More about running scripts over a network.
First, open Internet Explorer Help and search for "Security Zones". Read the topic called "What you need to know about security zones". As this explains, the end user has complete control over how Internet Explorer will deal with HTML pages from any location. Security need never be compromised, nor should the user ever be restricted from running a script over their local network or from anywhere on the Internet.
The user will need to make some changes to the default Internet Explorer settings, in particular to allow scripting of ActiveX controls which will not always be marked as "safe". Of course, the user should not allow ActiveX controls in a web page originating at an unknown site http://www.hacks-are-us.com to run on their computer for example. But this is quite different to allowing ActiveX controls in a page at file://myserver/datamine/scripts to run, because "myserver" is a trusted site which will hold the Datamine scripts.
Changing the level of security for any zone is very easy. In Internet Explorer 5, select "Tools | Internet Options...", then select the "Security" tab.
We recommend that users designate a location on the server machine where the scripts will be stored as a "Trusted site". You can then set the security settings for that controlled location to have the same level of security as your own workstation.
Let's assume that you only want to run scripts from \\myserver\datamine\scripts, a share on your local file server. Click on "Trusted sites", then click the "Sites..." button. First, uncheck the box that says "Require server verification ...", unless you plan to serve up the scripts via an HTTP server. Then, enter the UNC path name of the shared folder on your server that contains the scripts that you want to access (e.g. "\\myserver\datamine\scripts"). Type the path name, and click "Add". You can specify the site either as a UNC path name, or as a URL like "file://myserver/datamine/scripts"; the result is the same.
Once you have specified the trusted server, you can now set the security settings. Click "OK", then set the security level to "Low". Remember, this setting only applies to the server machine that you specified earlier. Now click on "Custom Level...", and change the setting "Initialize and script ActiveX controls not marked as safe" to "Enable".
Datamine Software Limited decided against automatically marking their scripting libraries as "safe" during installation, because it is the users right to decide what they consider "safe". When you first run a script that uses our script libraries on your own workstation, a dialog appears giving you the option to allow the script libraries to be used without clicking "OK" on a prompt each time. The above procedure extends this to the named server. In future, we may enhance this dialog to allow you to nominate a "safe" server location in addition to your local workstation.
