Is it possible to set an execution goal for maven so that the default browser is opened in a given url?
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Is it possible to set an execution goal for maven so that the default browser is opened in a given url?
In my experience, Maven doesn’t have the notion of a default system browser, nor does Java. There’s some information here if you’re looking to do this on Windows:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/msg/bd52c25dad8c1589
That solution also says that this is a platform specific detail.
My advice would be to write your own Maven plugin (surprisingly easy to do) and just set an execution for it under the part of the lifecycle you desire. If you could give me more details of the context under which you want to open a URL, I could help you with that. In my experience, any execution you define for Maven for a phase will happen after that phase. So, setting something for the deploy phase will cause your plugin to run immediately after the artifact is uploaded.
As far as actually opening the browser is concerned, I would recommend using Selenium 2 to accomplish that:
http://code.google.com/p/selenium/wiki/GettingStarted
The nice thing about Selenium 2/WebDriver (they’re in the same API) is that it takes care of the logistics of finding default installations of things like Firefox and Chrome, and knows how to interact with that browser and open a URL. You could opt for a platform inspecific default (Firefox would be a good candidate), and if you have an exception opening it, launch Internet Explorer instead (there’s no longer current Safari support in Selenium 2 however).
Combining those two things, Selenium 2 inside of a Maven plugin, should accomplish your goal quite well 🙂