Swing Hacks

410

|

Chapter 11, Native Integration and Packaging

#79 Launch External Programs on Windows

HACK

Open a URL

You can open a web browser the same way as a text file because Windows

associates all URLs, specifically ones that begin with http, with a default web

browser. If you call

start

on a URL then the browser will open, as seen in

Example 11-2.

You can also use the browser support to open up a new email message.

Since

mailto: is a URL protocol, usually mapped to the user’s default email

program, if you open up a

mailto: URL, Windows will open a new message

ready to send (see Example 11-3).

The previous code will open up a new email message addressed to

[e-mail]. The return address will be filled in automatically with

the user’s own address. You can remove the address ([e-mail])

to open a new blank email.

By default,

cmd.exe will open a requested file using the standard viewer for

that file’s type. For example,

cmd.exe /c start music.mp3 will open the song

file using the default program, possibly the Windows Media Player or

iTunes. If you would rather open the file with a particular program that you

specify, then you can simply add the program name before the file.

Example 11-2. Opening a URL in the default web browser on Windows

import java.io.IOException;

public class ExecTest {

public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

String cmd = "cmd.exe /c start ";

String file = "http://www.google.com"; ...