Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Opening default browser

Opening default browser in Java can be done using the following BrowserControl class. To be able to run it with different browsers in Linux , you just need to change UNIX_PATH and UNIX_FLAG parameters.(Note that you don't need to change anyting for windows)

import java.io.IOException;

public class BrowserControl {

// Used to identify the windows platform.
private static final String WIN_ID = "Windows";
// The default system browser under windows.
private static final String WIN_PATH = "rundll32";
// The flag to display a url.
private static final String WIN_FLAG = "url.dll,FileProtocolHandler";
// The default browser under unix.
private static final String UNIX_PATH = "netscape";
// The flag to display a url.
private static final String UNIX_FLAG = "-remote openURL";

/**
* Display a file in the system browser. If you want to display a
* file, you must include the absolute path name.
*
* @param url the file's url (the url must start with either "http://"
* or
* "file://").
*/
public static void displayURL(String url) {
boolean windows = isWindowsPlatform();
String cmd = null;
try {
if (windows) {
// cmd = 'rundll32 url.dll,FileProtocolHandler http://...'
cmd = WIN_PATH + " " + WIN_FLAG + " " + url;
Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(cmd);
} else {
// Under Unix, Netscape has to be running for the "-remote"
// command to work. So, we try sending the command and
// check for an exit value. If the exit command is 0,
// it worked, otherwise we need to start the browser.
// cmd = 'netscape -remote openURL(http://www.java-tips.org)'
cmd = UNIX_PATH + " " + UNIX_FLAG + "(" + url + ")";
Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(cmd);
try {
// wait for exit code -- if it's 0, command worked,
// otherwise we need to start the browser up.
int exitCode = p.waitFor();
if (exitCode != 0) {
// Command failed, start up the browser
// cmd = 'netscape http://www.java-tips.org'
cmd = UNIX_PATH + " " + url;
p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(cmd);
}
} catch(InterruptedException x) {
System.err.println("Error bringing up browser, cmd='" +
cmd + "'");
System.err.println("Caught: " + x);
}
}
} catch(IOException x) {
// couldn't exec browser
System.err.println("Could not invoke browser, command=" + cmd);
System.err.println("Caught: " + x);
}
}
/**
* Try to determine whether this application is running under Windows
* or some other platform by examing the "os.name" property.
*
* @return true if this application is running under a Windows OS
*/
public static boolean isWindowsPlatform() {
String os = System.getProperty("os.name");
if ( os != null && os.startsWith(WIN_ID))
return true;
else
return false;

}
}

You can use this class with different kind of documents as follows:

  • BrowserControl.displayURL("http://www.java-tips.org");
  • BrowserControl.displayURL("file://c:\\docs\\index.html");
  • BrowserContorl.displayURL("file:///user/joe/index.html");
source: http://www.java-tips.org

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