===== Opening An External WWW Browser =====

==== The Basics ====
It is pretty easy to start a WWW browser from a Java application. The %%Desktop%% class in the %%java.awt%% package has a static method named %%getDesktop()%% that returns a %%Desktop%% object that can be used for this purpose.  You just needs to construct a %%URI%% object (from the %%java.net%% package) and pass it to the %%Desktop%%  object's %%browse()%% method. For example:

<code>
Desktop desktop = Desktop.getDesktop();
URI     uri     = new URI("http://www.jmu.edu/");

desktop.browse(uri);
</code>

To read from the local file system you can use the %%file%% protocol rather than the %%http%% protocol.

==== Converting URIs and URLs ====

%%URI%% objects and %%URL%% objects are closely related (and the distinction exists mostly for historical reasons). The %%URI%% class has a %%toURL()%% method that constructs a %%URL%% from a %%URI%%. Similarly, the %%URL%% class has    a %%toURI()%% method that constructs a %%URI%%  from a %%URL%%.