Active Desktop Question

[Maveric169]

Ok, I have been working on my active desktop and using the hell out of that wonderful turtorial, but I have a question. Using the VBS script to launch programs, is there a way to modify it so that the program will launch automaticaly without having to click the link?

 

[Maveric169]

^bump

 

[albybum]

Under what condition do you want the program to start?

Do you want it to start when you move your mouse over the item (link or image), rather than click on it? I am not quite sure when you are wanting the program to start automatically.

 

[Maveric169]

Ok, let me explaine better. I have a program called setispy that I would like to have launch on startup to my active desktop. I have my active desktop arranged using tables, so I would like to to launch setispy into a cell on my active desktop table on startup.

Does that help?

 

[lechtard]

I can't remember who it was on here, but someone said that if you make a double forward slash in the path you don't need to use VBscripts ..

I tried it with mine .. IE: C://Program Files//Winamp//Winamp.exe - (this is one I did'nt set up with vbscript) it worked ... I don't know if it will work with all files though ..

As far as what you are saying - I woulf think that if you made an active desktop with just that and enable it would automatically launch .

 

[albybum]

If Setispy is just a program that needs to run at startup, and you already have the code in place in your active desktop to utilize it, just drag a shortcut for the program into your startup folder.

I have a feeling what you want to do is a little more complex than that but I am not familiar with what you are trying to do.

[edit]
If you want an actual program to be displayed in a page on your desktop (to the best of my knowledge) that is not possible. I have never encountered anything that would let you embed .exe files into html documents for display. It just seems to me that would be an extreme security issue, so I don't think its possible.

On the other hand, if the program produces xml data for display, you can display that in your html document.

Again, I am not familiar with what you are using or trying to do.

 

[Maveric169]

Originally posted by albybum
If Setispy is just a program that needs to run at startup, and you already have the code in place in your active desktop to utilize it, just drag a shortcut for the program into your startup folder.

I have a feeling what you want to do is a little more complex than that but I am not familiar with what you are trying to do.

[edit]
If you want an actual program to be displayed in a page on your desktop (to the best of my knowledge) that is not possible. I have never encountered anything that would let you embed .exe files into html documents for display. It just seems to me that would be an extreme security issue, so I don't think its possible.

On the other hand, if the program produces xml data for display, you can display that in your html document.

Again, I am not familiar with what you are using or trying to do.

Well what I was wanting to do is exactly what you listed in your "edit" post. I was thinking that it might be able to work using the VB script but using a different command instead of the "onclick". Are there any VB script commands that will run a script automaticly without having to click or mouseover? I am just got done going through my HTML 4 book and I am going to try and use the onload intrinsic event handler, but I don't think that will work.

 

[albybum]

You can use an Onload event, but if you just use the Onload event to execute the program, it will just launch the program, and it will not be contained within your active desktop.

In order for the executable to be embedded into the html document you would need some type of container that could hold executable files and that could be embedded into html itself. I am not sure if there is anything that can achieve that. Most (if not all) programming used by html displays some result of an action, not the actual actions in progress, which is what an executable is. Java and Flash can achieve quite a bit of interaction, but (again to the best of my knowledge) there is no way to embed executable files in either of them.

Maybe someone has wrote a web interface for it. Thats what you are going to need.

[edit]
The reason this ability is not an option is it would open everyone up to very malicious content. Imagine if you went to a webpage and it automatically opened an executable file (with file privelages) when the page loaded. Everyone would be exposed to harmful content. No warning, just *BAM* harmful exe running while surfing warez sites.

 

[Maveric169]

Originally posted by albybum
You can use an Onload event, but if you just use the Onload event to execute the program, it will just launch the program, and it will not be contained within your active desktop.

In order for the executable to be embedded into the html document you would need some type of container that could hold executable files and that could be embedded into html itself. I am not sure if there is anything that can achieve that. Most (if not all) programming used by html displays some result of an action, not the actual actions in progress, which is what an executable is. Java and Flash can achieve quite a bit of interaction, but (again to the best of my knowledge) there is no way to embed executable files in either of them.

Maybe someone has wrote a web interface for it. Thats what you are going to need.

[edit]
The reason this ability is not an option is it would open everyone up to very malicious content. Imagine if you went to a webpage and it automatically opened an executable file (with file privelages) when the page loaded. Everyone would be exposed to harmful content. No warning, just *BAM* harmful exe running while surfing warez sites.

Very true! Well I guess I will just try to find a way to make the program load on startup, and use nview to lock the program position to a place on the desktop. The only crappy thing about htat is that I will have a window for the program in the taskbar, and I really didn't want that, but ohh well. Thanks for all your help! I learned a few things.