Hide a URL: Example (Download THIS File)

[Hend Hamad]

Hello,

I'm currently developing a chat application and it offers file exchange. To make things easier for me I developed a simple FTP connection using Java’s URL Connection:
URLConnection urlc = url.openConnection();
InputStream is = urlc.getInputStream(); // To download
OutputStream os = urlc.getOutputStream(); // To upload

Now I want to hide the link or URL from the participants of the conversation; when a file is uploaded the link will be posted on the chat pane, and when clicked a download window will open (Similar to MSN messenger). I want to hide the link, any ideas on how to do it??

[Brian Legg]

link.hide()

Kidding, but tagged because I need to find out the exact same thing for my customer as well.

[Martijn Verburg]

Hend Hamad wrote:Hello,

I'm currently developing a chat application and it offers file exchange. To make things easier for me I developed a simple FTP connection using Java’s URL Connection:
URLConnection urlc = url.openConnection();
InputStream is = urlc.getInputStream(); // To download
OutputStream os = urlc.getOutputStream(); // To upload

Now I want to hide the link or URL from the participants of the conversation; when a file is uploaded the link will be posted on the chat pane, and when clicked a download window will open (Similar to MSN messenger). I want to hide the link, any ideas on how to do it??

Have you thought about using Apache's FTP library or JSCH's SFTP library?

Also I assume by hiding the link you don't want to show:

http ://someserver:8080/file1.txt

[Paul Clapham]

Before we can tell you how to hide the link, we need to know how you are displaying the link in the first place. Is this a Swing application? A web application? Something else?

[Hend Hamad]

Have you thought about using Apache's FTP library or JSCH's SFTP library?

Not Really .. I'll have to google them

Before we can tell you how to hide the link, we need to know how you are displaying the link in the first place. Is this a Swing application? A web application? Something else?

The link is sent in this format: ftp ://address:port/filename (optionally the path), and it is displayed in a swing application (Text Area) as a String so far.

I've been playing around with HTTP (http instead of ftp), I was able to download files from the webserver (Apache Tomcat). Hoewever; the upload seems to be much trickier and I couldn't find a way to do it!!

So I guess that I will continue using ftp ..

[Steve Luke]

Are you using a TextArea or a JTextArea? I hope a JTextArea...

Consider using a Highlighter to act as a 'link' like you would get in HTML. The highlight will be used to mark specific text in the JTextArea. When you get a URL to the FTP download, parse out the file name, add that to the JTextArea. Create a Highlighter to the position of the word in the text that has a custom HighlightPainter to paint the 'link' text anyway you want. Then take the returned Object (usually a JLabel I think) and add a MouseListener that will begin the download when clicked.
JTextComponent#getHighlighter()
Highlighter
HighlightPainter

[Hend Hamad]

Are you using a TextArea or a JTextArea? I hope a JTextArea...

I'm using JTextArea .. the 'J' was left out accidently

Consider using a Highlighter to act as a 'link' like you would get in HTML.

I will try your way .. I think it might just work .. Thanks