[Pythonmac-SIG] workaround for webbrowser bug
Russell E Owen
owen@astro.washington.edu
Fri, 20 Dec 2002 08:38:54 -0800
I earlier reported the bug that the webbrowser module cannot reliably
be used to open html files on the local computer (file:// links) in a
browser. The files's creator is used to open the file (instead of the
user's default web browser) and anchors are ignored.
I've since learned a few useful things:
- This is a known bug in MacOS X. That doesn't mean they'll fix it,
but at least it has a tracking number.
- The problem of opening the file with the wrong application is easy
to work around: simply delete the file creator and type (using XRay
or any such program). Then the default web browser is used to open
the file. If you're used to double-clicking the file to edit it, this
is a bit of a pain, but it's much better than nothing.
To work around the anchor problem, I ended up using fairly small html
files. Thus on the Mac version of my application help doesn't work
quite as well as it might, but it still is reasonable.
-- Russell