HREF Problem

DC5_ITR

Hi all

I'm loading in a series of links to documents in various locations from an XML file for an internal web-based system.

An example link from the XML file would be:

<item link="\\myserver\folder1\folder2\my document.doc" target="_blank">My Document</item>

This works fine through Internet Exploder 6 - it launches the document in a new window. However, when I try testing it in Opera and Firefox, neither of them load the link - instead they automatically put "http://&quot; in front of it and therefore can't find the file obviously.

Is there a special tag or something I need to include to let Opera and Firefox operate as I need them to?

Help greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

DC5_ITR

ok i got around this problem by doing the following:

map a drive to the network resource
create a virtual directory under the main virtual directory pointing to this mapping
update the link to:

<item link="http://localhost/main_virtual_directory/resource_virtual_directory/folder 1/folder 2/my document.doc" target="_blank">My Document</item>

this is working now but i'm not sure if this is the best or most efficient way to do this?

anyone?

bonkey

Isn't there a file:// tag?

daymobrew

bonkey wrote:

Isn't there a file:// tag?

And don't forget to use forward slashes.
You could open the file in Opera/Firefox and see what URL it presents.

I opened a file and got something like (note the 3 forward slashes after 'file'):
file:///path/to/a_page.html

DC5_ITR

the "file://" prefix is one of the first things I already tried (sorry should have mentioned). it does not work with this. when i use the file prefix and run the web app, the following are the results in each browser:

1) IE = opens the file fine
2) Opera = opens a blank new page with nothing in it
3) Firefox = sits there and pretends as if the link wasn't clicked


maybe it's because it's linking to an unmapped network resource?

thanks for any help.

bonkey

Ah.

have you tried with a .txt file? That will tell you if its a problem of the document type, or if its something else. (I'm assuming you're using MS-Word files here, which is giving rise to the .doc)

The network address not being mapped shouldn't matter, I think. Don't have F'Fox nor Opera where I am at the moment, so I could be totally wrong there.

Also...from re-reading...are you getting the browser to open up an XML file natively, and clicking on links there, or using the XML to generate HTML? If the latter (which I assume), then your generated HTML will be more relevant than the XML. Can you post a snippet?

DC5_ITR

nope - it doesn't work with any file extension including .txt.

i'm writing this with ASP.NET + VB.NET.

here are a few snippets:

Sample Generated HTML:

<h2>Design and Development</h2>
<li>
	<a href="\\ServerName\Design and Development\Application Architecture.doc" target="_blank">Application Architecture</a>
</li>
<li>
	<a href="\\ServerName\Design and Development\Client Applications.doc" target="_blank">Client Applications</a>
</li>

The above is in a protected variable called "msTrainingHTML". This is then glued to the page with the following code:

<!--Centre column-->
<td valign="top" align="left" width="429">
	<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="427">
		<tr>
			<td>
				<h1>Training Documents:</h1><br>
				<div id="content" style="OVERFLOW: AUTO;">
					<ul>
						<%=msTrainingHTML%>
					</ul>
					<div id="backtop">
						<p><a href="#">back to top</a> <img border="0" src="../../images/b2top.gif"></p>
					</div>
				</div>
				<p>&nbsp;</p>
			</td>
		</tr>
	</table>
</td>

Ultimately producing a list of links that opens the documents in a new window/page.

You really would want to try this physically on Opera and Firefox - it's been an eye-opener doing this project and seeing the subtle, but annoying differences on pages rendered in each different browser. :mad:

Thanks for all assitance again.

seamus

Use the file:/// href with the server path, using forward slashes. So for e.g.:

<a href="file://///ServerName/Design and Development/Application Architecture.doc" target="_blank">Application Architecture</a>

Yes, that's five forward slashes
Tested on both IE and Firefox and works fine for me.

[Edit: Tested in opera, not working.]

[Edit2:
Opera works with just file://ServerName/ etc. A non-foolproof, but usually good way of doing it would be to check the user-agent header to determine how many forward slashes to use.

DC5_ITR

nope - refuses to work. same results using what you said there seamus.

you've obviously tested this in your environment and it works given the scenario's you outlined, but it just simply refuses to work here for me. :mad:

i already have one piece of code to check the browser, which i loathe having to do as it's unclean but circumstances dictated i had to for a different problem - IE and scrollable DIV's can give their own heartache

            'Create content div block opening html (IE acts different to Opera and Firefox)
            If Trim$(UCase$(Request.Browser.Browser)) = "IE" Then
                msBrowserSpecificContentOpener = "id=" & ControlChars.Quote & "content" & ControlChars.Quote _
                                                & " style=" & ControlChars.Quote & "WIDTH: 420px; OVERFLOW: AUTO;" _
                                                & ControlChars.Quote
            Else
                msBrowserSpecificContentOpener = "id=" & ControlChars.Quote & "content" & ControlChars.Quote _
                                                & " style=" & ControlChars.Quote & "OVERFLOW: AUTO;" & ControlChars.Quote
            End If

there must be other factors preventing this from working other than code syntax and structure - maybe the network security or something is causing firefox and opera to simply not work.

i'll just stick with the way i got it working (as mentioned above with the drive mapping(s) and virtual directories).

thanks everyone for your assistance - i'll take another look if i have time before final delivery (as if any developer has time before final delivery lol).

bonkey

I'm just wondering if its the spaces in your share name. Do you have spaces in your workaround solution?

jc

DC5_ITR

i tried that too before posting the initial question bonkey. i replaced the spaces with %20's all to no avail. there are spaces in my workaround solution.