Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Open and save a local file with javascript

  • 2 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by JanwMe

more options

I doubt if this is the right place for this kind of question, But I don't know where else I should ask this. If there is a better place to ask this please tell me.

I want to create a `webapp` that has sensitive data on it. I want to put that on a usb and be able to run it on every machine with FF without relying on extra extentions/tweaks to the browser. The `webapp` itself therefore can use html/js/css/etc. The data itself will be stored in a lose data file. I want to auto save changes to this file. Temp saving it in a cookie/indexedDB is not an option. So saving it in the normal way isn't an option. The download popup would drive me nuts.

I've read some stuff about the fileSystem api and Mozilla's alternative DeviceStorageAPI. Neither seem like an option. IndexedDB is no option because it saves data to the browser.

Is there a way to save a file without prompt? Or any other way to accomplish what I want to do?

A few of the sources I've red. https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/07/why-no-filesystem-api-in-firefox/ http://caniuse.com/#search=filesystem https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAPI/Device_Storage https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/IndexedDB_API

I doubt if this is the right place for this kind of question, But I don't know where else I should ask this. If there is a better place to ask this please tell me. I want to create a `webapp` that has sensitive data on it. I want to put that on a usb and be able to run it on every machine with FF without relying on extra extentions/tweaks to the browser. The `webapp` itself therefore can use html/js/css/etc. The data itself will be stored in a lose data file. I want to auto save changes to this file. Temp saving it in a cookie/indexedDB is not an option. So saving it in the normal way isn't an option. The download popup would drive me nuts. I've read some stuff about the fileSystem api and Mozilla's alternative DeviceStorageAPI. Neither seem like an option. IndexedDB is no option because it saves data to the browser. Is there a way to save a file without prompt? Or any other way to accomplish what I want to do? A few of the sources I've red. https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/07/why-no-filesystem-api-in-firefox/ http://caniuse.com/#search=filesystem https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAPI/Device_Storage https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/IndexedDB_API

All Replies (2)

more options

As a short term workaround, you could package it with Firefox on the USB flash drive to work around the tendency of the installed Firefox to look to its own profile folder.

Possible discussion forums:

(1) Add-ons - https://forums.mozilla.org/addons/

Not sure if they talk about webapps or just the more conventional kinds of add-ons.

(2) Mozillazine - http://forums.mozillazine.org/

Again, not sure there is a board for this yet.

more options

Hi Jscher2000,

Thanks for the quick reply. Installing FF also on the USB isn't a bad idea. But it's not the method I prefer.

I've made a thread on forums.mozillazine.org