Question
I have an application written in Java. It is designed to run on a Linux box standalone. I am trying to spawn a new firefox windo
Use BrowserLauncher.
Invoking it is very easy, just go
new BrowserLauncher().openURLinBrowser("http://www.google.com");
after having read the various answers and various comments(from questioner), here's what I would do
1) try this java approach http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/java/lang/ProcessBuilder.html
ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder("myCommand", "myArg1", "myArg2");
Map<String, String> env = pb.environment();
env.put("VAR1", "myValue");
env.remove("OTHERVAR");
env.put("VAR2", env.get("VAR1") + "suffix");
pb.directory("myDir");
Process p = pb.start();
see more about this class:
http://java.sun.com/developer/JDCTechTips/2005/tt0727.html#2
http://www.javabeat.net/tips/8-using-the-new-process-builder-class.html
2) try doing this(launching firefox) from C/C++/ruby/python and see if that is succeeding.
3) if all else fails, I would launch a shell program and that shell program would launch firefox!!
You might have better luck if you read and display the standard output/error streams, so you can catch any error message firefox may print.
If you can narrow it down to Java 6, you can use the desktop API:
http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/J2SE/Desktop/javase6/desktop_api/
Should look something like:
if (Desktop.isDesktopSupported()) {
Desktop desktop = Desktop.getDesktop();
if (desktop.isSupported(Desktop.Action.BROWSE)) {
try {
desktop.browse(new URI("http://localhost"));
}
catch(IOException ioe) {
ioe.printStackTrace();
}
catch(URISyntaxException use) {
use.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
try {
String url = "http://www.google.com";
java.awt.Desktop.getDesktop().browse(java.net.URI.create(url));
} catch (java.io.IOException e) {
System.out.println(e.getMessage());
}