file:// URL that would work the same on Mac and PC (Google Chrome)

Question

I am trying to create a "launch" page that is just a simple HTML page with a link of my bookmarks that I can edit myself. I want this page to come up when I open a new tab in Google Chrome. (In other words, I'm trying to create a custom HTML page that would automatically load in new Chrome tabs.)

I am using "New Tab Redirect" extension in Google Chrome to load this file when I open a new tab. The challenge is using a file:// URLs that would work on both Macs and PCs.

I have two laptops, one is Mac and the other is PC.

file:///tmp/bookmarks.html works on macos when I put my bookmarks in /tmp/bookmarks.html, but it doesn't work on PC. (I tried creating 'c:\tmp\bookmarks.html` on the PC but Chrome doesn't pick it up.)

file://C:/tmp/bookmarks.html works on PC but doesn't work on macos (I tried creating /C:/ and linking from tmp in there to /tmp but no dice).

Is there any file:// URL that would work on both systems?

P.S. Earlier, I tried using an http:// URL (running a local web server to share the bookmarks.html) but it was noticeably slow to load compared to loading a file:// resource

Answer 1

Edit: I misunderstood the question. OP can use the chrome-extension:// URL approach.

According to the wiki, your install paths are here:

Windows: C:\Users\**username**\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions\icpgjfneehieebagbmdbhnlpiopdcmna\

Mac: Macintosh HD\Users\**username**\Library\Application Support\Google\Chrome\Default\Extensions\icpgjfneehieebagbmdbhnlpiopdcmna\

You can place the file there for it to appear in both places.

chrome-extension://icpgjfneehieebagbmdbhnlpiopdcmna/

Just to drive the point home, C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions\icpgjfneehieebagbmdbhnlpiopdcmna\custom-html.html can be reached at chrome-extension://icpjfneehieebagbmdbhnlpiopdcmna/custom-html.html

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old answer: As I understand it, you're trying to create the anchor in your custom HTML document?

You could write the document for Mac and then have a script rewrite the prefix:

// check if we are using Windows -- https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9514179/how-to-find-the-operating-system-version-using-javascript

if (window.navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Windows") != -1){

  // loop over all the anchors
  Array.from(document.getElementsByTagName("a")).forEach((a) => {

    // if it starts with file
    if (a.href.indexOf("file:///" == 0)) { 
      
      // do the actual replace (adjust as needed)
      a.href = a.href.replace("file:///", "file://C:/"); 
    }
  });
}