Links to applications in Confluence

Question

Confluence appears to greatly limit the type of URL links that can be specified, stripping them if they do not conform to http: protocol specifiers. It sometimes allows those of type file:, but its quite unpredictable whether or not it will accept those links.

We need our Confluence pages to use a broader range of protocol URLs, including those that invoke applications such as those that use the onenote: protocol to invoke Microsoft One Note. We also need to be able to address volume IDs in the file: protocol (e.g., file://E:\Mypath).

Is there a way we can bypass Confluence's checks in order to specify whatever URL we need to?

Davin Studer · Answer

You can put in the file protocol. It has to be on the web link panel.

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Now, keep in mind that out of the box this will only work on IE, and only if your environment hasn't locked down the file protocol. There are Chrome and Firefox(Options ->Advanced->Trusted->Allow local links) extensions to enable the file protocol, but by default these browsers won't use the file protocol. Also, the file protocol will only work if the file is on every machine at the specified path, or the file is shared via a UNC path such as file://///server/path/to/file.doc ... yes, you need five slashes. The first three (file:///) are the protocol. The next two are the beginning of the UNC path (//server/path/to/file.doc).

image2014-10-6 11:21:56.png