I maintain a small web page for internal company use. People access it
by typing "library" in their browser address bar; this defaults to
"http://library" which the network admin magically redirects to my page.
Lately some other departments have been creating their own web pages and I
have added links to them. The pages are on the same server, but different
folders (traversing the root folder). These bright young people have
introduced attractive graphics and javascript to their pages. However,
they have also used the file:// scheme for their links. These links
won't work from my page unless I use the file:// scheme to open it.
After much trouble I've learned that file:// references are ignored by
design on pages that have been loaded via http://. The question now is
whether to revamp all our internal pages to use the file:// scheme, or to
standardize on the http:// scheme throughout.
I know that one of the advantages of http:// is that we can later add
server-side search capabilities, cgi scripts, and so on. But I don't know
anything about the advantages of the file:// scheme in a local intranet. I
assume these bright young students (who have since completed their work
term and left the company) had a good reason for using file:// references.
Can anyone offer me some guidance about this?
--
"For it is only of the new one grows tired. Of the old one never tires."
-- Kierkegaard, _Repetition_
James Owens, Ottawa, Canada
