File Preview in a web app

Question

Hey all,
Until recently, I was using an inline frame to offer the user "preview" capability of files before they posted them to the server in a web app. Recently, with the additional security added to browsers dis-allowing cross domain scripting I can no longer point a frame to "file://c:/my documents/somefile.txt" for preview. So, I am presented with two options:
1. create a signed applet to allow loading of files from the users local drive - this seems rather time comsuming with all the different files type that need to be handled.
2. Round trip the document in stream only to upload it to the server and send it right back to the browser with the appropriate mime type and let the broswer handle loading the file.
I am leaning towards option two, what do you all think?

Answer 1

I am going with posting the file to the server and wasting the network roundtrip to save myself problems with applets. The app really will only support Firefox and IE, and I was able to create the signed applet that has read rights to the local filesys for both browsers, but the idea of handling different file types and loading plug-ins, etc would be a major hassle. Thanks.