When using ShellExecute (as explained in the above article) to open a web site or a htm file with the default web browser you *don't* have the option to specify that you want to start a new instance of the browser - in general an existing window is used.
To make sure a new window is created we need to call the ShellExecute function a little differently - by specifying the URL as a parameter to a call to your default browser (an application associated with the htm and html, etc extension).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
uses
Registry, ShellAPI;
function BrowseURL(const URL: string) : boolean;
var
Browser: string;
begin
Result := True;
Browser := '';
with TRegistry.Create do
try
RootKey := HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT;
Access := KEY_QUERY_VALUE;
if OpenKey('\htmlfile\shell\open\command', False) then
Browser := ReadString('') ;
CloseKey;
finally
Free;
end;
if Browser = '' then
begin
Result := False;
Exit;
end;
Browser := Copy(Browser, Pos('"', Browser) + 1, Length(Browser)) ;
Browser := Copy(Browser, 1, Pos('"', Browser) - 1) ;
ShellExecute(0, 'open', PChar(Browser), PChar(URL), nil, SW_SHOW) ;
end;
//Usage
BrowseURL('http:delphi.about.com') ;
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here's a more general code to find the associated application for a file extension.
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