How to use Windows Network location in @url lines

[jkn]

Hi all

    simple question - on windows, is it possible to use @rl to open up File Explorer at a Network shortcut?

I usually run under Linux and have no problem with

@url https://mydomain.com

or

@url file:///path/to/directory

under Windows, I can do

@url file:///c:/users/jkn/my/directory    # success

but it I have a network location, say '\\winlnx', I get a 'file XXX does not exist' error for all the combinations of 'winlnx' I can create for an @url line.

I don't know much about windows networking and file locations...

Thanks, J^n

[Viktor Ransmayr]

Hello J^n,

I guess the answer can be found here:

•  https://leo-editor.github.io/leo-editor/appendices.html#valid-url-s
  

AFAIK there's no URL format for Windows Networking defined by IETF / W3C.

With kind regards,

Viktor

[HaveF HaveF]

but it I have a network location, say '\\winlnx', I get a 'file XXX does not exist' error for all the combinations of 'winlnx' I can create for an @url line.

Does this works?

file://///winlnx/shared_folder

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1369147/linking-a-unc-network-drive-on-an-html-page

 

[jkn]

Hi there

    no, that doesn't work - I get a 'file does not exist' error, although the path to the 'file' is a bit curious.

I think it must be down to what 'xdg-open' can use? I am looking into how that works...

    J^n

[Viktor Ransmayr]

Hello J^n,

Am Fr., 15. Nov. 2024 um 09:41 Uhr schrieb jkn <jkn...@nicorp.f9.co.uk>:

Hi there

    no, that doesn't work - I get a 'file does not exist' error, although the path to the 'file' is a bit curious.

I think it must be down to what 'xdg-open' can use? I am looking into how that works...

...

On Friday, November 15, 2024 at 4:17:59 AM UTC iamap...@gmail.com wrote:

but it I have a network location, say '\\winlnx', I get a 'file XXX does not exist' error for all the combinations of 'winlnx' I can create for an @url line.

Does this works?

file://///winlnx/shared_folder

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1369147/linking-a-unc-network-drive-on-an-html-page

 

Maybe this section from the RFC might help you in your investigations:

• https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8089#appendix-E.3

I can't help you more, since I do not have a Windows-based networking environment anymore ...

With kind regards,

Viktor

[jkn]

Hi Viktor

    update - I think this behaviour is down to Python's os.startfile(path, [...]) function. I am investigating...

    J^n

[jkn]

Actually, the "problem" seems to be more about "how to specify a network location" such that Leo can open it in a consistent way.

Leo's parsing for @url uses urlparse.urlparse(), and deals with strings like I list above - "file:///path/to/file etc.

And I can open File Explorer at the expected place via os.startfile("\\\\winlnx\\projects"), for instance

But how to link these two - to use an @url-like scheme to tell Leo that some version of that - say "\\winlnx\projects" should be opened like that.

One could concoct a special rule for Leo to use when parsing a URL whose 'netloc' field looks like this ... but I can well imagine Edward not liking that very much.

For now I am going to create a button command so that after selecting the name of the path with the cursor, the button runs os.startfile() using that text. Let's see how useful that is.

    J^n

[Edward K. Ream]

On Fri, Nov 15, 2024 at 3:52 PM jkn <jkn...@nicorp.f9.co.uk> wrote:

Actually, the "problem" seems to be more about "how to specify a network location" such that Leo can open it in a consistent way.

...

One could concoct a special rule for Leo to use when parsing a URL whose 'netloc' field looks like this ... but I can well imagine Edward not liking that very much.

Good guess :-)

For now I am going to create a button command so that after selecting the name of the path with the cursor, the button runs os.startfile() using that text. Let's see how useful that is.

Sounds like a plan.

Edward

[jkn]

Hi Edward

On Saturday, November 16, 2024 at 12:44:23 AM UTC Edward K. Ream wrote:

On Fri, Nov 15, 2024 at 3:52 PM jkn <jkn...@nicorp.f9.co.uk> wrote:

Actually, the "problem" seems to be more about "how to specify a network location" such that Leo can open it in a consistent way.

...

One could concoct a special rule for Leo to use when parsing a URL whose 'netloc' field looks like this ... but I can well imagine Edward not liking that very much.

Good guess :-)

Heh heh.

Actually, I think there is hope. I revisited this wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_URI_scheme

which discusses two schemes for how a windows UNC filename can be referenced as a URI. It seems that

    file:////server/folder/filename.ext   # four forward slashes

should/can work.

So I think my task ;-) is to improve/extend Leo's translation scheme so that this gets turned into os.startfile("\\server\folder\filename.ext")

    J^n