PyMOTW: webbrowser

Use the webbrowser module to display web pages to your users.

Module: webbrowser
Purpose: Open web pages in a browser.
Python Version: 2.1.3 and later

Description:

The webbrowser module includes functions to open URLs in interactive browser applications. The module includes a registry of available browsers, in case multiple options are available on the system. It can also be controlled with the BROWSER environment variable.

Simple Example:

To open a page in the browser, use the open() function.

import webbrowser

webbrowser.open('http://docs.python.org/lib/module-webbrowser.html')

The URL is opened in a window and that window is raised to the top of the window stack. The docs say that an existing window will be reused, if possible. On my Mac, with Firefox, a new window was always created. YMMV.

Windows vs. Tabs:

If you always want a new window used, use open_new().

import webbrowser

webbrowser.open_new('http://docs.python.org/lib/module-webbrowser.html')

If you would rather create a new tab, use open_new_tab() instead.

Using a specific browser:

If for some reason your application needs to use a specific browser, you can access the set of registered browser controllers using the get() function. The browser controller has methods to open(), open_new(), and open_new_tab(). This example forces the use of the lynx browser:

import webbrowser

b = webbrowser.get('lynx')
b.open('http://docs.python.org/lib/module-webbrowser.html')

Refer to the module documentation for a list of available browser types.

BROWSER variable:

Users can control the module from outside your application by setting the BROWSER environment variable to a sequence of browser names or commands. The value should consist of a series of browser names separated by os.pathsep. If the name includes %s, the name is interpreted as a literal command and executed directly with the %s replaced by the URL. Otherwise, the name is passed to get() to obtain a controller object from the registry.

For example, this command opens the web page in lynx, assuming it is available, no matter what other browsers are registered.

$ BROWSER=lynx python webbrowser_open.py 

If none of the names in BROWSER work, webbrowser falls back to its default behavior.

Command Line Interface:

All of the features of the webbrowser module are available via the command line as well as from within your Python program.

$ python -m webbrowser   
Usage: /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/webbrowser.py [-n | -t] url
    -n: open new window
    -t: open new tab

References:

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