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>

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (c) 1999,2000,2001,2003 Slaven Rezic. All rights reserved.  This module is free
       software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

SEE ALSO

       Win32Util.