I'm building a web-app that uses the device's camera and location services. The browser (I'm sticking to Chrome for now) asks the user for permission to do so on the page where the service is used.
I want the interface to be able to ask for permission at an early stage in the workflow so the pop-up dialogs don't come up during the use of the app. I know they would go away after the first visit to a page, but I want to avoid it the first time too.
Javascript is pretty much the only tool I know how to use, and I know each page has a separate Javascript execution context, so I can't get references to the objects on one page and hand them over to another.
So is there a way that will work? Maybe I need to learn some other technology?
If you need to do it in the browser, then I would suggest creating a sort of initialization page before going to the actual app page.
In the ini page you can call all permissions and download+cache all needed app scripts and also validate which permissions were accepted and not. Kinda something like when using GMail you go through their ini page first before getting to the actual GMail ui.
Once the ini page has completely loaded simply redirect to the actual app.
If you want to do it outside the browser and still use the same web technologies, take a look at Electron or NW.js.
Both tools above lets you build cross platform desktop apps with web technologies. Things like asking for camera and geolocation can be done without user permission (as I recall. not sure)
Related
So, I am making a Chrome extension that connects to an external server and allows you to chat with other users of the extension. However, the way my extension is set up right now is with a start page (the initial popup), and then a button that takes you to the chatting page.
I want to figure out a way that allows the extension to stay on the chatting page after the user passed through the start page already. Moreover, I want the chat's messages to be saved as well.
I know I can do this by using Chrome.pageAction.setPopup(). However, I don't if this is the way to go about. As for the messages, I am not sure where to start, do I store them in Chrome localStorage? what are the ways I can go about doing this?
I apologize if this is a trivial question, I am new to all this.
We are currently looking at porting a enterprise silverlight application over to html5. The major roadblock that we have hit is the ability to open files from the user's local disk. Currently they have a document library which just links to files on their computer that they can open from within the app and view or print out. All that I read is that you can only access the local sandbox of the web app with the html5 file api's. We want to load these files from code.
Does anyone know of any workarounds to this?
Thanks
There is no way for html5 to access local file without user selection. But FSO: FileSystemObject works for IE and MAYBE could be regarded as a work around. But still there are some requirements to meet.
It is possible to use chrome's filesystem API to access files on a users local filesytem. So you'd have to be willing to make this a chrome only application.
Using java you can create a "Signed" applet which has access to the local filesystem. (if the applet is signed you can request filesystm permissions)
then there is a tutorial for accessing methods of your java code directly from javascript here: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/deployment/applet/invokingAppletMethodsFromJavaScript.html
you should be able to perform something similar from silverlight.
There is no workaround in pure HTML5/Javascript. You need the use of plugins, such as Java or Silverlight (maybe you shouldn't port it after all). As for workarounds, HTML5 gives you an easy way drag and drop multiple files that you could transfer on the server and then display back to your users. Another workaround would be to install a custom agent (a software with only a tray icon) that would send the information about the current user "document library" to server and then again, you could display it back to the user.
Note: I've heard somewhere that browsers will eventually stop supporting plugins. http://www.howtogeek.com/179213/why-browser-plug-ins-are-going-away-and-whats-replacing-them/
Ya, I agree with Markain. However, if you were to limit your audience solely to chrome users, I daresay, you would most likely use some of your users. If Huazhihao is right, then your number of leaving customers should decrease but users who regularly use firefox won't be happy. Overall, I think that this will not work. Otherwise, there would be too many websites that trashed your hard driver (or at least wherever you have the rights to edit/delete files). I think it would be best if your product was setup to synchronize the file whenever an internet connection was detected and a change was made to the file. That way the user would not need to visit the website whenever the file was uploaded. If this is some kind of an error file, then it would be most beneficial if you were to make a link in the application that when clicked, would upload the file to the website and the website were to do whatever was necessary. If this is a purely online thing, then I don't see what business you would have looking through other peoples' files =-). Hope I helped!
Quite a few of the sites that the schools I work in use have user accounts to protect the content from people who haven't paid for it which means that the users (aged 5+) have to type in some pretty weird usernames/passwords before they can do their work.
I was wondering if it possible to use Javascript to create a page that would let me do something along the lines of:
Fetch the Login Page
Fill out the form
Submit It
Redirect the user to the site
1-3 would happen in the background without the user seeing it.
In most cases these accounts are shared and the details are on displays etc... in the classrooms so there is no issue with the details being publicly accessible.
I have used Mechanize in ruby before and would imagine a solution like it but running client side.
I know that some inspection of the target site will be needed but once I have an in-principle example I should be able to tailor it to each site later.
If you have a standardized browser, you should consider building a plugin for that browser, that's the easiest way to interact with the web pages. Otherwise you'll get into issues with anti-CSRF protections and cross-domain-policies.
As for the language, Chrome extensions are written in javascript and are pretty easy to build. For the other browsers I don't know.
I was wondering if there's any way to attach a js lib to an external webpage after the page has loaded?
To provide a simple example, could I load www.google.com into IE and somehow display the webpage with a green scroll bar?
I would like this process to happen automatically on each page load instead of having to manually execute this process on each page load.
I am assuming that you are talking from a web developer's point of view.
I don't think it is possible without any hacks.
This would also be a huge security risk, because loading javascript code on an external website means that the code can potentially do anything on behalf of the user. It can capture keystrokes, take screenshots, note down passwords and do a lot of illegal stuff.
So instead of this, you can create a browser extension (add-on) which will have to be installed by user's permission (and his knowledge), and can run any code on any page (if the user allows it)
We are having two module of same web application in Servlet/jsp. One for mobile and one for desktop. I want to redirect to mobile version whenever an handheld device hit a desktop version. Since I am having two different context of same application, which will be the best approach for this. Server side device detection or client side detection and redirection.
Thanks in advance.
This is no different than redirecting between two different applications (or even two different servers). You might have good reasons for separating it like this, but I would consider having only one application, and using responsive design (media queries) for serving device adapted content. But if you really want to do it as you describe, I would do the detection on the server side, as doing it client side would rely on being able to execute javascript on the client, which may or may not be enabled or blocked.
But whatever approach you choose, please, please, please let the user override this by his/her own wish. And when doing the redirect, please, please, please don't loose the context the user was trying to access in the first place. The worst thing I know are websites that redirect to a mobile website after trying to reach a specific part of the website (typically an article), and then just being redirected to the root of the website, and then having to try to locate the part of the website (article) I was looking for...