What is the ViaWorks Document Handler?

The ViaWorks Document Handler is a native ViaWorks utility used for opening search result links.

By default, ViaWorks gives the user the ability to download a copy of the searched document. This may not be optimal for users that want to start working on their documents right away. To address this issue ViaWorks provides the Document Handler. This enables the web client to communicate with end user desktops to open files directly in the user's native application.

When you login to the ViaWorks search client you will be presented with the option to download and install the Document Handler.

Why is the Document Handler needed?

Internet browsers initially had support for opening files in the local area network from remote web pages by means of the file protocol from the html code, but around 2008, browsers started locking this down as it was considered a security risk. We were therefore forced to come up with a new mechanism. We ended up creating our own browser protocol handler, as did many other software vendors. This essentially allowed us to launch an application on the end user's machine, which then in turn opened the requested document.

The downside with such a protocol handler is that the end user has to install the program locally. The benefit, however, is that it not only allows us to open files, but also other document types, such as emails, in Outlook without using Outlook Web Access.

We sometimes get the question why a protocol handler is needed when it's possible to open documents directly from applications like SharePoint. By default, SharePoint opens documents in the online version of the corresponding Office application (Word Online, PowerPoint Online etc), but it also offers the option to open documents in the native Office application. This works because the Office applications have built-in support for opening and updating documents over http and https. However, this does not work with most other file types like text, zip or image-files. Some file types, like text files, can be shown in the browser, but they cannot be edited in the browser window. Other content management systems offer similar functionality like SharePoint by using an industry standard called WebDAV. However, that is not an option for ViaWorks, as this would require us to develop a WebDAV adapter for every source system we support whereas the protocol handler works universally. A WebDAV adapter would also require support for writing data back to the source system, which is something we avoid as it creates a liability in the event of lost or corrupt data in the source system.