Hi

I am registered with a family history website - it allows you to make limited adaptations to the site through a text editor, which gets saved on to their server. I can add HTML, but not javascript into this editor (it only gets inserted into the BODY section), and am not able to save animations, videos, effects etc. on their server.

One solution is to use free sites and hotlink them (but it means having to to navigate round advertisments and keep the accounts live) and will only work with animations and videos, another option is to set up a website of my own containing the files (although I'd prefer to save the money if possible) and the third option is to save the files onto my C: drive - which is the way I'm trying to do it - so that it is possible to navigate from their website to a html doc saved on the C:drive.

I've explained all of that in a longwinded way, because I realise under normal circumstances it wouldn't be the best solution.

Anyway, I have my files on the C: drive, and when linking them through a simple html document saved on my computer, it works fine. But when I copy and paste the same link into the online text editor, the link doesn't work.

I've been using this:

<a href="file:///C|/xxx/yyy.html">

But have also tried these, which also work in my saved html link document:
<a href="C:/xxx/yyy.html">
<a href="C:\xxx\yyy.html">

There are no network/sharing issues as there is only one user on this computer, although I have tried sharing the folder as well. When the mouse is over the link the correct url appears, but it is not clickable - no error messages appear.

Any ideas why it isn't working??!
Thanks.

Yes, files are only visible on the Web when they are provided by a web server, and your "C drive" isn't a web server. Unless you only want this stuff to be visible to your yourself - in which case, it already is, isn't it?

Sure, I understand that - I'm trying to set up a sytem where a self-extracting zip file can be downloaded from a free site (e.g. megaupload.com), saved to the persons computer which is then linked to by the website I mentioned in my first post. It's that link I'm having problems with, everything else is fine.

Do you really expect visitors to your site to go through that trouble?

And FWIW, not all visitors will use computers that have a "C drive".

I should have said that it will only be of interest to at most a couple dozen people, who can decide whether to download it or not (but I'm 99% certain would). These particular people will definitely have "C drives".

I think I'll bite the bullet and buy a domain name.

Thanks anyway.

But this really has nothing to do with it (I mean whether you have your own domain name is independent of what hosting service you use).

Just get a proper hosting service - the inexpensive ones are excellent value for anyone who values their own time at more than - say - 20 US cents an hour.

Even supposing that all of your couple of dozen people have "C drives" (how do you know?) - how are you going to be sure that the same directory name is available on all of their computers?