How to run an external program e g notepad using hyperlink

Question

I m generating an HTML report by C  to print pairs of files in a table which has 3 columns  the first two columns used for the filenames and the 3rd column is a hyperlink Compare - I want this link to run WinMerge to compare to two files and I currently don t know how to do it

User · Answer

The reasonable way how to launch apps from HTML is through url schemes  So you can launch email via mailto  links and irc through irc  links  Individual apps can implement these schemes  but I m not sure WinMerge does this

User · Answer

Sorry this answer sucks  but you can t launch an just any external application via a click  as this would be a serious security issue  this functionality isn t available in HTML or javascript   Think of just launching cmd exe with args   you want to launch WinMerge with arguments  but you can see the security problems introduced by allowing this for anything   The only possibly viable exception I can think of would be a protocol handler  since these are explicitly defined handlers   like winmerge     though the best way to pass 2 file parameters I m not sure of  if it s an option it s worth looking into  but I m not sure what you are or are not allowed to do to the client  so this may be a non-starter solution

User · Answer

Make a batch file and call the bacth file in Window open  Here how it works   make a file in notepad write your script   start wmplayer   dotnet sc 1234 mp4   fullscreen save as   test bat  in  dotnet sc test bat   in html    window open  file   dotnet sc test bat     Enjoy

User · Answer

Try this   lt html gt       lt head gt           lt script type  text javascript  gt          function runProgram                         var shell   new ActiveXObject  WScript Shell                                 var appWinMerge      C   Program Files  WinMerge  WinMergeU exe    e  s  u  wl  wr  maximize               var fileLeft      D   Path  to  your  file                 var fileRight     D   Path  to  your  file2                 shell Run appWinMerge         fileLeft         fileRight                      lt  script gt       lt  head gt        lt body gt           lt a href  javascript runProgram    gt Run program lt  a gt       lt  body gt   lt  html gt

User · Answer

I ve wrote a small extension to do so   Since you are creating the page using C  you may want to implement this   https   github com felix-d-git DesktopAppLink  Basically u are creating some registry entries to parse the links you click in your html page   The browser will then ask to open the specified app   C    DesktopAppLink CreateLink  applink sample       lt path to exe gt             HTML    lt a href  applink sample   gt Run Desktop App lt  a gt    Result

[html] How to run an external program, e.g. notepad, using hyperlink?

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