Applies to Self-Extracting, HTML Viewer, IE Browser publications.
One of the main reasons to compile your websites is to protect your HTML pages from being copied, stolen or even just accessed without your authorization. To view your compiled website, end users have to launch the compiled website .exe file. It is also not possible to unpack a compiled publication using a file archiver (like Zip/Unzip tools) without running it. Finally for non Self-Extracting publications, they cannot be decompiled. In other words, please make a backup of your source files because once a publication is compiled, you cannot extract source files from it anymore.
Publications built with HTML Executable feature several security options that you can configure using this tab.
Global Protection
Global Password
If you wish to restrict the access to your publication, you can password protect it: end users will be prompted for the password before the publication starts. If the password entered is incorrect, then the publication closes immediately.
This feature is not however handy if your publication is often used. There are better options in that case: see below.
Set a global expiration date
If you would like your publication to expire after a specific date (it does not run anymore), then just select the expiration date you want. After that date, publications will display an error message "Trial date expired!" and exit. Changing the system clock will not modify the expiration state.
This option however is not very safe: if you want to create Trial publications that can really expire "forever", then make a restricted publication.
When testing your publication on your own computer, you can remove the expiration state by clicking on "Clear expiration info". This function will only work if the publication expired.
Check publication size at startup
When a publication is downloaded from the Internet, if the download was not successful, this may result into truncated files. In this case, running non-complete publications may not be safe. To prevent truncated downloads or size-modified publication files, you may enable this option. When turned on, it forces the publication to check its size. If the size is not the same as it was when the publication was built, an error message is displayed.
Note that this option is superseded by digital signatures. If you have the necessary Authenticode files (certificates), then it is even better to sign your publication.
Disable PRINT SCREEN
The PRINT SCREEN key allows Windows users to capture the whole screen to a bitmap, called a screenshot. This screenshot is then saved to the Clipboard and users can paste the result in any word processing tool or image editor. If you would like to disable this function, just turn on "Disable Print Screen": pressing the key won't take screenshots anymore when the publication is running.
Notes:
- This function however does NOT stop screen capture tools.
- Some programs (such as these capture tools) may also try to override the Print Screen hotkey. In this case, there may be conflicts.
- Self-Extracting publications are not able to disable all Print Screen keystroke combinations contrary to other publication types.
Only one instance of the publication can be run at a time
Enable this option to make sure that only one instance of your publication executes. If the user tries to run a second instance, it immediately exits and the previous instance gets enabled and visible.
Security Profiles
Not available in Self-Extracting publications.
Security profiles are a high-level security feature of HTML Executable. They allow you to control the user access to HTML pages and actions that the latter can do when viewing these pages.
They are managed on this tab. Please see the following topic for further information:
Working with security profiles
Restricted Publication Tools (or Trial publication Tools)
Not available in Self-Extracting publications.