[Techtalk] Using a web browser to control stuff locally -eek!

[esme]

On Saturday 20 Aug 2005 07:24, Patricia Fraser wrote:
> Hi Esme,

Hello, Patricia!
>
> > On Saturday 20 Aug 2005 03:26, Kathryn Andersen wrote:
> > > On Sat, Aug 20, 2005 at 12:24:52AM +0100, esme wrote:
> > > > How do you invoke a shell command from a web page?
> >
> > I've just looked up what CGI means.  Damn!
>
> You know what, I don't think you *do* need CGI to do what you want. You
> should be able to embed your music files as links, and then set the
> browser up to use the player that's installed on the machine; 

Aha! That sounds more like what I did with the Amiga!
> it might 
> make it a bit more annoying in use, because you wouldn't be using
> drop-down lists or pretty things like that. 

That doesn;t mater. I'm trying to get myself from the Neolithic era of 
programming to the modern era, and it looks like I'm going to have to walk 
(or maybe bicycle) the whole way, instead of hopping on a place to bypass the 
dull bits between here and there. So to speak. :-}

> Your shell command would 
> then be in the call to the player itself, not in the markup language -
> so you could possibly even embed a playlist (say, an .m3u file) that
> gets passed as a parameter to the shell command that runs the player?
>
> I ain't promising, mind; but that's what I'd be trying first...!

Aye, that sounds very, very similar to what I did with the Amiga, except with 
iXG it'd go something like this:

(ML bits that displayed text, and created a link or even a basic button to 
click on)
call to execute program with parameters (in this case, a filename to display 
or play, as appropriate)
(more ML bits making up rest of page...)

What you're proposing, I gather is...

(ML bits that display text, explain nature of page, etc.)
link to file to be played, letting OS us its file associations invoke player 
program
(further ML bits, etc...)

Yep, I can see how that could work, if it weren't for the need for some links 
to invoke the playing of multiple... files... ah... (slaps self) playlist.  
Playlists!  Eheheheh...  Didn't have those when I was mucking about on the 
Amiga. Playlist - yes, that's worth trying, alright! Thank you!  I'd still 
prefer being able to specify the player program in the ML page and pass files 
to be played as parameters, but if what you've suggested works, it'll 
certainly do for a first attempt! :-)

Many thanks, Patricia!

Esme