Module ij
Package ij.plugin

Class BrowserLauncher

  • All Implemented Interfaces:
    PlugIn
    public class BrowserLauncher
extends java.lang.Object
implements PlugIn
    This plugin implements the File/Import/URL command and the commands in the Help menu that open web pages. It is based on Eric Albert's cross-platform (Windows, Mac OS X and Unix) BrowserLauncher class.

    BrowserLauncher is a class that provides one static method, openURL, which opens the default web browser for the current user of the system to the given URL. It may support other protocols depending on the system -- mailto, ftp, etc. -- but that has not been rigorously tested and is not guaranteed to work.

    Yes, this is platform-specific code, and yes, it may rely on classes on certain platforms that are not part of the standard JDK. What we're trying to do, though, is to take something that's frequently desirable but inherently platform-specific -- opening a default browser -- and allow programmers (you, for example) to do so without worrying about dropping into native code or doing anything else similarly evil.

    Anyway, this code is completely in Java and will run on all JDK 1.1-compliant systems without modification or a need for additional libraries. All classes that are required on certain platforms to allow this to run are dynamically loaded at runtime via reflection and, if not found, will not cause this to do anything other than returning an error when opening the browser.

    This code is Copyright 1999-2001 by Eric Albert (ejalbert@cs.stanford.edu) and may be redistributed or modified in any form without restrictions as long as the portion of this comment from this paragraph through the end of the comment is not removed. The author requests that he be notified of any application, applet, or other binary that makes use of this code, but that's more out of curiosity than anything and is not required. This software includes no warranty. The author is not repsonsible for any loss of data or functionality or any adverse or unexpected effects of using this software.

    Credits:
    Steven Spencer, JavaWorld magazine (Java Tip 66)
    Thanks also to Ron B. Yeh, Eric Shapiro, Ben Engber, Paul Teitlebaum, Andrea Cantatore, Larry Barowski, Trevor Bedzek, Frank Miedrich, and Ron Rabakukk

    Version:
    1.4b1 (Released June 20, 2001)
    Author:
    Eric Albert (ejalbert@cs.stanford.edu)

    • Constructor Summary

      Constructors 
      Constructor Description
      BrowserLauncher()  

    • Method Summary

      All Methods Static Methods Instance Methods Concrete Methods 
      Modifier and Type Method Description
      static java.lang.String open​(java.lang.String url)
      Opens the specified URL in the default browser.
      static void openURL​(java.lang.String url)
      Attempts to open the default web browser to the given URL.
      void run​(java.lang.String theURL)
      Opens the specified URL (default is the ImageJ home page).

      • Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

        clone, equals, finalize, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, toString, wait, wait, wait

    • Constructor Detail

      • BrowserLauncher

        public BrowserLauncher()

    • Method Detail

      • run

        public void run​(java.lang.String theURL)
        Opens the specified URL (default is the ImageJ home page).
        Specified by:
        run in interface PlugIn

      • open

        public static java.lang.String open​(java.lang.String url)
        Opens the specified URL in the default browser. Returns a message if there is an error. Call from a macro using:
        call("ij.plugin.BrowserLauncher.open",url);

      • openURL

        public static void openURL​(java.lang.String url)
                    throws java.io.IOException
        Attempts to open the default web browser to the given URL.
        Parameters:
        url - The URL to open
        Throws:
        java.io.IOException - If the web browser could not be located or does not run