This script solves
several of the problems associated with launching a browser from
another application eg. to read documentation. Instead of calling a
specific browser, each application should be configured to call
browser.csh.
- Choice of browsers
- Many programs have a configuration file which specifies the command
to use for starting a browser. This should always be set to
'browser.csh'. The actual command for launching the browser is set in
the environment variable BIRCH_NETSCAPE. This can either be set to a
command in the user's $PATH (eg. 'mozilla') or a fully-qualified path
(eg. /usr/bin/mozilla).
- Older browsers require special arguments to open a new brower window if an instance of the browser is already running.
Specifically, if Netscape 7.1 or earlier was already open, and
you try to launch a new window (eg. netscape
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca~psgendb) you will get a message saying that
the browser is already runing, and asking whether you want to run using
a different profile. If the environment variable BROWSER_OPENURL is set
to 1, broswer.csh automatically detects whether a the browser is
already running. If so, it launches the browser specified in
BIRCH_NETSCAPE using a command in the following form:
netscape -remote openURL(http://www.linux.org,new-window)
This is only needed for older browsers. For newer browsers (eg.
mozilla 1.73 and later) BROWSER_OPENURL should be set to 0. If you're
not sure what your browser does, try first setting this variable to 0,
and if it doesn't work then set it to 1.
- When opening files on the local system, most browsers require a full URL ie. file://path/filename. If you omit 'file://' or a fully-qualified path, browser.csh will automatically add them. For example, the command
browser.csh $doc/Phylip/main.html
might generate the corresponding command
mozilla /home/psgendb/doc/Phylip/main.html