href="#" onclick="StartThis('c:\\windows\\notepad.exe');">Start NotePad</a>
			<p><p>
			<a href="#" onclick="StartThis('c:\\program files\\textpad 4\\textpad.exe');">Start TextPad</a>
					</font>
	</body>
</html>
 
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First question:

No, that warning has to come up because without it, programs could go into users computers and change anything they want without the user knowing it (i.e. virus).

Second question:

Use the escape character for a space in the path name.
Space = %20

Anywhere there is a space just replace it with %20 in the path.


[small]"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." - George W. Bush[/small]
<.
 
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Yes, I want to know how to avoid the warning so I can use "format c:" this way, too, from a web page I wrote!!

Or maybe that's one reason WHY the warning comes up. Can you imagine the problems that could be caused if someone could run anything on your computer from a web page on the Internet?

Lee
 
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Thanks monksnake and Lee.

I replaced the spaces with %20 as follows:
Code: 
<a href="#" onclick="StartThis('c:\\program%20files\\textpad%204\\textpad.exe');">Start TextPad</a>

But TextPad still does not start. In the second occurance of the space (in "TextPad 4") javascript is probably confused becuase it thinks I mean %204 instead of %20. To see if I correctly used %20 in the first space, I copied TextPad to C:\Program Files and made the following modification:

Code: 
<a href="#" onclick="StartThis('c:\\Program%20Files\\TextPad.exe');">Start TextPad</a>

But even then, TextPad did not start. What am I doing wrong?
 
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I'll copy the code and take a look, it could be me.

[small]"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." - George W. Bush[/small]
<.
 
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By george I got it!!

The length of the directories and program names can't be above 8 characters, so put this in your textpad.exe onclick handler.

Code: 
c:\\Progra~1\\Textpa~1\\TextPad.exe

[small]"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." - George W. Bush[/small]
<.
 
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monksnake,

Thanks! It works.
 
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NO!!! Thank you!!!!

[small]"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." - George W. Bush[/small]
<.
 
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How did you discover what the problem was?
 
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I actually just played around with the code, I saw other examples of spaces in the file pathname, so I knew that spaces weren't the problem.

Then I got to thinking about old java programs and how I had to cut off directory and file names if something was above 8 charaters, tried it, and it worked.

[small]"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." - George W. Bush[/small]
<.
 
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