What is a SharePoint Server Side File Hander?

Question

In SharePoint, the definition of the 'View Only' permissions level is as follows:

Members of this group can view pages, list items, and documents. If the document has a server-side file handler available, they can only view the document using the server-side file handler.

What is considered to be a server-side file handler in the context of SharePoint? Is this an HTTPHandler? What technology is it based on, how do I write one?

Answer 1

The out-of-the box Server-Side file handlers are just .aspx pages.

The way file types are marked as having server-side file handler is by inclusion in the serverfilesANYTHING.xml files in SharePointRoot\TEMPLATE\XML.

Answer 2

The server-side file handler displays a document in the context of the browser rather than opening the document in a client-side application (i.e. InfoPath, Excel, etc.).