CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#.net-core
SkyeBoniwell
SkyeBoniwell

Reputation: 7092

Open a default browser window using c# and Process.Start

I am trying to open a web page using the default browser when someone hits an API endpoint.

I have this working on my local test machine:

    [HttpGet("Http/{classId}")]
    public void OpenWebLink(Guid classId)
    {
        string target = "http://astrolab.meeting.trl.edu/class/details.aspx?classId=" + classId;
        System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("C:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox\\firefox.exe", target);
    }

But when I publish to a server that has IIS, it can't find firefox.exe

The problem is, I had to put the full path to firefox just to get it to work on my machine. If I didn't include the path like that I'd get this error:

System.Diagnostics.Process.Start Win32Exception: 'The system cannot find the file specified.'

I also tried this:

    [HttpGet("Http")]
    public void OpenWebLink(Guid classId)
    {
        try
        {

            var ps = new ProcessStartInfo("http://astrolab.meeting.trl.edu/class/details.aspx?classId=" + classId;)
            {
                Verb = "open"
            };
        Process.Start(ps);
        }
        catch (Win32Exception w32Ex) 
        {
            throw w32Ex;
        }
    }

But it still fails when I hit the endpoint on the IIS server with this:

System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception (2): The system cannot find the file specified.

Is there a way to set it up so that it will find the default browser on any machine?

Thanks!

Upvotes: 3

Views: 3434

Answers (2)

adamency
adamency

Reputation: 1508

It's as if dotnet developers are unaware of other operating systems besides Windows...

@Blindy's answer only works on Windows, but nowhere did they indicate this. And even if @SkyeBoniwell's question mentions IIS which implies Windows, neither the title of the question, nor the body, nor the tags explicitly mention Windows. As such, keeping in mind stackoverflow answers are meant to be used by everyone and not only the OP of a question, a correct answer to this thread should theoretically be os-agnostic. In practice, it should take into account as many operating systems as possible, i.e. at the very least the main three ones.

Here is a solution that works for 99% of end-user systems:

    public static void OpenBrowser(string url)
    {
        if (RuntimeInformation.IsOSPlatform(OSPlatform.Windows))
        {
        Process.Start(new ProcessStartInfo(url) { UseShellExecute = true });
        }
        else if (RuntimeInformation.IsOSPlatform(OSPlatform.Linux))
        {
            Process.Start("xdg-open", url);
        }
        else if (RuntimeInformation.IsOSPlatform(OSPlatform.OSX))
        {
            Process.Start("open", url);
        }
        else
        {
            // throw 
        }
    }

taken from here

Upvotes: 4

Blindy
Blindy

Reputation: 67380

Either use ShellExecute to launch your url (the more correct way), or pipe it through explorer (the lazier, less portable way).

Process.Start(new()
{
    UseShellExecute = true,
    FileName = "http://google.ca",
});

Process.Start("explorer.exe", "http://google.ca");

Upvotes: 3

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