python applets?

[Russell E. Owen]

In article <JdKdnawu_4bL1SPdRVn-jg at comcast.com>,
 Doug Holton <insert at spam.here> wrote:

>Andreas Røsdal wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> Is there such a thing as python applets for web browsers? (eg. such as
>> java applets?) I think that could be useful.
>
>No, there was a web browser project called Grail that allowed python 
>applets, but it is was abandoned.
>I think the main issue is security.  Right now there is no official way 
>to restrict what a python program can and cannot do, such as delete a 
>file on the hard drive.
>
>One thing you can do in Python that you cannot in Java however is embed 
>a user's web browser (such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla) in your 
>Python program.  In some cases that is more desirable.

How do you do that?

I've been using the webbrowser module to open help files for my python 
application, but it has several problems. If the user already has their 
browser open in another "desktop" (unix users seem fond of switching 
between lots of desktops), then the help opens there instead of the 
"desktop" that has the current app. Also, I really need to call 
webbrowser in a thread, because it takes forever if the web browser 
isn't already open. (Also, it's not safe to ask for file://...#anchor 
urls; some OSs handle it, others do not. I ended up writing code that 
retries without the anchor.)

-- Russell