Plugin or Extension? Need to launch Windows Explorer instance from a URL

[Chuck Chopp]

I have a need to launch an instance of the Windows Explorer when FireFox is
instructed to browse to a particular URL. The URL will be embedded in an
email message and it will specify the fully qualified path to a directory or
possibly even a specific file for which the shell "open" verb needs to be
executed.

With IE as the browser, this is trivial as any "file://" encoded URL will be
automatically opened by the browser and IE will change its skin, so to
speak, and then functions as a regular Explorer window from that point on.

However, if FireFox is the browser, it takes the "file://" URL and does it's
own display of the folder's contents.

What I'd like to do is determine if there is a way that I can configure
FireFox to allow all handling of "file://" to be passed on thru to
"explorer.exe". If there's no configuration option for this, or no way to
craft a URL to force this, then I need to determine if either an extension
or a plugin is required to make this possible. I'm thinking that it'll have
to be an extension based on what I've read about plugins since there's no
remote web server to talk to and I'm not receiving an HTML document via HTTP
with a content-type header that would be required for a plugin to be effective.

Any advice on the correct direction to head in would be appreciated.

TIA,

Chuck

[Philip Chee]

The IETab (Opens IE in a Firefox tab) should be able do this if you set
it to always open "file://*" URLs in an IE tab.

Phil
--
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>, <phili...@gmail.com>
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.
[ ]COBOL is an acronym for "Compiles Only Because Of Luck."
* TagZilla 0.059

[Chuck Chopp]

Philip Chee wrote:
>
> The IETab (Opens IE in a Firefox tab) should be able do this if you set
> it to always open "file://*" URLs in an IE tab.

Thanks! That does appear to do what I need it to do, although the
appearance with a FireFox tab isn't quite the same as having a completely
separate Explorer window. However, it's functional and does allow for the
Explorer to be handling the display of the folder contents, and all of the
right-click context menu support is present so it should meet my needs.

There are 2 things I'll have to follow up on as support-related issues.

1) When I install it with Mozilla v1.7, any use of the IETab extension
results in Mozilla throwing an exception of some sort, reporting an illegal
operation and suggesting that I restart Mozilla. It works flawlessly when
installed into FireFox v1.5, though, so maybe it's just a need to upgrade or
patch Mozilla before it'll work properly with Mozilla.

2) I need to figure out how to programmatically add "file://" to the rules
filter so that the end user doesn't have to do this step manually.

[Philip Chee]

On Mon, 02 Oct 2006 07:43:41 -0400, Chuck Chopp wrote:

> 1) When I install it with Mozilla v1.7, any use of the IETab extension
> results in Mozilla throwing an exception of some sort, reporting an illegal
> operation and suggesting that I restart Mozilla. It works flawlessly when
> installed into FireFox v1.5, though, so maybe it's just a need to upgrade or
> patch Mozilla before it'll work properly with Mozilla.

I don't believe that IETab is supported or tested in Mozilla. It does
work in SeaMonkey (which is what Mozilla Suite is called nowadays) though.

> 2) I need to figure out how to programmatically add "file://" to the rules
> filter so that the end user doesn't have to do this step manually.

This may not be directly relevant to your needs but there is an
extension that provides a relatively full featured file manager for
Firefox and SeaMonkey called Firefly.

<http://firefly.mozdev.org/>
<https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3076/>

Here is a screenshot:
<http://firefly.mozdev.org/files/full_glory.png>

I had a small part in it's initial development.

Phil
--
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>, <phili...@gmail.com>
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.

[ ]In chess always expect your opponent to make his best move.
* TagZilla 0.059

[Einar Egilsson]

Philip Chee wrote:
> On Mon, 02 Oct 2006 07:43:41 -0400, Chuck Chopp wrote:
>
>> 1) When I install it with Mozilla v1.7, any use of the IETab extension
>> results in Mozilla throwing an exception of some sort, reporting an illegal
>> operation and suggesting that I restart Mozilla. It works flawlessly when
>> installed into FireFox v1.5, though, so maybe it's just a need to upgrade or
>> patch Mozilla before it'll work properly with Mozilla.
>
> I don't believe that IETab is supported or tested in Mozilla. It does
> work in SeaMonkey (which is what Mozilla Suite is called nowadays) though.
>
>> 2) I need to figure out how to programmatically add "file://" to the rules
>> filter so that the end user doesn't have to do this step manually.
>
> This may not be directly relevant to your needs but there is an
> extension that provides a relatively full featured file manager for
> Firefox and SeaMonkey called Firefly.
>
> <http://firefly.mozdev.org/>
> <https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3076/>
>
> Here is a screenshot:
> <http://firefly.mozdev.org/files/full_glory.png>
>
> I had a small part in it's initial development.
>
> Phil

I made an extension for my company's intraweb that took file:// urls and
allowed them to be clickable. The trick is getting a nsIFile reference
from the path and then calling the launch() method. If you're interested
I could send you the code.

einar