• DavidShaked
• MarkOfTheWeb

Using the "Mark of the Web" to Unblock WebWorks Help

David Shaked (Wernick), AlmondWeb Ltd., http://www.almondweb.com

Statement of Problem

On Windows XP SP2 computers, Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) displays a "blocked content" security message when it opens a WebWorks Help (WWH) project. The user must click to unblock the content and view the help. Some users may find this inconvenient, or they may be unwilling to override the security message.

The blocking occurs only when MSIE accesses WWH locally on the file system of the computer. It does not occur if MSIE accesses the help via the HTTP protocol on a web site.

Solution

To eliminate the "blocked content" message, you can enable the "mark of the web" (MOTW) in the WWH project. The mark causes MSIE to run the help project at a lower permission level, as though the help were on a web site. At this lower permission level, MSIE does not consider the code to be dangerous and it doesn't block the content.

Note: At the lower permission level, links from the WWH project to external or baggage files that are located on the user's computer (such as PDFs) will fail. Quadralay states that this is why WWH doesn't enable MOTW by default. If you have no such links, the mark should have no effect on the help functionality.

For more information about MOTW, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms537628(VS.85).aspx.

Procedure

To enable MOTW in a WebWorks Help project:

1. In the Windows Explorer, find the following directory (substitute your installation location):

   
   C:\Program Files\!WebWorks\ePublisher Pro\Formats\!WebWorks Help 5.0
   

2. Right-click and perform a full-text search of the directory for the following text:

   
   MOTW-DISABLED
   

   
   In WWeP 9.2.9054, the search finds 37 files.

3. Create a project override for all 37 files.
4. Edit each of the 37 override files in Notepad. Near the top of each file, change the line

   
   <!-- MOTW-DISABLED saved from url=(0014)about:internet -->
   

   
   to

   
   <!-- saved from url=(0014)about:internet -->
   

   
   Note: This text must be written all on one line, with nothing else on the line.

5. Delete the Data and Output directories from your project. This forces WWeP to re-copy all the WebWorks Help files when it generates the project.

6. Regenerate the project.

7. Open the WWH output in Internet Explorer, and use View > Refresh to be sure that you are viewing the current version (rather than a cached copy). The "blocked content" message is no longer displayed.

Credit

Thanks to Doug O'Neill for testing the above solution.