>>>Dear All,
>>>
>>>Probably aiming at the impossible, but does anyone know how to open an URL in the default browser, through ShellExecute or other shell method, in a way that will launch the browser in a named window? That is, the functional equivalent of the target attribute of the HTML anchor element? It may be browser-specific (most probably, it has to be), but must be runnable from the command line.
>>>
>>>Thanks in advance (that will cover a no-can-do seal, also, of course!).
>>
>>I think that I understand now
why what I was looking for is not only impossible, but also undesirable.
>>
>>A named window is not shared between different unrelated pages. If a page could access the name of windows that a browser is holding for its different script environments, or the windows, themselves, then they could be referenced or even hijacked by a malicious script.
>>
>>While trying to put this together, I wrote a small proxy program to load a page in a specific named window. It goes like this (it's not my first version, that was more obvious, but it's functionally equivalent):
>>
>>
>><html>
>><head/>
>><body>
>><script type="text/javascript">
>>var target = window.open("", "targetWindow");
>>
>>if (target){
>>
>> target.location.href = window.location.search.substr(1);
>> window.close();
>>
>>} else alert("Could not retrieve the targeted URL");
>>
>></script>
>></body>
>></html>
>>>>
>>It can be ran from
http://www.aftlopes.com/proxy.html, by giving an URL as its query string.
>>
>>Now, if you run the proxy in a browser, for instance,
http://www.aftlopes.com/proxy.html?http://vfpx.codeplex.com, it will open the target URL (provided you gave it the permission to open windows) in a new window/tab named targetWindow. If you refresh the proxy, the target URL is reloaded as well, in the same window that was used in the first run.
>>
>>But, if you open a new tab and launch the proxy again, the same
http://www.aftlopes.com/proxy.html?http://vfpx.codeplex.com, it will run in a new script environment, with a new and different "targetWindow" of its own.
>>
>>And that what's happens with ShellExecute: the browser is launched and instantiates a new script environment, that can not reference the objects of other running environments.
>>
>>I wish I could be wrong about all this, of course, and would look forward to be corrected...
>
>But what if you didn't launch the browser via shellexecute but had an object reference to it, then it wouldn't be new environment every time, eh?
I believe that going through an object instance would provide a proper environment, but then no way to use the default browser...
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António Tavares Lopes
