I am developing in ASP.net a web application which among other things should list documents available on a remote server. this is for a very restricted number of users for which we can control the end PC. What i need is the end user to click on a hyperlink and the file would open directly in words or excel for edition and save direct to remote server.
Files will also be available on a very common cloud file sharing system with the "virtual drive" letter (x:)
google doc does give you a unique url for each file but when one click on the link it opens online not in the local Microsoft Word. these is a plug in for office but document have to be open from word not from the webapp.
So the idea would be to create a windows explorer link to the file to open "file.lnk". and set the browser to open lnk extensions with Explorer.
<a href="file:///C:\test.lnk">link</a>
where test.lnk is an explorer link to the targeted file on the virtual drive.
this sound a bit dodgy, i agree, as it only works on windows.
this actual works ok as long as the htlm file is run on the local machine ( d:\app.htlm) but does not work when the html file is served on a remote web server ( mydomain.com/app.html)
Question: why is the link on client side not served from the remote web server?
is there a simple implementation of editing MS office documents opened from the web browser without monster application like sharepoint or Alfresco?
