Masking address bar

[Zaph]

Hi,

Just a quick question, but i'm a little worried as it's along the similar lines of a couple of other threads which have caused some aggro in the past! (hiding source code, etc.)

Is it possible to hide the content of the address bar or replace with custom code in IE6?

This isn't as much for security but more for aesthetics.
It's for my intranet site, and whereas I don't expecially want users knowing the full path to the server where it's published to (I'm having trouble with permissions, due to them needing access for displaying it) I really would just prefer it to say something like "Company Intranet" as opposed to "\\Server\Intranet\index.htm" as this looks untidy to me.

Could I force it to read from the page title at all? It stays static anyway as the whole site is held within a frame.

Thanks.
Martyn.

[darco9x2]

not sure if i can help you, but i did some research to find out how to do pop ups,
and i have the code to hide stuff in them. ill give you what i have and hope it helps.

<SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript">
<!--
function popup(mylink, windowname)
{
if (! window.focus)return true;
var href;
if (typeof(mylink) == 'string')
   href=mylink;
else
   href=mylink.href;
window.open(href, windowname, 'width=somenumber,height=somenumber,left=somenumber,top=somenumber,toolbar=yes/no,scrollbars=yes/no,location=yes/no');
return false;
}
//-->
</SCRIPT>

<A 
   HREF="rbex.html" 
   onClick="return targetopener(this)">my page</A>

now for the specifications:
location: url
toolbar: self explanitory
height/width/: size
left/top: distance from left or top of screen


now, correct me if im wrong, but this should answer all your questions.

(i am not saying you should use this; afterall, all anybody has to do is view your scource and find where the link goes to.)

[Zaph]

Thanks for the info Darco, but it was more along the lines of just changing what was in the address bar than opening up a pop-up with the address bar removed that i was looking for.
Not a huge problem though, as I said in my original post, it was more for making my intranet look better than actual security - the users will just have to like it!

Thanks again,
Martyn.

[jscheuer1]

"\\Server\Intranet\index.htm" as this looks untidy to me

Well, if the above is indeed what the address bar shows, it needn't. If you tell people to log on using:

\\Server\Intranet\

It should still load the index page but, all it will display in the address bar should be:

\\Server\Intranet\

At least this is how things work on the internet. Further, if you could get the Server administrator to change the directory name 'Intranet' to:
'Company Intranet'

(this assumes the OS involved can handle a space in a directory name), and you give folks the address to log on as:

\\Server\Company Intranet\

and that is what they will see in the address bar. Talk to your administrator, there probably is a way to create an alias or something like that for the path and filename, then it could show whatever you like.

[Zaph]

I happen to be one of the domain admins, so that shouldn't be a problem

Sounds like a simple enough change to make, unfortunately the roll out to the users did not go as planned and we had to manually copy and paste the shortcuts to their desktops.

I'll figure a way round this at some point, as it should be far easier once we have finished upgrading our domain to Server 2003.

Thanks for the info.

Martyn.

[BookWorm]

Hi,

Just a quick question, but i'm a little worried as it's along the similar lines of a couple of other threads which have caused some aggro in the past! (hiding source code, etc.)

Is it possible to hide the content of the address bar or replace with custom code in IE6?

This isn't as much for security but more for aesthetics.
It's for my intranet site, and whereas I don't expecially want users knowing the full path to the server where it's published to (I'm having trouble with permissions, due to them needing access for displaying it) I really would just prefer it to say something like "Company Intranet" as opposed to "\\Server\Intranet\index.htm" as this looks untidy to me.

Could I force it to read from the page title at all? It stays static anyway as the whole site is held within a frame.

Thanks.
Martyn.

I used to have this issue. Here's what I did:

I bought a domain name from godaddy.com ($9.00 for the whole year) and I did a domain "forward" to my IP address. It works great for me. And best of all, I can "mask" the address so that it doesn't change, regarless to what link is chosen. Then, I inserter a script to omit link status at the bottom of the page. Hope this helps! For less than $10.00 a year, I am happy.

[mwinter]

I bought a domain name from godaddy.com ($9.00 for the whole year) and I did a domain "forward" to my IP address.

Which uses a single frame. You should be careful as a user with frames disabled (including search engines like Google) may not be able to enter the site if appropriate noframe content hasn't been configured.

And best of all, I can "mask" the address so that it doesn't change [...]

In some situations you can. You most certainly cannot in my user agents. Masking links - especially when the masking is clearly intentional - can seem like suspicious behaviour. I for one like to know where a link will take me before I activate it.

Mike

[Zaph]

Unfortunately as this is for an intranet and not a regular web page the domain name workaround is not really feasable.
The site already resides in a frame (keeping the company header at the top at all times) so it always shows the path for the index.htm page in the address bar.

I for one like to know where a link will take me before I activate it.

I agree with you Mike in most circumstances, but in this instance it is not really relevant. Only people working in my building have access, and I would prefer it if they did not know the drive mappings for the site, as more than a few of them are a little on the nosey side!

I sort of fixed it by playing around with the group policies and permissions for the server that it resides on, and now all non-admin users can read, but not list drive contents. As for the address bar, it's just tough really... they'll have to look at something ugly, but as I'm not getting paid any extra for this, I'm not too bothered!

Martyn.

[mwinter]

Unfortunately as this is for an intranet and not a regular web page [...] I agree with you Mike in most circumstances, but in this instance it is not really relevant.

I know, which was why I quoted, and was responding to BookWorm, not you.

Mike

[Zaph]

I know, which was why I quoted, and was responding to BookWorm, not you.

Mike

I realise that... was just saying that in 99.9% of cases people only hide it because they have something to hide... like pop-ups, dialers, etc.

Plus a lot of the scripts that I've seen to hide the status bar at the bottom of the browser window have a horrible flicker to them, as it refreshes 10 times a second or so.

Nefarious AND unsightly!