invoke-private-html-browser

Arguments: url-or-pathname &key box waiting-title

Displays a web page or file in a "private instance" of the user's default HTML browser. The first call to this function in a given Lisp (or standalone application) session will start up a new instance of the user's default browser (or a new window of a running instance of the default browser program). Successive calls will reuse that particular browser window as long as it is still open. (If it has been closed, then a new one is created again.)

Unlike invoke-html-browser, this function will never use a browser window that was not created by Lisp. This avoids covering unrelated browser content to which the user may want to return.

This function will work with either Internet Explorer, the older Netscape (version 4.x or earlier), the newer Netscape (6.x or later), or Mozilla. If some other program is registered as the user's default HTML browser, then this function should still work but will start up a new instance of the browser on each call, which will likely be slow and accumulate lots of browser windows with multiple calls.

If this function believes that it successfully displayed the requested page, then true is returned, and otherwise nil is returned.

This function always works by sending keystrokes to the browser program to emulate pasting in the URL or filename. Therefore, the url-or-pathname argument may be anything that works when typed into either the browser's URL widget or its URL or file dialog. A complete URL (such as "http://www.franz.com/support/documentation/") or complete path namestring (such as "c:/windows/temp.txt") is recommended.

The box argument may be either nil or a box object (see make-box) that specifies the area on the screen that the browser window should occupy on this call. If nil, then either a new browser is created at its default position and size, or a running browser is used where it is already. If a box, then the browser window is resized and positioned at the requested box; the box should be in screen coordinates and is measured in pixels.

The waiting-title keyword argument may be either nil (the default) or a string to display in the title-bar of the browser window until it has finished displaying the requested page.

The related function invoke-html-browser may be somewhat faster when there is an existing Internet Explorer or Netscape 4.x (or earlier) running, since these browsers implement a DDE interface that invoke-html-browser uses. But the DDE interface does not allow selecting a particular instance of the browser, and so it is not predictable which instance will be used when multiple instances are running.

It is possible that this function will not work with a future version of one of the supported browsers if the the keystrokes that invoke a URL or filename change. In this situation, we will likely be able to make a patch to handle that situation.

Copyright (c) 1998-2002, Franz Inc. Oakland, CA., USA. All rights reserved.
Documentation for Allegro CL version 6.2. This page is new in the 6.2 release.
Created 2002.2.26.