How do you open web pages in Java?

Question

Is there a simple way to open a web page within a GUI\'s JPanel?

If not, how do you open a web page with the computer\'s default web browser?

I am hoping for so

Answer 1

There are two standard ways that I know of:

1. The standard JEditorPane component

2. Desktop.getDesktop().browse(URI) to open the user's default browser (Java 6 or later)

   Soon, there will also be a third:

3. The JWebPane component, which apparently has not yet been released

JEditorPane is very bare-bones; it doesn't handle CSS or JavaScript, and you even have to handle hyperlinks yourself. But you can embed it into your application more seamlessly than launching FireFox would be.

Here's a sample of how to use hyperlinks (assuming your documents don't use frames):

// ... initialize myEditorPane
myEditorPane.setEditable(false); // to allow it to generate HyperlinkEvents
myEditorPane.addHyperlinkListener(new HyperlinkListener() {
    public void hyperlinkUpdate(HyperlinkEvent e) {
        if (e.getEventType() == HyperlinkEvent.EventType.ENTERED) {
            myEditorPane.setToolTipText(e.getDescription());
        } else if (e.getEventType() == HyperlinkEvent.EventType.EXITED) {
            myEditorPane.setToolTipText(null);
        } else if (e.getEventType() == HyperlinkEvent.EventType.ACTIVATED) {
            try {
                myEditorPane.setPage(e.getURL());
            } catch (IOException ex) {
                // handle error
                ex.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
    }
});