User:Wvengen@nikhef.nl/BareBonesBrowserLaunch

Launching a web browser from a Java application has only been introduced recently. For older versions, BareBonesBrowserLaunch has been around for a while. As a programmer, I don't want to have choose between them when the system can detect it for me. This version of BareBonesBrowserLaunch first tries the recent JDIC method, and falls back to the BareBonesBrowserLaunch method of calling the web browser manually when the former fails.

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This currently is a work in progress.

This code compiles on java 1.5 and 1.6 (and probably lower versions as well). The nice thing is that you can compile using an older compiler and still use the newer JDesktop method when running on an new JVM. A little testing to show this:

• Compiler 1.6 sourcelevel 1.6, JVM 1.6: JDesktop method
• Compiler 1.6 sourcelevel 1.5, JVM 1.6: JDesktop method
• Compiler 1.6 sourcelevel 1.6, JVM 1.5: doesn't run: "Bad version number in .class file" (of course)
• Compiler 1.6 sourcelevel 1.5, JVM 1.5: Exec method
• Compiler 1.5 sourcelevel 1.5, JVM 1.6: JDesktop method
• Compiler 1.5 sourcelevel 1.5, JVM 1.5: Exec method

Please note that this hasn't received much testing yet, so please report your experiences.

   /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   //  Bare Bones Browser Launch                          //
   //  Version 1.5.99.2 (April 6, 2009)                   //
   //  By Dem Pilafian and Willem van Engen               //
   //  Supports: Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, Unix, Windows XP    //
   //  Example Usage:                                     //
   //     String url = "http://www.centerkey.com/";       //
   //     BareBonesBrowserLaunch.openURL(url);            //
   //  Public Domain Software -- Free to Use as You Like  //
   /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   
   import java.lang.reflect.Method;
   import java.net.URI;
   import java.net.URL;
   
   import javax.swing.JOptionPane;
   
   public class BareBonesBrowserLaunch {
   
       private static final String errMsg = "Error attempting to launch web browser";
       //private static Logger logger = Logger.getLogger("com.centerkey.utils.BareBonesBrowserLaunch");
   
       public static void openURL(URL url) {
   	openURL(url.toExternalForm());
       }
   
       public static void openURL(String url) {
   	// Try java desktop API first (new in Java 1.6)
   	// basically: java.awt.Desktop.getDesktop().browse(new URI(url));
   	try {
   	    Class desktop = Class.forName("java.awt.Desktop");
   	    Method getDesktop = desktop.getDeclaredMethod("getDesktop", new Class[] {});
   	    Object desktopInstance = getDesktop.invoke(null, new Object[] {});
   	    Method browse = desktop.getDeclaredMethod("browse", new Class[] {URI.class});
   	    URI uri = new URI(url);
   	    //logger.fine("Using Java Desktop API to open URL '"+url+"'");
   	    browse.invoke(desktopInstance, new Object[] {uri});
   	    return;
   	} catch(Exception e) { }
   	
   	// Failed, resort to executing the browser manually
   	String osName = System.getProperty("os.name");
   	try {
   	    if (osName.startsWith("Mac OS")) {
   		Class fileMgr = Class.forName("com.apple.eio.FileManager");
   		Method openURL = fileMgr.getDeclaredMethod("openURL",
   			new Class[] {String.class});
   		//logger.fine("Using "+fileMgr+" to open URL '"+url+"'");
   		openURL.invoke(null, new Object[] {url});
   	    }
   	    else if (osName.startsWith("Windows")) {
   		String cmd = "rundll32 url.dll,FileProtocolHandler " + url;
   		//logger.fine("Executing: "+cmd);
   		Runtime.getRuntime().exec(cmd);
   	    } else { //assume Unix or Linux
   		String[] browsers = {
   			// Freedesktop, http://portland.freedesktop.org/xdg-utils-1.0/xdg-open.html
   			"xdg-open",
   			// Debian
   			"sensible-browser",
   			// Otherwise call browsers directly
   			"firefox", "opera", "konqueror", "epiphany", "mozilla", "netscape" };
   		String browser = null;
   		for (int count = 0; count < browsers.length && browser == null; count++)
   		    if (Runtime.getRuntime().exec(
   			    new String[] {"which", browsers[count]}).waitFor() == 0)
   			browser = browsers[count];
   		if (browser == null) {
   		    //logger.warning("No web browser found");
   		    throw new Exception("Could not find web browser");
   		} else {
   		    //logger.fine("Executing: "+browser+" "+url);
   		    Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[] {browser, url});
   		}
   	    }
   	} catch (Exception e) {
   	    JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, errMsg + ":\n" + e.getLocalizedMessage());
   	}
       }
   
   }