When you request The Panorama Factory to preview a web page, it opens
in your web browser. If you use Internet Explorer, it displays the
following security warning:
To help protect your security, Internet
Explorer has restricted this file from showing active content that could
access your computer.
Microsoft added this warning message with Windows XP Service Pack 2.
The logic behind this warning is that active content (Javascript,
ActiveX, Java, etc.) in a web page has more freedom when run from a web
page in a local file. Web pages downloaded from an internet web site run
in a more restricted security zone that prevents many potential malicious
actions. However, the local security zone is less restrictive than the
internet security zone. So according to Microsoft, local web pages are
more dangerous than internet web pages!
The workaround is to use the Mark of the Web to force local web pages
to run in the internet security zone. This restricts them in the same way
as if they were downloaded from an internet web site.
To add the Mark of the Web to a web page, just add this line at the top
of the HTML file:
<!-- saved from url=(0014)about:internet
-->
Note: The HTML comment must be properly formatted for
Internet Explorer to parse the information correctly. Proper format
includes inserting a space immediately following the opening delimiter "
<!-- " and just before the closing delimiter " --> ".
This workaround does not compromise security in any way.
On the contrary, the effect is to lock down the local web page to the same
security level as a page downloaded from the internet. Because this
increases the security for the local page, Internet Explorer does not need
to show the warning message.
In order to avoid having to edit every HTML file generated by The
Panorama Factory, you may add this line to the top of each HTML file in
The Panorama Factory's template folder. This folder is typically:
c:\Program Files\Smoky City Design\The
Panorama Factory V4\Templates
Thereafter, each HTML file created by The Panorama Factory will
automatically include the Mark of the Web.
