NAME

WWWBrowser - platform independent means to start a WWW browser

SYNOPSIS

    use WWWBrowser;
    WWWBrowser::start_browser($url, -oldwindow => 1);

DESCRIPTION

start_browser($url [, %args])

Start a web browser with the specified URL. The process is started in background.

The following optional parameters are recognized:

-oldwindow => $bool: Normally, the URL is loaded into a new window, if possible. With "-oldwindow" set to a false window, "WWWBrowser" will try to re-use a browser window.
-browser => $browser: Use (preferebly) the named browser $browser. See "CONFIGURATION" for a some browser specialities. This option will only work for unix.

CONFIGURATION

For unix, the global variable @WWWBrowser::unix_browsers can be set to a list of preferred web browsers. The following browsers are handled specially:

lynx, w3m: Text oriented browsers, which are opened in an "xterm", "kvt" or "gnome-terminal" (if running under X11). If not running under X11, then no background process is started.
kfmclient: Use "openURL" method of kfm.
netscape: Use "-remote" option to re-use a running netscape process, if possible.
_default_gnome: Look into the "~/.gnome/Gnome" configuration file for the right browser.
_default_kde: NYI.

The following variables can be defined globally in the main package:

$os: Short name of operating system ("win", "mac" or "unix").
&status_messages: Error handling function (instead of default "warn").

REQUIREMENTS

For Windows, the Win32Util module should be installed in the path.

AUTHOR

Slaven Rezic <slaven@rezic.de>