webbrowser module reveals a Netscape bug.

[Gary Herron]

I'm writing an application which needs to open a web browser on any
platform, so I used the webbrowser module, and it fails to work on my
first system test because of an apparent bug in netscape.  I've not
seen any mention of this problem, but I'm hoping someone has a
workaround.

Here's the details:

Python 2.1
Netscape Communicator 4.75
Linux (Red Hat 7.0)

The webbrowser module ultimately calls the binary
  /usr/lib/netscape/netscape-communicator
with a command line similar to:
  /usr/lib/netscape/netscape-communicator -raise -remote "openURL(...)"

This command or any other with the -remote flag results in the error:

 netscape-communicator: root window has no children on display :0.0 

even though the binary claims (via netscape-communicator -help) that
this is the proper use of the -remote flag.

Has anyone seen this before?  More importantly, does anyone know of a
workaround?


Dr. Gary Herron
gherron at islandtraining.com

Island Training Solutions, Inc.
http://www.islandtraining.com