Lazarus equivalent of ShellExecute for windows and linux?
lazarus / 8-Other

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Anonymous · 2005-12-26 10:32

Hello,

I wish to open a file after it's created by my application in the
default application associated with it.
Under Delphi, I used to have for instance :
ShellExecute(Handle,'Open','C:\MyPage.htm',nil,nil,SW_SHOWDEFAULT);
I would like to find an equivalent of the previous line of code that
would allow me to open the *.html file in the default browser on both
linux and windows.
Can anyone provide me with a tip?
Thanks in advance

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Anonymous · 2005-12-26 13:22

PS : i read the post about TProcess
http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtop
ic&t=855&highlight=open+file
But I can't know the commandline in advance since I don't know which
browser will be used to display the file.

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Anonymous · 2005-12-26 13:27

Re: Lazarus equivalent of ShellExecute for windows and linux?

There is no WM-independent default-browser in Linux.

What you could do use:

Ask the user for a browser to choose the first time or use
somthing like the code below to try some well known browsers and use
the first that's found.


Code: [Select]Procedure Openurl(Url:String);
Var
    Browsers:Array[0..3] of String;
    Command, Extension, Returnval:String;
    i:integer;
Begin
    Browsers[0]:='kfmclient openURL';
    Browsers[1]:='mozilla';
    Browsers[2]:='netscape';
    Extension:=lowercase(ExtractFileExt(URL));
    if (Extension='.htm') Or (Extension='.html') then
      Begin
      For i:=0 to High(Browsers) do
        Begin
        If i=High(Browsers) then
          Begin
          If InputQuery('No browser found!',
          'Please enter command for starting your browser',
            Returnval) then
            Begin
              Command:=Returnval+' '''+URL+'''';
              Shell(Command)
            End;
          End
          Else
          Begin
            Command:=Browsers[i]+' '''+URL+'''';
            If Shell(Command) = 0 then break;
          End;
        End;
      End
      Else
      Begin
      //Same game here If you like....
        Command:='kedit '''+URL+'''';
        Shell(Command);
      End;
End;

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felipemdc · 2005-12-26 17:10

I think there is a way to do that, and I´ve seen applications do that.
They call konqueror on my machine, althought I use firefox for common
navigation. I´m not exactly sure how they do that.

You will need to research, but here are some possible places to
search:

* The Free Desktop Standards. http://www.freedesktop.org/
 if it is here, then it is not Windows manager specific

* The GNOME API

* The KDE API. I would bet there is something about it here, but is
KDE-only.

* Perhaps gtk has a function for this?

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Anonymous · 2005-12-26 21:43

Thanks a lot to both of you... I was wondering too since KDE and Gnome
declare somewhere a default browser where this is stocked. In the
meantime, the above code will do the trick.
Thanks again

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Reenen · 2008-08-02 21:20

Do we now (3years down the line) have a better way?

Did linux progress to have a default browser?

I would really like to get code to just open a URL for my help files
for my project.

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bonmario · 2008-08-03 05:35

I found some code one year ago and modified it. Now i have 2
functions.

With this, in case of Linux, i found the desktop manager (for now only
Gnome or Kde):

Code: [Select]  function  DeterminaDesktopManager:TipoDeskMang;
  begin
    Result:=dmBoh; //Desktop Manager sconosciuto
   
    if (GetEnvironmentVariable('GNOME_DESKTOP_SESSION_ID') <> '') or
       (GetEnvironmentVariable('DESKTOP_SESSION') = 'gnome') then
begin
      Result:=dmGnome;
    end else begin
      if (GetEnvironmentVariable('KDE_FULL_SESSION') <> '') or
         (GetEnvironmentVariable('DESKTOP_SESSION') = 'kde') then
begin
        Result:=dmKde;
      end;
    end;
  end;



And with this i open the file (it works also with HTML files):

Code: [Select]  function  ApriFile(WrkHandle:THandle; NomeFile:String;
ApplvForz:String = ''; ParmAggv:String = ''):Integer;
  var WrkProcess:TProcess;
      Comando, Parametri:String;
      VFWindows:Boolean;
      {$IFDEF LINUX}
        DesktopManager:TipoDeskMang;
        WrkApp:String;
      {$ENDIF}
  begin
    Result:=-1;

    if (not FileExists(NomeFile)) then begin
      EmettiErrore(7, NomeFile);
    end else begin
      if (NomeFile <> '') then begin
        //Determino qual'è il sistema operativo su cui sto lavorando
        {$IFDEF MSWINDOWS}
          VFWindows:=True;
        {$ELSE}
          VFWindows:=False;
        {$ENDIF}

        if VFWindows and (ApplvForz = '') then begin
          {$IFDEF MSWINDOWS}
            //Sto lavorando in WIndows e non mi è stato passato il
nome dell'eseguibile con cui devo
            //aprire il file: lancio l'apertura standard ...
            Result:=ShellExecute(WrkHandle, 'open',
PChar(MettiVirgolette(NomeFile)), '', nil, SW_SHOWNORMAL);
          {$ENDIF}
        end else begin
          //... se invece lavoro in Linux oppure mi viene passato il
nome dell'eseguibile, preparo
          //le variabili per lanciare il TProcess
         
          //Valorizzazione del comando da lanciare
          Comando:='';
          if (ApplvForz <> '') then begin
            Comando:=ApplvForz;
          end else begin
            {$IFDEF LINUX}
              DesktopManager:=DeterminaDesktopManager;
              if (DesktopManager <> dmBoh) then begin
                case DesktopManager of
                  dmGnome:begin
                    Comando:='gnome-open';
                  end;
                 
                  dmKde:begin
                    Comando:='kfmclient exec';
                  end;
                end;
              end;
            {$ENDIF}
          end;
         
          //Valorizzazione dei parametri del comando
          if (Comando = '') then begin
            EmettiErrore(0, 'Errore nella codifica del comando,
contattare il programmatore !!!');
            Halt;
          end else begin
            Parametri:=MettiVirgolette(NomeFile);
            if (ParmAggv <> '') then begin
              Parametri:=ParmAggv +
                         ' ' +
                         Parametri;
            end;
           
            //Adesso che è tutto pronto, posso creare e lanciare il
processo
            WrkProcess:=TProcess.Create(nil);
              WrkProcess.Options:=[poNoConsole];
              WrkProcess.CommandLine:=Comando +
                                      ' ' +
                                      Parametri;
              WrkProcess.Execute;
              Result:=WrkProcess.ExitStatus;
            WrkProcess.Free;
          end;
        end;
      end;
    end;
  end;


Hi, Mario

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Reenen · 2008-08-03 21:47

Sorry... How do I use it?

My vision is... to have when I click a button I do:

Code: [Select]
HelpFilePath := '.' + pathdelim + 'help' + pathdelim + 'main.htm';
ApriFile(HelpFilePath);  // (using your function name)


What do I need to change from your code to make that happen.

ApriFile(WrkHandle:THandle; NomeFile:String; ApplvForz:String = '';
ParmAggv:String = ''):Integer;

How do I know what the WrkHandle is...?  The next is obviously the
filename, and then the last stuff is optional, so I'm not too
concerned with that.