How does the Apple iTunes web site launch the iTunes application on my computer when I click the blue “Launch iTunes” button?

Question

This is new to me as a desktop developer.

If I could figure out how this is accomplished, it may be relevant to some research I\'m doing, specifically how to migrate

Answer 1

You can register "protocol handlers" with some browsers. I think there's a place in the operating system where you can regsiter your own.

See

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd588696(office.11).aspx
• http://blog.ryaneby.com/archives/firefox-protocol-handlers/

Creating new ones in firefox: http://ajaxian.com/archives/creating-custom-protocol-handlers-with-html-5-and-firefox

In safari: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1280989

Special "mobile protocol handlers" are used extensively in the iPhone/iPod to launch the phone dialler, email sending, google maps and so on... http://www.iphonedevfaq.com/index.php?title=Protocols

Here's an example of how to reconfigure the mailto: protocol handler to trigger gmail rather than an external mail client: http://lifehacker.com/392287/set-firefox-3-to-launch-gmail-for-mailto-links