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Data Hiding: Display Selected Text in HTML File

Data Hiding: Display Selected Text in HTML File

Question:

Is there a way to put text in an HTML file but only have selected text displayed? In place of an application’s scroll window, I want to put in an HTML window?more than likely it will be Microsoft’s Web browser ActiveX control. This window is used to display messages to the user, which are currently kept in a text file with ID numbers and [ ] to delineate the messages. I want to put these in one HTML file but display them as I do with the text file. Will I still need to parse the file, or is there a way to make each message a link or something?

Answer:

A simple way to accomplish what you ask is to simply set up an array of strings (in JavaScript) and a function to extract a particular string based on an ID. Because this is in JavaScript, it will work in either Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer. Copy the following code and paste it into a new page of your own. When you run the page, you will be presented with two boxes and a button. The first box will accept an ID number between 1 and 5. Clicking the button will extract a particular string based on the ID that was entered.

This particular solution works well with ASP or another system that generated HTML at run time. This is true because the strings can be extracted from a back-end data store and written directly into the client-side JavaScript when the page is requested. If implemented properly, it can be a very slick solution.

	

Text Library

Enter a number between 1 and 5, then click "Get Text"

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