Launch An Application From Html With Arguments

Is there a way to allow an HTML file to open an application on the local computer and send that application arguments? We have an application that allows a user to set a link to an

Solution 1:

You can't directly launch an application from HTML/JavaScript. If you have a custom application already installed, you can register a protocol handler and the redirect to that custom url, which in turn launches your application with the full url available. Something like:

mycustomapp://whatever/whatever?arg1=value&arg2=value

Solution 2:

Another possibility is to embed a client application in your webpace, such as Java applet (signed!), Java webstart, Silverlight, etc and let that application instead invoke the client's local application. In Java applet/webstart for example, you can use Desktop#open() for this.