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I recently received an e-mail about a TomTom map update and clicking through the website appeared to be a 'special link' which opened the TomTom client software when clicking. Because I'm on a different machine I obviously can't test it, but the anchor link looks like this:

<a href="tomtomhome:contentitems-of-type:map">Start TomTom HOME</a>

This doesn't look like a normal link - so how does it work? What do the colons (:) mean? Does it really allow client software to be opened via a website click?

m.edmondson
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  • Any decent browser will check which software owns "tomtomhome:", and then ask you whether you really want to start TomTom HOME. So it takes two clicks, actually. – MSalters Jul 05 '11 at 11:29

1 Answers1

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The part before the double colon is the protocol to handle the url (so here tomtomhome). They must have registered this custom protocol when you installed the client software.

More info about registering custom url protocols: How do I register a custom URL protocol in Windows?

Community
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Stefaan Colman
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  • it's what before the first :, so http://www.domain.ext has the protocol http. The ftp://www.domain.ext has the protocol ftp, ... This protocol says the browser what it has to use to process the url. In this case it's a custom protocol tomtomhome. – Stefaan Colman Jan 18 '11 at 09:34