HOw to open links in my browser

Question

 Hi I have a default browser which I made, now i want it to launch when a user clicks a link in Messingers or anywhere. In IE it autoopens the Iexplore.exe WITH the url as the page. I want to do the same with my browser and so far I came to the point when it can read arguments but my problem is that the argument it reads is -nohome and Thats it..heres my code I use .. please help if theres other ways.

-----myarguments.vb
Namespace My

Class MyApplication

Public FileToOpen As String

#If _MyType = "WindowsForms" Then

Private Sub MyApplication_Startup(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As ApplicationServices.StartupEventArgs) Handles Me.Startup

Try

Form1.FileToOpen = e.CommandLine(0)

Catch ex As Exception

End Try

End Sub

<Global.System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThrough()> _

Protected Overrides Function OnInitialize(ByVal commandLineArgs As System.Collections.ObjectModel.ReadOnlyCollection(Of String)) As Boolean

Return MyBase.OnInitialize(commandLineArgs)

End Function

#End If

End Class

End Namespace


----Form1

Public Class Form1

    Public FileToOpen As String

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

webbrowser1.url = new uri(filetoOpen)

end sub
end class

Answer 1

 Your statement of

Form1.FileToOpen = e.CommandLine(0)

Is only reading in 1 of your command line params, the first one in the list.

You can use a for each loop to go through each of the command line params (parsed at spaces) so if you had

myapp.exe someparam  someotherparam www.somesite.com

You could also choose to do name/value pairs like -url:www.somesite.com or url=www.somesite.com, but the parsing is still done on spaces, so if you do that, you will have to do some of your own string parsing as well.

Private Sub MyApplication_Startup(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As Microsoft.VisualBasic.ApplicationServices.StartupEventArgs) Handles Me.Startup

For Each s As String In e.CommandLine

'S HERE IS THE CURRENT COMMAND LINE PARAM

'first value "someparam"

'second value "someotherparam"

'third value "www.somesite.com"

Next

End Sub

Also keep in mind that if someone else is using your app, the order or presence of command line params can be totally different each time.

---

Matt Kleinwaks - MSMVP MSDN Forums Moderator - www.zerosandtheone.com

Answer 2

I would do as Kleinma says and examine ALL of the command arguments.

I recognize -nohome as meaning "start without the homepage" so it looks like you are getting the default IE commands sent to your application.

For your reference, here is a technet article with the list of switches and arguments that you'll want to handle:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/reskit/ierk/Ch17_h.mspx?mfr=true

---

Reed Kimble - "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all"