[thelist] hrefs that pass info to applications

andre torrez andre at torrez.org
Wed Jun 13 02:42:48 CDT 2001


The way this works is actually pretty simple, and it's not really a 
function of your browser as much as your Windows OS and a particular 
application registering a new URL protocol like "aim:" or "nap:". So an 
actual list of protocols can't be easily compiled since any install program 
could register itself on your computer.

Caution: mucking about in your registry is not a good thing unless you know 
what you're doing, so please don't start messing with your registry unless 
you're confident you won't screw something up.

This page describes how you can set up a handler for a new URL protocol:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/networking/pluggable/overview/appendix_a.asp

Once you've made a handler all you need to do is write a Windows 
application that will get launched when you click a certain type of link. I 
wrote one once to handle "mailto:" links that would launch a Telnet 
session, log me into my account and fire up Pine instead of Outlook.


-Andre






At 01:13 AM 6/13/2001 -0500, you wrote:

>I've noticed lately a few applications that provide a linking mechanism with
>HREFs. For example:
>
><a href="aim:goim?screenname=ibsrex&amp;message=Hi+Rex.">Click me to launch
>an AOL Instant Messenger window to a given screen name.</a>
>
>The mechanism works similar to <a href="mailto:...>.
>
>Here's another one:
>
><a href="nap:search?artist=Mogwai&amp;title=Rock+Action">Search for Mogwai's
>"Rock Action" on Napster</a>
>
>So, "aim" launches AOL-IM and "nap" launches Napster -- does anyone know of
>a resource that lists others? (I tried using "msn" to see if I could get it
>to launch Microsoft's Messenger -- no go.) Is passing variables through a
>string directly to an application common in other ways that I've never
>encountered? The phenomena is causing me think of interesting
>possibilities...
>
>Any thoughts?
>
>-Rex
>
>
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