PowerPoint viewer in hyperlink

[shiva_42]

I'm building a front-end menu for CD's which will have an HTML page as the startup page. On this page I want to include a hyperlink button to call the ppview32.exe Power-Point viewer and pass the name of a presentation as a parameter. For example, if this was being typed on the command line, the command would be "ppview32.exe filename.ppt" without the quotes. This would invoke the viewer and call the named presentation, which would automatically start running.
The problem is, when I try to pass the presentation name as a parameter inside of my index.html front-end document, it fails. The power-point viewer never starts, and the presentation is not visible. If I just call ppview32.exe, the viewer starts, but then prompts the user for the name of the slideshow to use.

How do I pass this program name parameter on a hyperlink in the HTML document? All of the files, both program and data are in the root directory of the CD in question, and the front-end menu I'm attempting to use is the freeware application named JMENUCD.

P.S. If I call a batch file to invoke the same stuff as on the command-line mentioned above, of course it works properly...but I'm trying to avoid having a .bat file in control if possible. This appears to be my ignorance of how to pass a parameter inside of a hyperlink to a file on the same disk.

:confused: :mad: :eek:

[Gobi]

Hmmm...not exactly sure about what you are talking about,
but if I understood your right you want a powerpoint document
to be launched with the powerpoint application when you press
a linkbutton on your webpage. (that the webpage is going to
be used on a cd has no intereference with this problem).

Have you tried to just link to the file as you would another
html file? Default program for that filetype will then display the
file when you open it. Its up to each machine that cd is going to
be played on to check for powerpoint. You cant use the settings
on your own machine, cause your paths to the programs, is
not the same as all other peoples settings. Trying to add the
powerpoint program on the cd is no point, cause when you use
html, the browser on the machine has its specific instructions
on how to handle different file formats.

Not sure if I made myself understood there, and I'm not 100%
sure that this is absolutely right, but I think so. Anybody that
can correct me if I'm wrong?
(Btw, I dont have english as my native language. Its Norwegian).


Later
Gobi.

[shiva_42]

Gobi:

I'm including the PowerPoint viewer from Microsoft on the same CD, since I can't count on any of the recipients actually owning PowerPoint itself.

It's trying to call this viewer (ppview32.exe) and pass it the name of the presentation (there are 2 on the cd, both to be called from a separate menu button (link).

So, what I need to know is how to call the executable and pass it the presentation name from a hyperlink. See my original message for filenames. Thanks for the feedback, I'm still open for solutions!
:p

[Gobi]

Hmmm....thats no easy task.
The easiest solution i can think of, is to make a little script
that gives the user a choice to install the viewer if its not
present on his/her machine. Optionally you could make a
autoinstall of the viewer when the cd starts (ofcourse with
a check if it exist already), and then remove it again when
the program is aborted.

To make the viewer work from the cd.....hmmm....i dunno.


Later
Gobi.

[shiva_42]

Hmmm....

The viewer ALREADY works from the CD, as I indicated. I just can't get the presentation (also present on the CD) to start automatically as it will from the command line (as indicated in the first message syntax).

I really can't tell whether this is a problem in passing a program name parameter to an executable file from an HTML document, or whether my freeware menu program (jmenucd.exe) is incapable of this parameter passing...

I've left this question for the freeware's author, but considering that it's freeware, not sure if I'll get a response or not.

Thanks for the feeback anyway, I'm still open for suggestions.