Run *.bat files via html links

[130s]

In the tutorials users often need to run many .bat files from a local folder, which turned out to be requiring attention to choose the right file. So the additional requirement for the project was added to enable users to run .bat from html by just clicking links.

I just verified that this works on IE, but does not on Firefox. http://stackoverflow.com/a/18981127/577001

Plus, relative path might not work on either browser, which can also be a non-trivial issue.

[130s]

Using WshShell also works under the same condition mentioned in my earlier post.

[130s]

To sum up the research result so far:

• What's working:
  • Running .bat via html link on the following condition:
  • IE11 on Win8.1 with concrete path of a file.
  • As reported in the comment section, FF on Win7 with concrete path of a file works too.
  • Downloading the associated .bat files via link.
• What's NOT working:
  • Relative path of .bat file
  • On Firefox, Chrome

Hereby I suggest workaround plan:

a. Only target IE, using absolute path of .bat.

• Limits a lot, unless:
  • we can deterministically tell the symbol of USB drive.
  • we can ask users to copy-paste the files from usb to specific path

b. Download .bat files via html link and run manually.

• Should work for any browser, OS.
• User may need to find the downloaded .bat files manually.

[130s]

https://github.com/tork-a/openrtm_tutorial/commit/863a0ae0b6f25fbc15ae9da2d0a019ebba8152e7 implements the workaround b in the earlier comment. Actually when you're downloading a .bat file, common browsers give you an option to run the file, which might suffice the purpose originally asked.

[130s]

Tested from the data copied on USB with https://github.com/tork-a/openrtm_tutorial/commit/863a0ae0b6f25fbc15ae9da2d0a019ebba8152e7, turned out neither Firefox nor IE don't work with it:

• FF27: Clicking the link to .bat file only shows the source of the file as a new tab.
• IE11: the .bat files can't call commands that are specified as relative paths. Likely the path is where the .bat files are downloaded, which is different from that of USB.

This result adds even more complication to the options a and b mentioned in this comment and none of them would probably not work. Unless I'd tweak by like javascript to manipulate paths, there won't be a nice resoltion that work for major browsers in any way.

[sugarsweetrobotics]

どうも．菅です． batファイルが実行できない件ですが，Windows + IEのみで実行できればいいです． 相対パスから実行するためのJavascriptを書きました．ActiveX使いますが・・・

<script LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
  function rtm_naming() {
    var objFileSys = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
    var objFile = objFileSys.GetFile(location.pathname.slice(1));
    var path = objFile.ParentFolder + "\\..\\demo\\rtm-naming.bat";
    var obj = new ActiveXObject("WScript.Shell");
    obj.Run("cmd.exe /c \"start " + path + "\"");
  }
</script>

あとは，

<a class="reference external"  href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="rtm_naming(); return false;">rtm-naming.bat</a>

のように配置すれば動作します．

[130s]

@sugarsweetrobotics thank you for the idea but does this work on your machine?

I got rtm-naming.bat running but it fails to find omniNames. PATH seems to be set as expected but I suspect that the cmd opens at my desktop (C:\Users\myuser\Desktop) while omniNames is located under F:\misc\OpenRTM-aist\1.1.\omniORB\4.1.5\bin\x86_win32\; eg. changing the last line of the given javascript like this:

  obj.Run("cmd.exe /c \"cd .. && start " + path + "\"");

would open a terminal and prompt stays at C:\Users\myuser, backing up a folder by cd.

Thus rtm-naming.bat might be failing since it cannot find omniNames in relative path.

[130s]

Should be fixed via https://github.com/tork-a/openrtm_tutorial/pull/9. Now I'm testing with USB device

[coded9]

So it can't be made to run on chrome ?

[130s]

@coded9 you're right at the moment; IE is required (as noted in readme as well) to run the pre-defined scripts from the web browser. But you can always run them from commandline (it's just you can't run them by clicking the links on the web browser except for IE).