[Tutor] How to open IE7 to a certain URL?

[Chris Fuller]

On Friday 29 February 2008 06:28, Dick Moores wrote:
> I keep missing a certain weekly program on my local NPR station. My
> idea is to record it using software I have, Easy Hi-Q Recorder. I can
> set it to start recording when the program starts, 8pm, but I need to
> have the program playing on my computer. The URL for the station's
> audio is http://www.kuow.org/real.ram .
>
> I've got this so far:
>
> #!/usr/bin/env python
> #coding=utf-8
> import time
> b = '20:00:00'
> while True:
>      a = time.strftime('%H:%M:%S')
>      time.sleep(0.5)
>      if a == b:
>          print "TIME!"
>          break
>
> Obviously, I need to replace the  'print "TIME"'  line with something
> that will open IE7 to http://www.kuow.org/real.ram . But what?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Dick Moores
>
> _______________________________________________
> Tutor maillist  -  Tutor at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor


You might consider passing the URL directly to the audio player.  This is 
usually all the web browser does for you, although its possible there's a 
different URL defined on that page each time, but then you could parse the 
page in python using urllib and re, or something similar.  Not only that, 
launching IE7 is a time and memory consuming activity, and definitely lacks 
grace.

I dunno how your media player works, but this did the job for me (from the 
command prompt):

"c:\Program Files\Real Alternative\Media Player Classic\mplayerc.exe" 
http://www.kuow.org/real.ram

You could put this directly into your windows scheduler, and not use python at 
all.  Start Menu>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Scheduled Tasks
You'll get an option to set the command line at the end of teh wizard, if you 
check "show advanced options"

You could have a python process running in the background that executed this 
command through the subprocess module, at the appointed time.  You could even 
use something like FireDaemon to turn it into a service.  But, it seems 
better to use the windows scheduler.

Cheers