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We have a custom web app in our intranet that allow users to browse and search our shared file system in a way more appropriate for our organization. as compared to windows explorer/mac finder. However, when the users click on, for example, a link pointing to a word document the document is downloaded by the browser and then opened. I am trying to provide a better way, namely that the file is opened directly from the shared folder that each user has mapped in his own computer. This will make things faster and will not pollute the browser download folder.

I was planning to create a chrome or firefox extension that recognizes certain css class attached to a link, remaps the link to the shared file system and and launch an external process. Any idea how to achieve this? Is there a better solution?

Hernan
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1 Answers1

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If you want the URL to be handled by a custom program you could create special URLs using a custom Protocol (ex: MyApp:// instead of http://) and then register that protocol to be opened via a custom program. The links would only work on computers that have your program installed and where the protocol has been registered to be handled by your application.

Greg Bray
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  • Looks good. And it seems to work in Mac as well (http://hublog.hubmed.org/archives/001154.html) Is there a way to register the protocol in the browser via an extension? This will make my life easier to distribute it and keep it up to date. – Hernan Apr 26 '11 at 20:24
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    No... You will need to install a custom application to process the URLs, and then register a custom protocol to be handled by your program. You can do this in once step though, by including the protocol registration as part of the application setup program. – Greg Bray Apr 26 '11 at 20:34
  • As for keeping things up to date: ClickOnce would work well for deploying and updating the PC program. Not sure about the Mac. – Greg Bray Apr 26 '11 at 20:36
  • Anybody an idea, if that solution still works? I've no (reasonably fast) means to check myself. thx – Robert Apr 08 '21 at 07:24