Thankfully not. Allowing HTML to execute system binaries from a local drive would be a security nightmare. Microsoft allowed that with ActiveX in IE and now, if you use IE/Edge and go to a site that uses Activex you get a big "Warning, this site uses ActiveX it is very dangerous". Was not one of MS's brighter moves. Browsers do thankfully block that, and they should. If you want this all to work locally, are you sure HTML is your best bet? Maybe use some of the Python GUI tools, or tcl/tk ?

Otherwise if you just want videos to play in your web pages, but from a local drive, install Apache or Nginx and have a local server to use. Or even set up something using Python/Flask to create a local "web server".

Phil Waclawski

On Sat, May 9, 2020 at 7:08 PM Joe Lowder via PLUG-discuss <plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:

Perhaps I might ask the question a different way:

Is there a way to invoke or "exec"
'vlc' from within an html menu?

In other words, from the commandline,
I can use: vlc splash.mp4 <E>
and the video displays fine.

Surely there must be some simple way to
execute that from within an html "<a href ..."

-----------
May 9, 2020 at 4:27 pm, Joe wrote:
> Thanks Brian, but I had read that page and tried to
> implement everything suggested there. Couldn't get any of it to work. The
> article describes doing this on a windows box and I'm on Linux.
>
> <li><a href="C:\Videos\splash.mp4">Splash 3</a>
> <li><a href="file:///C:\Videos\splash.mp4">Splash 4</a>
> <li><a href="file://///server/folders/x/x/splash.mp4">Splash 5</a>
>
> The code I shared in my original question did use
> similar syntax to what the article suggests, but it doesn't work. The
> closest I got was a result that showed the following message:
>
> "No video with supported format and MIME type found."

> -----------
> May 9, 2020 12:41 am, Brian Cluff via PLUG-discuss wrote:
>
>> I believe this page has a well worded answer to your question:
>> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18246053/how-can-i-create-a-link-to
>> -a
>> -local-file-on-a-locally-run-web-page/18246357
>>
>> Brian Cluff

> -----------
>> On 5/8/20 11:14 PM, Joe wrote:
>>
>>> How can I get the simple html menu
>>> (example code shown below) work to view mp4 videos
>>> from a menu link on my local computer in the same way that I can view
>>> jpg images (and when all the same files are uploaded as at this
>>> link:
>>>
>>> https://upquick.com/viewpix/
>>>
>>> Below is the simple code example:
>>>
>>> Click to view each image:<p>
>>>
>>> <li><a href=the-end.jpg>the end</a>
>>> <li><a href=todolist.jpg>todo list</a>
>>> <li><a href=together.jpg>together</a>
>>> <li><a href=toiletpaper.jpg>toilet paper</a>
>>> <li><a href=tpweddingdress.jpg>TP wedding dress</a>
>>> <li><a href=turkey-bacon.jpg>Turkey Bacon</a>
>>> <p>
>>> But none of the examples below work on my computer. Why?
>>> <li><a href="splash.mp4">Splash 1</a>
>>> <li><a href="file:///splash.mp4">Splash 2</a>
>>> <li><a href="vlc splash.mp4">On the command line this works: vlc
>>> splash.mp4 </a> <p> What would be the simplest code to be able to<br>
>>> just click on a menu link to view an mp4 video?

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