Topic awaiting preservation: invisible website files on cd

Just to explore some borders iwas wondering if it's possible to put an website on a cd so that people could see the site but not the files. This could be handy to make some demo cd's for possible customers whithout giving them an ready and compete site for free.
In theory it should be like this.

-Data should be unreadable/invisible for the windows explorer and programs like that. --> different file system? maybe only some warning page.
-Data should not be cached to customers harddisk --> load data in to ramdisk?
-If the exporer is not able to read the files from the cd some boot meganism is needed to boot into the files on the cd?-->OS with webserver on cd? Or maybe some kind of container file(s)?
-It should not be possible or at least very hard to copy any file from the cd to a local/networked harddisk -->read-write rights?
-Website should be fully functional in demo mode (no users can be made, no texts can be definitive changed)

So if i use some kind of linux, with apache, a small X window system, a web browser and the website could i make it tinker proof for mediocre computer users? I guess making it secure for hardcore hackers is nearly to impossible anyway

Ofcourse i could put an little movie on the cd which shows the complete site, but actually i want the customer to be able to press on buttons or click on links and so on.

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I think you can do something similar in Flash using XML files and what not. You know embedding them into a .fla file and then making some cool flashy stuff...

... well I think that's possible!

It's not. Just explain that this is a _demo_ and if they want it they must pay.

It is possible, though only through a great deal of labor creating your own browser system. Since you look like you want to go all-out for this, I'll dish it in full.

.HTML cannot be compiled, but archive schemes (zip, cab) can be compiled. If you can have a browser access the archive and disable all options to view source (or save the page), then you can accomplish this.
I have seen some administrator versions of Firefox that have View > Page Source disabled. While I can't speak officially on it, I'm sure it's quite possible to alter a browser and then packaged it on the cd.

Of course, Flash would be a whole lot easier... But the prospect of containing your site in a protected archive and including a packaged viewer for the CD opens the possibilities.

I believe there is actually a compiled HTML format that Windows can read into its help file reader


Justice 4 Pat Richard

That's true Skaarjj, it's called CHM, but it's really quite limited in its capacities. I certainly doubt it will grant Rinswind the capabilites he needs to impress potential clients.

Didn't read thru everything but there 'might' be some ideas here.

http://www.browserbob.com/index.html

Unfortunately, CHM files can be decompiled. I have had to do it before. Not really convenient enough for an average user though. Microsoft has a free tool for creating your own CHM files, but yes it is limited in what it can do. I only used it with a stylesheet and some links, but not sure about the scripting it supports.

Perhaps you can just have the cd presentation link to a remote website (of course they could still view source)? I know it seems like a waste of a cd, but it is still useful. Would they really be interested in looking at your stuff if they didn't have internet access to begin with?

Another benefit to having it link out to a remote server is that you could append a url parameter that could distinguish those particular visitors, thereby measuring the success of your campaign by looking at your log files. ClickTracks is a good tool if you don't want to burden yourself with raw log data.

I am assuming this is not a web application, so ask yourself how feasible it is to secure the files.

Udder'n that, Flash would be the way to go...

(Edited by Thumper on 04-02-2005 08:33)

As when i am a tottally nitwit when it comes to flash i relly don't know how i would achieve some container file.
Do i need to recreate the complete site in flash only for demo mode or is there some way i could design with (x)html and style sheets as i am used to en then import this to a flash movie.

I take look into "browserbob" but it seems to be limited to windows only and it seems to rely on whatever browser the customer has installed as standard browser. So there would be no control about the looks of the site the client could be using some old IE4 and wreck my design. However if i could incorporate "browserbob" with the Os and browser of the disk it might work.

But then the OS need to be some windows version which brings a lot of licensing questions to mind, even when the disk would be made with a sytem like BartPE

An very interesting article i found explains how an html page cna be "converted" into an java class, this opens some posibilities just simple java viewer program which uses the "website-demo.class" compile to exe and burn to cd. Maybe Put a java runtime Envrironment on the cd aswell for comfort. Then i don't need the whole apache and OS on a cd setup...
Compiling Html
Used Command
Originating site

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(Edited by Rinswind 2th on 04-02-2005 10:16)