Copy and open files on local filesystem?

Question

Hello,
For a change request, I have a rather tricky requirement. Suppose each user of the application always has a mapped network drive to a server, let's say drive "k:\", pointing to "\\servername\someDirectory\docs". This folder contains a lot of Word (.doc) files. What the customer wants is a button in the application that copies one or more documents from the "k:\" drive to a local folder, and opens them in Word. The reason the files have to be copied to the local file system is that opening them on the server would result in a read-only copy, whereas the users should be able to edit the opened version.
So the user is in the adf application, clicks a button, and then one or more word documents should be opened. These documents should be local copies of the documents in the "k:\" drive. The location where to put the local copies can be easily determined, the path(s?) of the relevant document(s?) on the "k:\" drive is known, and the location of MS Word / Office can also be determined. So I have at my disposal for example following Strings:
tmpDir = "C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temp\"
serverDir = "\\servername\someDirectory\docs\"
doc1 = "doc1.doc"
doc2 = "doc2.doc"
doc3 = "doc3.doc"
wordLocation = c:\program files\microsoft office\office10In the current Forms application, there is a button that uses WebUtil to:
<ul>
<li>Creates an empty .bat file on the local file system (eg C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temp, determined by the tmpDir String)</li>
<li>In this bat file, there are one ore more copy commands added, to copy the doc files from the server to the local Temp dir:
copy \\servername\someDirectory\docs\doc1.doc C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temp
copy \\servername\someDirectory\docs\doc2.doc C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temp
copy \\servername\someDirectory\docs\doc3.doc C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Tempor in other words:
copy serverDir || doc1 tmpDir
copy serverDir || doc2 tmpDir
copy serverDir || doc3 tmpDir</li>
<li>Next, the necessairy commands are added to the .bat file to open Word with the local copies:
cd c:\program files\microsoft office\office10
start WINWORD.EXE C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temp\doc1.doc C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temp\doc2.doc  C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temp\doc3.docor in other words:
cd wordLocation
start WINWORD.EXE  tmpDir || doc1 tmpDir || doc2 tmpDir || doc3</li>
<li>Finally, an exit command is also added to the .bat file and the .bat file is executed on the client through WebUtil.</li>
</ul>
The resulting .bat file that is executed on the client would look like this as a whole:
copy \\servername\someDirectory\docs\doc1.doc C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temp
copy \\servername\someDirectory\docs\doc2.doc C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temp
copy \\servername\someDirectory\docs\doc3.doc C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temp
cd c:\program files\microsoft office\office10
start WINWORD.EXE C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temp\doc1.doc C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temp\doc2.doc  C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temp\doc3.doc
exitAny suggestions on how I can do this in the cleanest possible way in adf 10.1.3? I do realise that this is not something you want to do in a web application, but this is an important requirement for the customer...
Help would be greatly appreciated!
Chris
Edited by: Chris Schryvers on 17-May-2010 23:55

Answer 1

For now I'm looking into the (signed) Java Applet solution: this should make it possible.
Only one problem: I can't get an applet to run from a jspx (or HTML) page... I keep getting following exception:
load: class applet.view.TestApplet not found.
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: applet.view.TestApplet
     at sun.plugin2.applet.Applet2ClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
     at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
     at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
     at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.loadCode(Unknown Source)
     at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager.createApplet(Unknown Source)
     at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager$AppletExecutionRunnable.run(Unknown Source)
     at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.io.IOException: open HTTP connection failed:http://172.22.42.87:8988/TestApplet3-ViewController-context-root/applet/view/TestApplet.class
     at sun.plugin2.applet.Applet2ClassLoader.getBytes(Unknown Source)
     at sun.plugin2.applet.Applet2ClassLoader.access$000(Unknown Source)
     at sun.plugin2.applet.Applet2ClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
     at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
     ... 7 more
Exception: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: applet.view.TestAppletEven if I do just the basic steps in JDev:
<ul>
<li>Create a new empty Application with a project</li>
<li>Right click project, New..., Web Tier > Applet > Applet</li>
<li>extends: java.applet.Applet, name: TestApplet, package: applet.view</li>
<li>Add "System.out.println("Test");" to the init() method of the applet</li>
<li>Right click project, New..., WebTier > Applet > Applet HTML Page</li>
<li>Accept all defaults, run the Untitled1.html</li>
</ul>
When using the AppletViewer, the applet is executed correctly, but when I try to run it on the Embedded OC4J server, I always get the exception...
Any ideas on how to make this work? Help! :-)