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Thread Hiding Or Scrambling TLink URL
Thu, Nov 8 2018 2:55 AMPermanent Link

Frederick Chin

I have a TLink in a grid column. When I hover the mouse cursor over it, the URL is seen in the browser.

Is it possible to not show the URL or show a scrambled version of it?

The link points to download locations of files which I do not want the user to see.

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Frederick
Thu, Nov 8 2018 4:08 AMPermanent Link

Matthew Jones

Frederick Chin wrote:

> I have a TLink in a grid column. When I hover the mouse cursor over it, the URL is seen in the browser.
>
> Is it possible to not show the URL or show a scrambled version of it?

I'd say no - that would be bad anyway - looks suspicious. The simple answer is to have a way for the web server to have links that are user specific, and need some sort of extra info for lifetime management.
For example, invoices that are made available on my web shop have a URL which includes a GUID, so you can't go trawling. On some systems I've made the server have a list of GUIDs and internal files that expire after a period. So your web page shows the link, but it lasts only for 30 mins or something - they have to log in again to get a new link. The HTTP response can be controlled on the server so that you can return the proper name and not the guid.

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Matthew Jones
Thu, Nov 8 2018 10:32 AMPermanent Link

Frederick Chin

"Matthew Jones" wrote:

/*
I'd say no - that would be bad anyway - looks suspicious. The simple answer is to have a way for the web server to have links that are user specific, and need some sort of extra info for lifetime management.
For example, invoices that are made available on my web shop have a URL which includes a GUID, so you can't go trawling. On some systems I've made the server have a list of GUIDs and internal files that expire after a period. So your web page shows the link, but it lasts only for 30 mins or something - they have to log in again to get a new link. The HTTP response can be controlled on the server so that you can return the proper name and not the guid.
*/

Thanks for the examples. These gave me a few ideas to use.

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Frederick
Fri, Nov 9 2018 5:15 PMPermanent Link

Steve Gill

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Hi Frederick,

<< I have a TLink in a grid column. When I hover the mouse cursor over it, the URL is seen in the browser.

Is it possible to not show the URL or show a scrambled version of it?

The link points to download locations of files which I do not want the user to see. >>

You could use www.tinyurl.com to create the links before adding them to the TLink column.  They would still be able to see the TinyURL link but not your actual link.

By the way, a long time ago I discovered that if you give people the full link (not a TinyURL version), they can remove the file part of the link and get a full listing of all files in the folder.  You can configure the access rights to the folder so that it can't be listed, which is what I did.

= Steve
Sun, Nov 11 2018 9:14 AMPermanent Link

Matthew Jones

Steve Gill wrote:

> TinyURL

Don't they allow you to find the real link? I think if I were wanting such shortened links on a system, I'd do my own shortener built-in. You never know what might happen to someone else's service.

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Matthew Jones
Mon, Nov 12 2018 2:30 PMPermanent Link

Tim Young [Elevate Software]

Elevate Software, Inc.

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Email timyoung@elevatesoft.com

Frederick,

<< I have a TLink in a grid column. When I hover the mouse cursor over it, the URL is seen in the browser.

Is it possible to not show the URL or show a scrambled version of it? >>

Just set the TLink.Hint property to something ('Link') and that should get rid of it.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com
Mon, Nov 12 2018 3:37 PMPermanent Link

Steve Gill

Avatar

Hi Matthew,

<< Don't they allow you to find the real link? I think if I were wanting such shortened links on a system, I'd do my own shortener built-in. You never know what might happen to someone else's service.  >>

I don't really know.  Most of my customers wouldn't think of doing that.  If they do then I'm not particularly worried as they can't go snooping around in the directory anyway.

I haven't tried creating a link shortener but that could be fun to do.

= Steve
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