To elaborate a little on Brad's comment, You need to educate your customer about web application security. In particular, the reason why accessing the local drive in the way you want is not allowed is to avoid a web site clandestinely (sic) reading your private data. As Brad said, you need a client-side native component that is privileged to read the local disk to do what you want.
Although I haven't written any real smart-clients, I would suggest you try to convince your client that such a program would be seamless and would be able to run as a Windows CE app as well. You could set it up so that it is a pretty dumb client as well -- just monitors a directory location for files of a particular type, does some validation on the file (e.g., makes sure it is actually a Word file) and then uploads it and it only. It should also log whatever it does so that you have an audit trail to show your client. Bob -------------- Original message ---------------------- From: Brad Wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > With pure DHTML, you cannot do what you want. > > You will need to convince the user to download and install some native code > (ActiveX control, plugin, etc.) that can do the work. > > On 11/25/06, Jon Rothlander <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Does anyone know of any articles, websites, examples, etc. that detail how > > to have a webpage spawn an upload process on a client machine (much like > > windows update does but as an upload and not a download) which will check > > for files on the client system and upload them as needed to the server? > > > > The idea is for the client to just hit the website and the website will > > fire > > off a process to pull files off the client machine. I figure that I could > > do this via a client service app interfacing with a webservice, but I was > > hoping that there's an easy way to handle this without a local application > > on the client. > > > > That's what's making this a little hard to think through... no client > > application. I want the user to hit a webpage and then have a process > > fired > > that scans the client machine (a specific directory) for files. If they > > are > > there, I want the process to copy the file (or maybe just the data within) > > up to the server. Then the server application will open the file and > > process the data into the database. > > > > What I am trying to do is to remove a manual upload process that the user > > has to perform. What they do is use a Word template and enter data. Then > > they email the Word document to another user that enters/copies the data > > into the server database. What I want to do is to create a process where > > they create the Word document and save it in a given directory and then > > hit > > a webpage for uploading. The webpage scans the user's machine and uploads > > any files it finds. Then a service app parses the Word document and > > updates > > the database. > > > > If anyone has some ideas or suggestions, please let me know. I'm pretty > > sure I can get this to work but the architecture is a little odd and I am > > not sure if there are better ways to handle this. > > > > I have considered that security may be an issue and I need to think that > > through. I have also considered that if I did write a client app, that I > > could create some sort of smart client that would auto-updated the client > > app as new versions are released. I'm trying to avoid that if I can, as > > the > > client has some concerns about his customers and a client application > > running on their machine. I think a web-based version would be a much > > better fit, if there are not significant issues in regards to doing this. > > Another option would be to create a service app for the client machine > > that > > monitors a given directory. Then when files are added to the directory, > > the > > service app would parse the data and hit a webservice to update the > > server's > > database. I'm not sure about that either, as the client wants to have the > > ability to run this on a PDA as well. Are there any concerns about > > writing > > .Net Windows Services for mobile apps? > > > > Any information or suggestions would be very much appreciated. If there > > is > > a much easier way to handle this, I am open to ideas. > > > > Best regards, > > Jon > > > > =================================== > > This list is hosted by DevelopMentor(r) http://www.develop.com > > > > View archives and manage your subscription(s) at > > http://discuss.develop.com > > > > > > -- > Brad Wilson > http://www.agileprogrammer.com/dotnetguy/ > http://www.flickr.com/photos/dotnetguy/ > > "If programmers got paid to remove code from software instead of writing new > code, software would be a whole lot better." > - Nicholas Negroponte > > =================================== > This list is hosted by DevelopMentor� http://www.develop.com > > View archives and manage your subscription(s) at http://discuss.develop.com =================================== This list is hosted by DevelopMentor® http://www.develop.com View archives and manage your subscription(s) at http://discuss.develop.com
