-----Original Message----- From: Larry Luther [mailto:l.luther@acm.org] Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 1999 16:39 To: zope@zope.org Subject: [Zope] Newbie: Publishing directories

Hello,

I am trying to understand how I could have a dhtml page offer a link to a file on another machine via a network path.

Given: * Window NT 4.0 workstation environment. * Zope 1.10.3 tied to IIS server via "cgi-bin".

I've read: * Zope only publishes data uploaded to it. * That work is being done on products that would allow external html directories to be linked into Zope's html object hierarchy. This future solution might solve my problem if they allowed network path names. * That an external Python method could be written that would read the network file and offer it as a local object.

I've tried: * "file:\\othermachine\foobar.html" (in a link) This works for anyone on the local network but not for anyone on the outside. (I knew it wouldn't but offer it as an indicator of what I'm trying to do.

Questions: * Is my understanding of the state of affairs correct? * Does IIS offer a solution?

If you want to serve up a file you need 2 things: 1) A server of some kind that will make the file available 2) A client that has the ability to connect to the server A web server is one kind of server. The microsoft network is another kind of server. MS stuff only works on a local lan. Web servers work over TCP/IP. So basically if you have clients with web browsers that are not on the local lan just put a web browser on each of the machines you want to server from. An alternative is to have a cgi script on your central web server that reads the file off the network and outputs it out. This has sequrity risks and is a bit dodgy but it will probably work.