How to detect the current open webbrowser and open new page in that same browser using Python?

Question

I am making a website where I am using some html forms, which passes the values to a python script and in return the python script opens a new page/tab in the web browser. I am using the webbrowser module for it.

Although I can choose the default browser or any other browser using "webbrowser.get([name])"; but my concern is, as this will be a public webpage, so anyone can open the page in any browser of their choice.

The problem I am facing is : Lets say my default browser is "firefox", and I open the page in "chrome", so when the python script opens the new page it opens that in "firefox" instead of "chrome".

Here are my questions :

How do I detect the current web browser the user is using?
How to open the new page in that browser?

The code looks like this :
#!C:\Python27\python.exe -u
# -- coding: UTF-8 --
import MySQLdb
import sys
import cgi
import re
import cgitb
import webbrowser
cgitb.enable()

print "Content-Type: text/plain;charset=utf-8"
print
try:
db = MySQLdb.connect(host = "localhost", user = "root", passwd = "", db = "pymysql")
except MySQLdb.Error, e:
print "Error %d: %s" % (e.args[0], e.args[1])
sys.exit()

----- Do some analysis with the database ---- ----- Create some kml files ----
#Use the kml files to display points in the map.
#Open the page where openlayers is present
webbrowser.open_new_tab('http://localhost/simulator.html')

*Why* are you using `webbrowser` on a website? `webbrowser` is a *client* module. — Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams, Mar 03 '12 at 06:17
What I am doing is, get some information from the forms, use them to process the data using Python script, and after the processing is finished a new page is opened to show the results. To do that is there any other way in python without using the webbrowser module? — Darkpain, Mar 03 '12 at 06:23
The python script runs in server side only. After it finishes it opens the results in a webpage. — Darkpain, Mar 03 '12 at 06:26
I'm done here. I can talk, but if you're not listening then... yeah. — Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams, Mar 03 '12 at 06:28
Darkpain. What you are trying to do is impossible. Please realize that. — jdi, Mar 03 '12 at 07:21

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 03 '12 at 07:30

The only reason that you are probably convinced that this is a working approach is most likely because you are running the server on your local machine. The python code you are executing is server-side so it has no control over the client. The client would normally be on a remote machine. In your case since your client is also on the server, you get the effect of seeing your python script open a browser tab with the webbrowser module.

This is impossible in a standard client server web situation. The client will be remote and your server side code cannot control their machine. You may only serve back http requests which will simply be something their browser receives and renders. If you want to open tabs it will need to be a javascript solution on the client side.

A more realistic solution would be to have your server serve back proper client side code. If the form is submitted via ajax then your response could contain javaacript that would open a new page.

Thanks a lot for pointing out what the problem was. Yes I was trying out in my own system only. Now when I tried to access from remote system its not working. I will explore other ways as you have mentioned. — Darkpain, Mar 03 '12 at 07:55

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:29

0

Your python code will run on a server. The person who visits your website will only recieve html pages. See this about opening new tabs. But please read more about how websites work. The webbrowser module is used for client side applications and not for websites.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:29

Community

1
1

answered Mar 03 '12 at 06:44

vikki

2,766
1
20
26

How to detect the current open webbrowser and open new page in that same browser using Python?

2 Answers2