Launching URL in Windows from OSX from commandline

In Mac Os X at the the terminal you can type something like this to launch a url in the none-default browser:

open -a Firefox.app http://www.foo.com

I want to be able to launch a url like that in Internet Explorer in paralells from my osx command line but I can't seem to get that working. I can launch the browser but it does not seem to accept the url.

How can I get this working?

 

Found this with Google: http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Command_Line_Options#-url_URL

 

Thanks for trying to help out. Unfortunately no joy. Does not work.

I am beginning to think this is a shortcoming of Paralells. Do the Paralells devs ever read stuff here?

 

Hello,

I personally have not tried to launch URL in Windows from OS X.
Colicoid did you try to use open command in Mac OS X Terminal?
Have you configured SmartSelect to open IE from Mac?

Best regards,
Xenos

 

Yes I am trying to use the open command from the osx terminal window.
Smartselect is configured and working as intended. But I need to launch a url in internet explorer from a script somehow. Thats why I turned to the open command but either paralells or the open command is not playing along.

 

Colicoid, I'm asking our developers. Will let you know as soon as they give feedback.

Best regards,
Xenos

 

Excellent, thank you.

 

Hello Colicoid,

Here is the only way you can open URL in Windows from OSX:

1. Create a plain-text file like the one attached to this post
(To see the file, please save it to your computer, rename - delete .zip; I could not attach it in the matching format)

2. Run in Terminal:

<the path to your VM folder>/Windows\ Applications/Internet\ Explorer.app/MyURL

<the path to your VM folder>/Windows\ Applications/Internet\ Explorer.app/ - is the way to Internet Explorer.app in Mac.

MyURL is the file name. The URL you wish to launch is in the file.

Best regards,
Xenos

 

Thanx a lot Xenos. I am having problems with the file you attached though.
I unzip it and get a new file called MyURL.zip.cpgz and when I unzip that I get a new zip file and then it goes on like that forever.
Anyway there is something wrong with it. Could you please repost, of even better, send it to me directly: [email protected]

 

Never mind, missed the part where it said "rename the file". Gonna go try this now.

 

Hi Xenos,

I couldn't get your tip to work:

Since MyURL isn't an excutable file, I don't see how this could work.

* Can you explain again what we're supposed to do?
* Once I get this working, I actually want to run Firefox on windows with a URL. Can this trick be applied there?
* When will WinAppHelper support passing command line arguments to Windows apps?

thanks,
--Will

 

Xenos I cannot get it to work as well. I get IE to launch but it ignores the argument.

Hamstersoup: there should be a space between Explorer.app/ MyURL
The MyURL is supposed to be an argument to IE. Although as I said, I couldnt get it to work either.

Xenos; could you please elaborate as to how this magic textfile is suppose to work.

 

Hello,

Did you manage to create your own plain-text file?
The attached file contents:

[DEFAULT]
BASEURL=http://start.icq.com/

Put the URL you wish to launch instead of http://start.icq.com/.

Best regards,
Xenos

 

Just a "heads up"... this still doesn't work, even after changing the location inside the plain-text file. All this does is bring up the Internet Explorer program to whatever homepage you set (or www.msn.com by default).

I haven't tried it yet, but what if you used an .html file programed to redirect to a webpage? If you open the .html file with IE, it would automatically redirect to the page you wanted, right?

I'll give this a shot... everything else hasn't worked.

 

Xenos, I too have been unable to get it to work. Please double check your solution.

Lepard03, let me know if you come up with anything useful.

 

Hi,

There is the step-by-step instruction how to open URL:

1. Create URL file.

a) Open TextEdit application.
b) Place

[DEFAULT]
BASEURL=http://start.icq.com/

in a new file.

c) Open Format menu and select "Make Plain Text" menu item.
d) Save the file to the Desktop as "MyURL" for example (without any extension).

2) Find your VM application what will be used to opening your URL. It is typically resides in the ~/Documants/Parallels folder.

3) Find the "Internet Explorer.app" in the /Windows Applications folder of your VM.

4) Open Terminal application what resides in the /Applications/Utilities folder.

5) Type "open " (whit a space character) in the terminal window.

6) Drop the "Internet Explorer.app" to the Terminal window.

7) Type the space character " " in the Terminal window.

8) Drop the "MyURL" file to the Terminal window.

9) Press Enter. Vuala!

In my case the string looks like this:

open /Users/Shared/Parallels/WinXP\ Professional\ SP2/Windows\ Applications/Internet\ Explorer.app/ /Users/alexg/Desktop/MyURL

Best regards,
Alexander